Why John Quit Drinking (1916 Advertisement)

1916

By John's Wife

I'm the happiest little woman,
In all this little town;
And my merry laugh and singing,
Takes the place of sigh and frown.
For JOHN HAS QUIT HIS DRINKING
And is like himself once more,
And the world is just a paradise
With such happiness in store!

One day I read some verses—
"Mary's Miracle," the name,
And I said, that's John exactly,
And I'll send and get the same.
So I sent for GOLDEN TREATMENT.
(As sly as sly could be)
And I put it in John's supper
And I put it in his tea.

And it didn't taste a little bit;
Had no odor, so, you see—
It was smoothest kind of sailing
For little Doctor Me.
And I watched and prayed and waited,
(And cried some, too, I guess),
And I didn't have the greatest faith,
I'm ashamed now to confess.

And John never thought a minute,
He was being cured of drink,
And soon he's as well as any one,
It makes me cry to think!
Just makes me cry for gladness,
I'm so proud to be his wife—
Since he is cured of drinking,
And leads a nice, new life.

"Since John he quit a-drinking!"
I can't any it times enough!
And hates and loathes a liquor
As he would a poison stuff.
And when I say my prayers at night
As thankful as can be—
I pray for John the most of all—
Then GOLDEN TREATMENT.

Home Treatment For Drunkards

Odorless and Tasteless — Any Lady Can
Give It Secretly at Home in Tea, Coffee or Food.

Costs Nothing to Try.

If you have a husband, son, brother, father or friend who is a victim of liquor, all you have to do is to send your name and address on the coupon below. You may be thankful as long as you live that you did it.

Dr. J. W. Haines Company.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

The Wonders About Us

1910

Let not care and humdrum deaden us to the wonders and mysteries amid which we live, nor to the splendors and glories. We need not translate ourselves in imagination to some other sphere or state of being to find the marvelous, the divine, the transcendent; we need not postpone our day of wonder and appreciation to some future time and condition. The true inwardness of this gross visible world hanging like an apple on the bough of the great cosmic tree, and swelling with all the juices and potencies of life, transcends anything we have dreamed of superterrestrial abodes. — John Burroughs.

Elephants' Tongues

1895

"Only a few of the many people who have thrown peanuts into the elephants' mouths," said Head Keeper Manley of the zoological gardens to a Philadelphia Record man, "have noticed that the tongue is hung at both ends. A tongue hung in the middle is a human complaint, but elephants have a monopoly on those hung at both ends. The trunk suffices to put the food just where it ought to be, and the tongue simply keeps it moving from side to side over the grinders. When a peanut gets stuck on the elephant's tongue he raises it in the middle, like a moving caterpillar, and the shell cracks against the roof of the mouth, to then disappear down a capacious throat."


Didn't Want to Sneeze

A whimsical old Englishman who died over a century ago left a will in which he stated what he wished done at his funeral. His first request was that sixty of his friends be invited, accompanied by five of the best fiddlers to be found in the town. Second, he wished no tears to be shed, but, on the other hand, insisted that the sixty friends should be "merry for two hours," on penalty of being sent away. And, finally, that "no snuff be brought upon the premises, lest I have a fit of sneezing." — Harper's Young People.


A singed cat dreads the cold.

Cites Folly of Worrying

1917

Retired Business Man Offers Some Good, Homely Philosophy Based on Long Experience

A retired business man now living in a soldiers' home writes the following letter to a friend in the dry goods market, and its homely philosophy and confidence will be found refreshing:

"Since I saw you I have entered on my seventy-seventh year. My experience has taught me the folly of worrying over events I cannot control. I have much reason for gratitude, as I have been allowed to live long. My lines are cast in pleasant places, and that is more than many a millionaire can truly say. I have little sympathy for people who mourn their former prosperity, just making themselves miserable and their hearers uncomfortable.

"My five months' captivity in a rebel prison showed me how little, after all, a person requires to be perfectly happy and contented. One good square meal to the prisoners would have converted the prison yard into a picnic grove. . . . Even if you may meet with ingratitude, your kind deed is recorded somewhere, and will be remembered. I must stop prosing, perhaps you will think I am getting into my dotage." — New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin.

