"
These grumblers are invariably found the least efficient helpers
in the school of life. As the worst workmen are usually the
readiest to "strike," so the least industrious members of society
are the readiest to complain. The worst wheel of all is the
one that creaks.
There is such a thing as the cherishing of discontent until the
feeling becomes morbid. The jaundiced see everything about them
yellow. The ill-conditioned think all things awry, and the whole
world out-of-joint. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. The
little girl in PUNCH, who found her doll stuffed with bran, and
forthwith declared everything to be hollow and wanted to "go into
a nunnery," had her counterpart in real life. Many full-grown
people are quite as morbidly unreasonable. There are those who
may be said to "enjoy bad health;" they regard it as a sort of
property. They can speak of "MY headache"--"MY backache," and so
forth, until in course of time it becomes their most cherished
possession. But perhaps it is the source to them of much coveted
sympathy, without which they might find themselves of
comparatively little importance in the world.
We have to be on our guard against small troubles, which, by
encouraging, we are apt to magnify into great ones. Indeed, the
chief source of worry in the world is not real but imaginary evil
--small vexations and trivial afflictions.
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