Missing

Oh, who can measure the lonely nights or the long and dreary days,

The weary wait, and the hope deferred that the sight of that word conveys,

How eager you read each printed page, and list for Postie’s ring,

For something to ease the aching heart, in tidings that he may bring.

Perhaps he is lying too ill to write, or letters have gone astray,

There are so many things can happen now; your reason from day to day.

What words can comfort the lonely heart as the days and weeks go by,

And life is dark with a nameless dread and courage and hope must die.

Oh the lonely ones who sit and wait for the tidings that never come,

Though the tearful eyes the sorrows speak, yet the trembling lips are dumb.

And each one must their burden bear while the river of life doth flow,

But the aching void in a broken heart there’s no one but God can know.

Beth

The Care of Gloves

Gloves tend to become more and more expensive, and a few suggestions as to how various kinds may be renovated at home may prove helpful.

White Kid Gloves—Have ready a little new milk in one saucer and a piece of brown soup in another, and a clean cloth or towel folded three or four times.  On the cloth spread out the clove smooth and neat.  Take a piece of flannel; dip it in the milk, then rub off a good quantity of soap to the wetted flannel, and commence to rub the glove downwards towards the fingers, holding it firmly with the left hand.  Continue this process until the white glove looks of a dingy yellow color.  Lay it aside to dry.  Old gloves cleaned in this way will soon look nearly new—soft, glossy, smooth, well shaped, and elastic.  They must be well pulled out when they are dry.

Yellow or Tan Kid Gloves—Get some pure benzine from a chemist.  Put the gloves on stretchers or on [unclear], and rub them with a [unclear] sponge or flannel saturated with benzine.  Hang in the air [unclear] if you have no stretchers [unclear] piece of wood or roll of  [unclear] each finger and thumb to keep these in shape.  Remember that benzine is highly inflammable.

Undressed Kid Gloves—Draw the gloves on your hands and freely rub them with stale bread crumbs and any very dirty part treat with pure benzoline.  Black gloves which have grown white at the seams and fingertips may be lightly brushed with the tip of a feather dipped in a teaspoonful of salad oil in which a few drops of black ink have been dissolved.

Light colored suedes may be washed and dried on the hands or on a pair of glove forms, using white soap boiled in milk as a suds, and rubbing them with flannel, then with warm water, and finally with a dry flannel.

The Power of Thought

I hold it true that thoughts are things endowed with bodies, breath and wings,

And that we send them forth to fill the world with good results—or ill.

That which we call our secret thought speed to the earth’s remotest spot,

And leaves its blessings or its woes like tracks behind it as it goes,

It is God’s law.  Remember it in your still chamber as you sit

With thoughts you would not dare have known, and yet make comrades when alone,

These thoughts have life; and they will fly and leave their impress by and by,

Like some marsh breeze, whose poisoned breath breathes into homes its fevered death.

And, after you have quite forgot or all outgrown some vanished thought,

Back to your mind to make its home, a dove or raven it will come

Then let your secret thoughts be fair; they have a vital part and share

In shaping worlds and moulding fate—God’s system is so intricate.

-       Ella Wheeler Wilcox[1]

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[1] Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in rural Johnstown, Wisconsin, the youngest of four children. The family soon moved to north of Madison. She started writing poetry at an early age, and was well known as a poet in her own state by the time she graduated from high school. When about 28 years of age, she married Robert Wilcox. They had one child, a son, who died shortly after birth. Not long after their marriage, they both became interested in Theosophy. Early in their married life, the couple promised each other that whoever went first through death would return and communicate with the other. Robert Wilcox died in 1916, after over thirty years of marriage. She was overcome with grief, which became ever more intense as week after week went without any message from him. She went to California to see Max Heindel, confused and seeking help in her sorrow. She describes the meeting:

In talking with Max Heindel, the leader of the Rosicrucian Philosophy in California, he made very clear to me the effect of intense grief. Mr. Heindel assured me that I would come in touch with the spirit of my husband when I learned to control my sorrow. I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its conviction when most needed. Did you ever stand beside a clear pool of water, asked Mr. Heindel, and see the trees and skies repeated therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm. So God and your husband’s spirit wait to show themselves to you when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted.

Several months later, she composed a little mantra which she said over and over: I am the living witness: The dead live: And they speak through us and to us: And I am the voice that gives this glorious truth to the suffering world: I am ready, God: I am ready, Christ: I am ready, Robert. Wilcox made efforts to teach occult things to the world during World War I years:

As we think, act, and live here today, we built the structures of our homes in spirit realms after we leave earth, and we build karma for future lives, thousands of years to come, on this earth or other planets. Life will assume new dignity, and labor new interest for us, when we come to the knowledge that death is but a continuation of life and labor, in higher planes.

Such views were received for the most part with scorn and disbelief by the public.

A popular rather than a literary poet, her poems express sentiments of cheer and optimism in plainly written, rhyming verse. Her world view is expressed in the title of her poem Whatever Is—Is Best.  (Source: Wikipedia)

A Health Program

Dr. C. Ward Crampton,[1] director of physical training for New York schools, has arranged a hygiene program for children which if adopted would surely promote health and bodily efficiency in the schools.

