I shot an arrow into the air, it fell in the distance, I knew not
where, till a neighbor said that it killed his calf, and I had to pay
him six and a half ($6.50). I bought some poison to slay some rats,
and a neighbor swore that it killed his cats; and, rather than argue
across the fence, I paid him four dollars and fifty cents ($4.50). One
night I set sailing a toy balloon, and hoped it would soar till it
reached the moon; but the candle fell out, on a farmer's straw, and he
said I must settle or go to law. And that is the way with the random
shot; it never hits in the proper spot; and the joke you spring, that
you think so smart, may leave a wound in some fellow's heart.
LOOK PLEASANT, PLEASE!
"Look pleasant, please!" the photo expert told me, for I had pulled a
long and gloomy face; and then I let a wide, glad smile enfold me and
hold my features in its warm embrace.
"Look pleasant, please!" My friends, we really ought to cut out these
words and put them in a frame; long, long we'd search to find a better
motto to guide and help us while we play the game. Look pleasant,
please, when you have met reverses, when you beneath misfortune's
stroke are bent, when all your hopes seem riding round in hearses--a
scowling brow won't help you worth a cent. Look pleasant, please, when
days are dark and dismal and all the world seems in a hopeless fix; the
clouds won't go because your grief's abysmal, the sun won't shine the
sooner for your kicks. Look pleasant, please, when Grip--King of
diseases, has filled your system with his microbes vile; I know it's
hard, but still, between your sneezes, you may be able to produce a
smile. Look pleasant, please, whatever trouble galls you; a gloomy
face won't cure a single pain. Look pleasant, please, whatever ill
befalls you, for gnashing teeth is weary work and vain.
Look pleasant, please, and thus inspire your brothers to raise a smile
and pass the same along; forget yourself and think a while of others,
and do your stunt with gladsome whoop and song.
COURAGE
Brave men are they who set their faces toward the polar bergs and
floes, who roam the wild, unpeopled places, perchance to find among the
snows a resting-place remote and lonely; a winding-sheet of deathless
white, where elemental voices only disturb the brooding year-long night.
Brave souls are they whose man-made pinions have borne them over plains
and seas, who conquered wide and new dominions, and strapped a saddle
on the breeze. Their engine-driven wings are wearing new pathways
through the realm of clouds; they play with death, with dauntless
daring, to please the breathless, fickle crowds.
Brave men go forth to distant regions, forsaking luxury and ease;
through all the years they've gone in legions, to unknown lands, o'er
stormy seas; and when, by sword or fever smitten, they blithely
journeyed to the grave, full well they knew their names were written
down in the annals of the brave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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