“If every pain and care we feel Could burn upon our brow, How many hearts would move to heal, That strive to crush us now.” Don’t you believe it? They would run from you, as if you had the plague. “Write your brow” with anything else but your “troubles,” if you do not wish to be left solus. You have no idea how “good people” will pity you when you tell your doleful ditty! They will “pray for you,” give you advice by the bushel, “feel for you”—everywhere but in their pocket-books; and wind up by telling you to “trust in Providence;” to all of which you feel very much like replying as the old lady did when she found herself spinning down hill in a wagon, “I trusted in Providence till the tackling broke!” Now, listen to me;—just go to work and hew out a path for yourself; get your head above water, and then snap your fingers in their pharisaical faces! Never ask a favor until you are drawing your last breath; and never forget one. “Write your troubles on your brow?” That man was either a knave, or, what is worse, a fool. I suppose he calls himself a poet; if he does, all I have to say is, it’s high time the city authorities took away his “license.” |