  Old Father Time knows more than anybody. He solves more problems than all the brains in the world. More hard knots are unloosed, more tangled questions are answered, more deadlocks are unfastened by Time than by any other agency. In the theological disputes that once raged in Christendom neither side routed the other; Time routed them both by showing that the whole subject did not matter. After the contemporaries had had their say, Time crowned Homer, Dante, Wagner, Shakespeare, Whitman, Emerson. Almost any judgment can be appealed, but from the decision of Time there is no appeal. Do not force issues with your children. Learn to wait. Be patient. Time will bring things to pass that no immediate power can accomplish. Do not create a crisis with your husband, your wife. Wait. See what Time will do. Time has a thousand resources, abounds in unexpected expedients. Time brings a change in point of view, in temper, in state of mind which no contention can. When you teach, make allowance for Time. What the child cannot possibly understand now, he can grasp easily a year from now. When you have a difficult business affair to settle, give it Time, put it away and see If you would produce a story, a play, a book, or an essay, write it out, then lay it aside and let it simmer, forget it a while, then take it out and write it over. Time is the best critic, the shrewdest adviser, the frankest friend. If you are positive you want to marry a certain person, let Time have his word. Nowhere is Time’s advice more needed. Today we may be sure, but listen to a few tomorrows. You are born and you will die whenever fate decides; you have nothing to do with those fatal two things; but in marriage, the third fatality, you have Time. Take it. Do not decide your beliefs and convictions suddenly. Hang up the reasons to cure. Do not hobble your whole life by the immature certainties of youth. Give yourself room to change, for you must change, if you are to develop. “Learn to labor and—to wait!” |
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