Eternity
o you know what a wonderfully
com-
plicated thing a human being is?
Every feature, every portion of your
body, every motion you make
reflects your mental organization.
I know a woman past middle
life who has always been on the opposite side of
every question discussed in her presence.
She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential
with atheists, liberal with the narrow, bigoted
with the liberal.
Whatever belief any one expressed on any
subject, she invariable took the other extreme.
She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It
was her pastime.
Now, to walk with that woman in silence is
merely to carry on a wordless argument.
You cannot regulate your steps so they will
harmonize with hers. She will be just ahead
or just behind you, and if you want to turn to
the left, she pulls to the right. A promenade
with her is more exhausting than a day's labor.
She is not conscious of it, and would think
anyone very unreasonable and unjust who told
her of her peculiarities.
I know a woman who all her life has been
looking afar for happiness and peace and content,
and has never found any of them, because she did
not look in her own soul.
She was a restless girl, and she married, believ-
ing in domestic life lay the goal of her dreams.
But she was not happy there, and sighed for
freedom. She wanted to move, and did move,
once, twice, thrice, to different points of the
United States. She was discontented with each
change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts
and luxuries which life can afford, yet she is the
same restless soul. She likes to read, but it is
always the book which she does not possess which
she craves. If she is in the library with shelves
book-filled, she goes into the garret and hunts in
old boxes for a book or a paper which has been
cast aside.
If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go
to the window and look out on the street, but
when she is on the street it bores her, and she
longs to go in the house.
If a member of the family is absent, she gets
no enjoyment out of the society of those at home;
yet when that absent one returns her mind strays
elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not
found here.
I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the
spirit realm, or if they go on there seeking and
always seeking something just beyond. It is a
great gift to learn to enjoy the present--to get
all there is out of it, and to think of to-day as a
piece of eternity. Begin now to teach yourself
this great art if you have not thought of it
before. To be able to enjoy heaven, one must
learn first to enjoy earth.
The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Chicago : The Psychic Research Company, c1902.
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