From Within

The hopelessness of any one's accomplishing any thing without pluck is illustrated by an old East Indian fable. A mouse that dwelt near the abode of a great magician was kept in such constant distress by its fear of a cat, that the magician, taking pity on it, turned it into a cat itself.
Immediately it began to suffer from its fear of a dog, so the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to suffer from fear of a tiger, and the magician turned it into a tiger. Then it began to suffer from its fear of huntsmen, and the magician in disgust said, " Be a mouse again. As you have only the heart of a mouse, it is impossible to help you by giving you the body of a nobler animal."
And the poor creature became a mouse.

Boys!
They are little, nimble, compact skinfuls of ingenious, fertile,
endless, untiring mischief.
H.W.Beecher- Star Papers

Thackeray wrote of a fashionable lady cousin in Paris:
“She is come to ‘my dearest William’ now, though she doesn’t care a fig for me. She told me astonishing things, showed me a letter in which every word was true, and which was a fib from beginning to end. A miracle of deception – flattered, fondled, coaxed. Oh, she was worth coming to Paris for!… Pray God to keep us simple. I have never looked at anything in my life which has so amazed me.”
Scribner

" We have said that there is no difference between one person and another more characteristic and noticeable than the facility of being happy."
Henry Ward Beecher


This quote disturbs me some. In my youth I seemed to have an inexhaustible facility for finding happiness. Somehow with the weight of life I find that faculty ground down, lost its tip, and finding happiness takes a determined effort, where once it flowed so naturally.