Gibbon on Fame and Happiness

1910

Edward Gibbon, the historian, was not one to underestimate the pleasures of intellectual occupation or the value of literary fame. "I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life," he wrote in his autobiography. "I am disgusted with the affectation of men of letters who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that their fame affords a poor compensation for envy, censure and persecution.

"My own experience has taught me a very different lesson; twenty happy years have been animated by the labors of my history and its success has given me a name, a rank, a character in the world to which I should otherwise not have been entitled.

"D'Alembert relates that as he was walking in the gardens of Sans Souci with the king of Prussia, Frederick said to him, 'Do you see that old woman, a poor weeder, asleep on that sunny bank? She is probably a more happy being than either of us.'

"The king and philosopher may speak for themselves; for my part, I do not envy the old woman." — Youth's Companion.


Social Requirement

When a young girl appears at the theater with a young man who is a stranger in town, she should circulate a note among her friends telling who he is. It is very hard for the women to enjoy a performance with their curiosity unsatisfied. — Atchison Globe.

Grave Little Questions of Being Happy

1910

By Maude Neal

People try to be happy on the wrong basis. They won't be happy on what they have; they dream of being happy on something that they don't possess or that belongs to somebody else.

You see a girl who is young, pretty and has nice clothes and a moderately pleasing "steady." You ask for the reason of the discontented expression she wears and she tells you that she has not been invited to a certain party or that if she has been her dressmaker has disappointed her.

Another woman who seems profoundly miserable you question thus: "How are the children?" "Oh," she replies, in a discouraged tone, "they are very well but they grow so fast I can't keep any clothes on them."

"And your new servant?" "Oh, she is a jewel, but you can never tell what moment she will pick up and leave."

"Did your new dress turn out all right?" "Yes, but it's so much trouble getting a dress I would almost prefer to do without."

"How is your husband? Did he get back from his trip all right?"

"Oh, yes. I can hardly realize he has been away."

"You seem to be worried. What is the main trouble?"

"Well, I caught cold in some way and I've been suffering with a stiff neck. I think that is one of the worst things a person can have in the way of ailments."

And there you are! A husband's safe return, children abundantly healthy, clothes made by another, a servant and the wherewithal to pay for her, and yet none of these things count for happiness when pitted against the inconvenience of a stiff neck.

If people would only say, "Oh, I am so happy because I have this. I am so thankful that this trouble which came to my neighbor wasn't allotted to me," instead of whining, "Oh, if I only had his luck," or "It is absolutely unheard of and terrible that I should be called upon to endure this," the world would be made up of a wonderfully cheerful population.

Teacher Refuses Tribute to Santa Claus

1910

By Samuel Parker of Chicago

During the recent holiday season a teacher in one of the Chicago public schools was subjected to not a little criticism for refusing to pay tribute to the Santa Claus myth, declaring it to be wrong morally to teach a child a falsehood or to tell the child anything as a truth which it would discover to be false later on.

Instead of being a target for thoughtless ridicule that teacher should command the respect of every teacher and parent who conscientiously regards the moral training of children. The holiest thing this side of heaven is the faith of a little child and he who carelessly or purposely abuses it perpetrates a wrong from which the abused child seldom fully recovers. If parents and friends would sidetrack the heathen myth and bestow their endearing gifts in their own names the dear children would be just as happy and escape the shock of falsehood and deception at the hands of those who ought to love them too well to expose them to such danger.


Romance of the Future

"Do you see that cloud? It was behind one just like that that I first kissed you." — Town and Country.

Saying He Never Felt Better, Died

1905

The death of W. H. Rockhill, ex-clerk of the courts of this county, here verifies in a way the thesis of Goethe that no man can survive a happy moment.

He had been feeling ill and went to the office of his physician to tell the doctor that he was improving in health and that he never felt better for many days.

The words had no more than escaped his lips than he keeled over and died of heart disease. — Lebanon correspondence, Cincinnati Enquirer.


