The chronic grumbler is not a good companion nor in any way an admirable person. We fly from her as from a contagious disease. Nothing so certainly affects one's spirits as being in the constant company of a person who has a grievance.

The cherishing of discontent with our circumstances, buisness, dress, or any other thing in life soon robs us of beauty and marks the countenance with the lines of worry and ill temper that tell their own unhappy story.

Why anybody who is young should indulge in grumbling as a pastime is one of the puzzles that never is solved, yet such people there are, and we meet them to our sorrow almost every day.

if they happen to be passengers on a railway train they pile their bags and bundles on an extra set for which they have not paid, are conveniently blind to the weariness of other passengers who are standing, and assume the aspect of martyrs when the conductor courteously but peremptorily informs them that they must make room.

They object to having the windows open, although the air may be loaded with impurities from the congestion of the crowd; they scold and fret at the throng the conductor and rail at Providence in general because everything in life is not arranged with a view to their comfort.

It is possible to have a big town and a prosperous town without making so powerful much fuss about it. There is a large amount of unnecessary din about everyday traffic. To begin with, we build a lot of our streets out of brick and granite when we might just as well construct them of material that is less productive of noise and less calculated to bring wagons and other vehicles to a state of premature debility and disrepair, says the Louisville Courier-Journal. Then we tolerate all sorts of nuisances that ought not to be tolerated in a civilized community for the simple reason that "everybody's business is nobody's business," and everybody is so absorbed in looking after his own personal affairs that he has neither time nor inclination to do much for the general comfort and welfare. Possibly about seven-tenths of the noise incident to city existence could be subtracted without any especial detriment to the progress of industry and commerce and the ordinary transaction of business, and with undoubted relief and pleasure to persons of superabundant nerve and others who delight in the quiet life. Under such conditions the average city, however, would lose its attractions for that more self-assertive element of humanity which revels in racket and believes in "whooping it up" all the along the line.

There are few things so fine as enthusiasm and that effusive sentimentality known by the uglier and shorter word "gush."

Every girl has her "gush" period when everything is "adorable" and "perfect."

It is fine, in a way; we should be careful how we check the exuberance of the girlish nature. At the same time caution must be exercised against letting the habit be formed of flying into a febrile ecstasy about every small thing that comes our way and making as much of it as though if it were an affair of the largest consequence.

It takes experience to hold in check the superlative degree and the loud pedal for the proper time and the deserving object.

But caution in the direction of not being too intense should not be withheld from the young. "Adorable" is too strong an adjective to be indiscriminately bestowed on poodles, china cups, opera singers, and matinee idols.

"Love" is another strong word that needs all its strength to keep from worn out by its use to express, for instance, a liking for ice cream or delight in a week end invitation.

It is not necessary to explode into raptures to prove one's self well pleased. Nor is it physically good to be too intense.

We are infrequently asked regarding the best manner of dropping money into the contribution box at church, and after carefully considering the subject we suggest the following rules: First, if you feel particularly mean and have only a penny to bestow, you must, with a quick, nervous motion, let your mite fall so that it will escape observation; second, if you have a quarter or any other silver coin of considerable size to give, you may hold it in plain sight between your thumb and forefinger, and when you deposit it you may let it drop from a lofty elevation so that it may make a musical jingle when it reaches its destination; thirdly, if you contemplate offering a bill, you must not take your money out of your vest pocket until the neighbors can see your unparalleled generosity. The moment the collector appears at the pew door is the one when you must fumble for your money, and then, methodically unfolding the bill, and putting on your eyeglasses to ascertain its denomination, you may slowly place it in the top of the box. These three rules, we believe, will be sufficient for all ordinary purposes. A button should always be placed in a blank envelope.

Kissing may be said to be like swimming. The kisser must abandon himself wholly to the business—close his eyes, as it were, and trust to the natural buoyancy of his body to recover himself after the ecstatic plunge. A girl takes a kissing as kittens take to sport, with a natural appetite for the quintessence of its delight. Under the tuition of any girl the most bashful youth soon learns the operation of the lips, and once learned the art is never lost. No rules can be given for the pursuing or the placing of the lips. The suggestion that it might be practiced before the mirror is not worth considering, as there is an intellectual process in the artistic development of a kiss which cannot be stimulated or invoked save under the eye of the owner of the lips that invite and under the tender spell that transforms those lips into the one object in all the world that the lover yearns to taste. The sign of the right sort of a kiss is unmistakable. There is a mounting color in the cheek and a softer glitter in the eyes that tells the story with youth or maid. There is a theory that the mustache plays a leading part in the perfect kiss, but this must be a matter of option, as Byron—who was so fond of kisses, longed to have all the kissable lips in the world made into one mouth that he might kiss it—had no mustache. Julius Cæsar, too, who dropped into kissing as a relaxation, had no beard. Indeed the chronicles of kissing would probably show that the beardless gallants, whose kissing made the happiness of the queens of beauty of old, were none the less effective with lips that knew no beard.

Where the physical struggle for life is at its keenest, as it is among the Eskimos, the years glide by free from the more subtle cares and worries of the civilized man. The Eskimo does not count the days and keeps no record of time. All his thoughts are centered on hunting.

Once I asked an Eskimo who seemed to be plunged in reflection, "What are you thinking about?"

He laughed at my question, and said, "Oh, it is only you white men who go in so much thinking! Up here we only think of our flesh-pits, and whether we have enough for the long dark of the winter. If we have meat enough, then there is no need to think. I have meat and to spare!"

I saw that I had insulted him by crediting him with thought.

On another occasion I asked an unusually intelligent Eskimo, Panigpak, who had taken part in Peary's last North Polar expedition:

"Tell me, what did you suppose was the object of all our exertions? What did you think when you saw the land disappear behind you and you found yourself out on the drifting ice-floes?"

"Think?" said Panigpak, astonished. "I did not need to think. Peary did that!"

Eating becomes the great thing with the Eskimos. I once excused myself, when paying a visit, with the plea that I had already eaten and had enough. I was laughed at, and the answer I received was:

"There thou talkest like a dog! Dogs can be stuffed till they are satisfied and can eat no more; but people—people can always eat!"—Knud Rasmussen, in The People of the Polar North

A terrible accident occurred near Montevideo, Chippewa county, Minn., on the farm of Inglebrecht Grinden, in which Mrs. Grinden lost her life in a most horrible manner. It seems that a team of horses drawing hay became frightened and run away, passing in close proximity to the house. A child was playing right in the track of the frightened team, and Mrs. Grinden, seeing that the horses must be changed in their course or her child would be killed, she rushed out in front of them and caught them by the bits. It had the desired effect on the team; they changed their course and the child was saved, but the mother offered up her life as a sacrifice. The maddened team rushed over her, but not until the tongue of the wagon had struck her just below the pit of the stomach, entering into the abdominal cavity, literally tearing her open so that the intestines came out. Strange as it may seem she lived twelve hours in this horrible condition, when death came to her relief. She leaves four children, the youngest of whom is only two months old.