Little of the work is under the direct control of teachers, but his teaching and advice in the matter will nevertheless be of much value.  Following is the programme:

1. Rise promptly.
2. Take breathing and setting-up exercises appropriate to the grade.
3. Wash (warm water and soap) hands, (hand brush) face, neck and chest.  Clean finger nails
4. Clean the teeth.  Brush the gums and the whole mouth and rinse the mouth.  Drink a glass of water.
5. Dress with inspection of clothes as to cleanliness.
6. Eat slowly at breakfast and chew well.
7. Prepare for school.  Books and clothes clean and in order.
8. Observe regulations as to entering school.
9. Care for outer clothing.  Attend to order of desk and prepare for daily morning hygiene inspection.
10. Keep correct sitting and standing posture in school.
11. Drink water at recess.  Use individual drinking cups, or bubble fountain.
12. Return home for lunch without loitering.  Wash before lunch.  Eat slowly.
13. Play in fresh air after school.
14. Study.  Pay attention to lessons and finish the work.
15. Wash and prepare for evening meal.
16. Prepare for bed early.  Wash out clothes in order and open window.

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[1] Charles Ward Crampton, 1877-1964.  His books include:

Dancing for Men – 1908

The Folk Dance Book – 1909 & 1928, A. S. Barnes

Blood Ptosis – 1913

The Second Folk Dance Book – 1916, A. S. Barnes

School Tactics and Maze Running – 1916, American Sports Publishing

The Pedagogy of Physical Training, with Special Reference to Formal Exercises – 1922, McMillan

Physical Exercise for Daily Use – 1924, G. P. Putnam’s Sons

The Daily Health Builder – 1928, G. P. Putnam’s Sons

The Boy’s Book of Strength – 1936, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill

Training for Championship Athletics – 1939, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill

Personal Health – 1940, The Boy Scouts of America

Start Today – 1941, A. S. Barnes

A Guide to Physical Fitness – 1943, The World Publishing

Fighting Fitness – 1944, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill

Live Long and Like it – 1948, Public Affairs Committee

The Old Red Cradle

This song was requested some time ago by a reader

Take me back to the days when the old cradle rocked,

In the sunshine of years that have fled,

To the good old trusty days when the door was never locked,

And we judged our neighbor’s truth by what he said.

I remember when my years I had numbered almost seven,

And the old red cradle stood against the wall,

I was youngest of the five, and two were gone to heaven,

But the old red cradle rocked us all.

Chorus

Rocking, rocking, gently rocking, in time with the tick of the clock on the wall,

One by one the seconds marking, the old red cradle rocked us all.

By its side father paused with a little time to spare,

And the care lines would soften on his brow,

Ah!  ‘Twas but a little while that I knew a father’s care,

But I fancy in my dreams I see him now,--

And if e’er there came a day when my cheeks were flushed

When I did not mind my porridge or my play, and hot,

I would clamber up its side and the pain would be forgot,

When the old red cradle rocked away.

Chorus

Aye, it cradled one and all, brothers, sisters, in it lay,

And it gave me the sweetest rest I’ve known,

But tonight the tears will flow, I let them have their way,

For the passing years are leaving me alone.

By my mother it was rocked when the evening meal was laid,

And again I seem to see her as she smiled,

When the rest were all in bed, ‘twas then she knelt and prayed

By the old red cradle and her child

Chorus

But the cradle long has gone, and the burdens that it bore,

One by one have been gathered to the fold,

But the flock is incomplete for it numbers only four,

With a dear one now left straying in the cold.

Heaven grant again we may in each other’s arms be locked

Where no bitter tears of parting ever fall.

God forbid that one be lost that the old red cradle rocked,

For the dear old cradle rocked us all.[1]

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[1] In the February 14, 1917 issue of The New York Times, editor Anne Perrin provides the provenance for this song:

A poem called ‘The Old Red Cradle,’ written by Miss A. J. Granniss and dedicated to her mother, was set to music by J. L. Gilbert and became popular.  It was sung by Maude Beverly and also used by the male quartet in Denman Thompson’s ‘Old Homestead’ company.”

Our Particular Worries

There are two main worries into which most symptoms play and from which many tragedies may be interpreted.

Both have to do with a man’s place in the sun, and with the measurement of his stride against the landscape.

Let us not speak in riddles—in plain English, the two big worries are for money and for health; the two great fears are those of losing the one or the other.  Man, unlike a dog, is never happy when he runs behind.  When he spends more than he makes, either of money or of nerve-force, he promptly begins to worry.  His sleep is troubled.  He cannot play.  His care pursues him to town.

Under the huge cloud-pillar of the war, each of us has his own private lesser pillar of cloud by day.  Most pillars hold something up, or can be leaned against—not so with these.  You can high back at a substance, but what is the use of battling with a nebula?  No choice of weapons avails in a duel with a ghost.

Suppose every worry you have were at once erased.  Suppose this particular anxiousness, be it enormous or minute, that you are trying to hide at this moment were wrested from you as a nurse would snatch from a baby something not good for it.  You know that you would straightway go and get some other worry in its place.

It is a habit of mind you must resist rather than any narrowly specialized phase or particular phenomenon.

The fascinating enigma of the action of the brain has proved the most baffling of any that surgical research has sought to answer, and we of the laity must be content with whatever comfort it is to know that a great many of the grotesque tricks played upon us by our own wits are not worth bothering about—it is the mulling over them that matters.

If you in any form have given “hostages to fortune,” the luxury of worry is one you must deny yourself, for it is not on record that any cause or any living being was ever helped thereby.

Convictions

Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.

-       Goethe[1]

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[1] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer and according to George Eliot (see footnote 28) “Germany’s greatest man of letters… and the last true polymath to walk the earth.” Goethe’s works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. Goethe’s magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust. Goethe’s other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism.

The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology.  He also served at length as the Privy Councilor of the duchy of Weimar. Goethe is the originator of the concept of Weltliteratur (world literature), having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, Arabic literature, amongst others. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major effect especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.

Goethe’s influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered whether painting might not be his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that he would ultimately be remembered above all for his work in colour. (Source: Wikipedia.  Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler.)