Effects of Prosperity

In the six years of the country's greatest prosperity, from 1897 to 1903, average prices of breadstuffs advanced 65 per cent, meats 23.1 per cent, dairy and garden products 50.1 per cent, and clothing 24.1. All these were products of the farmer and stockman who profited more than any other class of the community by these advances. The miner benefited 42.1 per cent by that advance in the average price of metals. The only decrease in the average prices of commodities in that period was in railway freight rates which decreased from .798 per ton-mile in 1897 to .763 in 1903, a loss of 4.4 per cent. The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission shows that the average increase in the pay of railroad employees in the period was trifle above 8.5 per cent.

Short Shorts

1900

Conventional Wisdom

The duelist's aim is at the point of honor.

Some business men only win financial success through failures.

The fresh young man is generally not worth his salt.

If a lazy man is comfortable he is happy.

The woman who is fond of home isn't necessarily homely.

A vain woman is like a street piano — she is full of airs.

Never judge a man by his relatives — they are not of his own selection.

Every man who isn't prominent imagines he will be some day.

The boy who works in a bowling alley earns his pin money.

The aristocratic dentist should be a man of excellent extraction.

There are few people who think they are worse than they really are.

Wit is a diamond in the rough that is polished by adversity.

The only step from the sublime to the ridiculous is usually a short one.

The flustrated bride usually has all sorts of presence except presence of mind.

He who lacks time to make also lacks time to mend.

A woman who probably speaks from experience says a husband who can be led isn't worth leading.

You will observe that men who post as fancy whistlers seldom amount to much.

Return good for evil. If your enemy heaps coals of fire on your head, pile chunks of ice on his.

Chasing Rainbows — Happiness Out of Reach

1907

Folks to Whom Happiness Is Always Just Out of Reach

How many people go through life deluded with the conviction that if they could only get a little more money, get into a little more comfortable position, own a little better home, or if they could only get over the particular trouble that is annoying them at the time, they would be happy.

I know a man who had a very hard boyhood, suffered great poverty, who is now fifty years old, and he has always honestly relieved that if he could only get the particular thing he was after or get over the particular difficulty that was annoying him at the moment he would be perfectly happy, but he is the same anxious, restless, expectant spirit today as when a youth.

He has been quite successful and has done some very remarkable things, but he is invariably in hot water. There is always something that nettles him or destroys his happiness, and, although he is a well meaning man, he has made his family, his employees and everybody about him very unhappy because he is always fretting and worrying, always borrowing trouble. — Success.

Young Child Gets Pig Eye, Corneal Transplant

1914

Operation in Baltimore Hospital the First of Its Kind in United f States.

Baltimore, Md. — What is believed to be the first operation of its kind in this country was performed at a local hospital when the cornea of a pig's eye was grafted on the sightless eye of a three-months-old boy.

It was said that previous operations, in which rabbits' eyes had been used, were unsuccessful, but that experiments with pigs' eyes had led scientists to believe that they were more adaptable. Two cases are said to be on record where the grafting of human cornea gave sight to totally blind eyes.

In the operation the pig was chloroformed, the eyeball taken out and the cornea cut from it. An extraordinarily fine needle and fine silk were used in sewing the cornea in place. The eye will remain bandaged for about a week.


How to Wed Happily

1914

Princeton, New Jersey — "To assure happy marriages all applicants for marriage licenses should file declarations of intentions a month before the license is granted," said Prof. R. M. Ross, in a lecture on social economics.

To A Cow (poetry) – How Canst Thou Be So Satisfied!

1878

TO A COW.
Why, cow, how canst thou be so satisfied!
So well content with all things here below,
So unobtrusive and so sleepy-eyed,
So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow!
Dost though not know that everything is mixed,
That naught is as it should be on this earth,
That grievously the world needs to be fixed,
That nothing we can gain has any worth,
That times are hard, that life is lull of care,
Of sin and trouble, and untowardness.
That love is folly, friendship but a snare!
Pretty cow, this is no time for laziness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems!
Get up and moo! Tear round and quit thy dreams! — D. L. PROUDFIT.

—Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, Jan. 25, 1878, p. 1.


It is said that at three years old we love our mothers, at six our fathers, at ten our holidays, at sixteen dress, at twenty our sweethearts, at twenty-five our wives, at forty our children and at sixty ourselves.


The daughters of Jefferson Davis are at school in Germany.

Refinement Removed from Excess, Waste, Allied to Simplicity

1876

Refinement is not fastidiousness. It is not luxury. It is nothing of this kind. It is far removed from excess or waste. A person truly refined will not squander or needlessly consume anything. Refinement, on the contrary, is always allied to simplicity and a judicious and tasteful employment of the means of good and happiness which it has at command. It seeks to divest itself of superfluities and aspires continually to the utmost possible purity.

Refinement leads to personal cleanliness and elegant neatness, good taste and simplicity in dress. All "loudness" or "flashiness" is repugnant to its spirit. In its home and surroundings — whether palatial, affluent, or humble — the same chasteness and natural grace is maintained. The abode of genuine refinement and a mere pretender to it are very different. In the former you will find no excess, gaudiness, or false glittering; but the latter abounds in it.

In personal manner, refinement is most conspicuous. A man of refinement is always polite without flourish, gentle without effeminacy, and considerate without stiffness. Display and ceremony are not identical with refinement, and are poor substitutes for it. There is of course no refinement like that of the heart, which impels its possessor to show on all occasions a thoughtful and kindly regard for the feelings of others. No adherence to etiquette can compare with it for the spontaneous observation of true and gratifying politeness.



The Best Nourishment

Be as the little child who eats and sleeps and grows. God gives you the best nourishment, although not always the sweetest to the taste. — Madame Guyon.

Miserable Homes – Let Home Be Home Indeed

1874

What a mistake some good people make when they maintain, within the home circle, the rigid rule and decorum which becomes irksome even during committee meeting; when parents and children assemble at the table in solemn silence, and finish the meal within the prescribed minutes; and the late arrival at the breakfast table is scowled at, reprimanded, and remarked upon by mother and father, aunt and uncle, until the more punctual juniors come to regard him as a black sheep.

Oh, horrid home, where the little boys are never seen without their school books, or the little girl without a towel to hem; where ma no more dares to buy a rattle for the baby without mentioning the expenditure to pa, than anybody dares to throw open the parlor shutters or tuck up the curtains, or even at the table to have more of this dish or less of that.

The small boy who hates fat is not accommodated, as Jack Sprat's wife was, by anybody. The tall girl, who naturally likes pudding, has her triangular wedge, and no more; while the eldest son, outgrowing his liking for the dish, is reproved for the leaving of a piece on his plate.

Order and good housekeeping are charming, but the good order of a person, and the regular supply of rations necessary in a workhouse, are not suitable for home. Home is no home unless as far as reason will allow, the taste and wishes of the youngest child are consulted; unless there is freedom of word and action, speech and love, and good will without measure.

When I was a child home was the place where the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest. Everything was always forgiven there. There was no awful rod behind the door, no domestic dungeon under the roof. I do not think I grew up a worse woman because I was not whipped, or put to bed without my supper for dressing the bed-post in grandmother's best lace cap, or making paper dolls, against orders, in the front parlor — because life was not made a burden to me by forcing fat into my unwilling mouth, and sugar candy forbidden as though it was poison.

I could shed tears over the wretched homeless children of the house where discipline, as strict as that of the army, is maintained, though their fare is costly and the dress perfect, and their future prospects as to an inheritance final. They are more to be pitied than the children of any poor man, who clusters about their parents' knee without any fear of chiding; who are encouraged to tell their troubles, and kindly lead away from follies; and who will not, in later days, remember "pa" as the old gentleman who flogged them, and "ma" as the old lady who kept the keys, and boxed their ears for them, but think of them with that respect and reverence due by a child to its parents. — The Household.

Words of Wisdom – Look For Happiness in Useful Work

1878

It is but poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

If what is said be not to the purpose a single word is already too much.

As nothing truly valuable can be obtained without industry, so there can be no persevering industry without a deep sense of the value of time.

The most common error of men and women is that of looking for happiness somewhere outside of useful work. It has never yet been found when thus sought, and never will be while the world stands; and the sooner the truth is learned, the better for everyone. If you doubt the proposition, go around among your friends and acquaintances and select those who have the most enjoyment through life. Are they idlers and pleasure-seekers, or are the earnest workers? We know what your answer will be. Of the miserable human beings it has been our fortune or misfortune to know, those were the most wretched who had retired from useful employment in order to enjoy themselves.

Truth will never die; the stars will grow dim, the sun will pale his glory, but truth will be ever young. Integrity, uprightness, honesty, love, goodness, these are all imperishable. No grave can ever entomb these immortal principles. They have been in prison, but they have been freer than before; those who enshrined them in their hearts have been burned at the stake, but out of their ashes other witnesses have arisen. No sea can drown, no storm can wreck, no abyss can swallow up the everlasting truth. You cannot kill goodness and integrity and righteousness; the way that is consistent with these must be a way everlasting.

Books — The Best Friends

1920

THE BEST FRIENDS
by Sidney Dark, in John O'London's Weekly

When once the love of books has come into a man's life he can never be lonely, he can never be bored, he can never lose his interest in life, he can never be quite unhappy. Books are the friends that never fail, and the men and women that only live in books are the best and the most real friends of all.

The happy life is not spent altogether in the world of streets and shops and offices. A large part of it must be lived in the world of imagination. And living with the imaginings of great writers, we, too, learn to dream and the happiest homes in the world are the castles in the air that we build for ourselves. They are, indeed, the only homes the foundations of which are unshakable rocks.

Mark Twain In Serious Mood on Marriage and Life

1909

MARK TWAIN IN SERIOUS MOOD.

Mark Twain, who can be serious when occasion requires, gave out a serious interview on the occasion of the recent marriage of his daughter. Twain didn't jest over the event. To him the union of two lives, the institution of a new family, was too sacred a thing to be made a subject for pun and jest. If marriages were more generally viewed in such a sacred light there might be fewer cases for the divorce court, fewer scandals, and fewer family "jars."

Twain declared a happy marriage is one of the tragical things of life. That, at first glance, appears like a contradiction. But it isn't. The happiest marriage is a tragedy, because, as Twain says, the future is filled to the brim with uncertainties. The very uncertainty of life is in itself a tragedy.

—The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA, Oct. 9, 1909, p. 4

Live For Today, Look Forward, Not Back to Past

1912

Heart to Heart Talks
By EDWIN A. NYE

LOOKING BACKWARD.

Do you remember the legend about that ancient Greek from whom Apollo took "the backward looking mind?"

All things became new.

The world was transformed to that Greek. For the first time he saw how beautiful was the world. Flowers he had not yet seen bloomed under his feet, new stars shone over his head and the changing moods of nature filled him with delight.

Why?

The change was not in the world but in the Greek. His mind had been turned backward to the happiness and the grief of the past. Now he looked outward and forward to the beauty and the joy all about him.

In our day is no Apollo to take away the backward looking mind, more's the pity.

But the symbolism holds.

Many of us need to have our mind reversed.

I know a woman who persists in looking backward and who always tells of a day when her people were rich and accustomed to many luxuries she is now denied. She is constantly deploring a situation she cannot help. She does not live save in a former day.

Worse than Lot's wife, who took a single look over her shoulder, she always faces backward.

I know a man whose constant theme of regret is the fact that he ever changed his business. He did well, he says, at the old place and was a fool to change. Certainly he is doing little good at his new place, largely for the reason that he is forever harking backward to the old.

He needs an Apollo.

Older persons are apt to foster the backward looking habit. Says grandpa from his chimney corner: "There are no days like the good old days. Now, when I was young" —

Poor grandpa!

He magnifies the past, minimizes the present and omits the future. He is dying, like some trees, at the top.

You cannot change the past, but you can discount the present and spoil the future by refusing to live in the one and to face the other.

To be successful, to stay young, to find happiness, cultivate the outward looking, forward looking mind.

Face the sun.

When you stand with your back to it the shadow is in front of you. When you face the sun the shadow is behind.

—The Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, WI, July 22, 1912, page 4.