Part 16

He cannot see the hopeless construction of their foreheads, nor can he read in their eyes the sad absence of "speculation."

Let us be thankful for that. The future depends on the good care awarded to almost worthless specimens now. ----

FOR THE UNIVERSAL INSTINCT OF THANKFULNESS, LET BE DEEPLY THANKFUL.

The thick-lipped negro on the Congo finds a dead hippopotamus, half eaten by wild beasts, and in his woolly brain a dim, misty feeling of THANKFULNESS is born.

The Tartar bandit surprises mild Chinese conducting a tea caravan across the stony desert. He murders the mild Celestials and feels THANKFUL as he contemplates the booty.

A great Trust manager finds ways to add some millions to those which he already has and does not need. In THANKFUL mood he gives two millions or three to education.

As inborn, as instinctive as the beating of the heart in the human being is THANKFULNESS.

Thankfulness is the unconscious acknowledgment of a Higher Power.

It is the indestructible evidence of man's permanent belief in just government of the universe.

It is the most hopeful, the most promising feature of man's character.

For THANKFULNESS itself we should be thankful. ----

If you want to succeed, cultivate a feeling of hopeful thankfulness.

Hopefulness, thankfulness and success are as near akin as light, heat and motion--the same force underlies, makes up the first trio, as it does the second.

If you find it hard to be thankful, read a little of history, and thankfulness will come. Thousands of millions of men have lived and suffered to make your existence here at least bearable. You may not be satisfied, but you have comforts that were not dreamed of by the luckiest a few centuries back. You think the prosperous have too many privileges.

Perhaps they have. But when your great-grandfather was a young man a nobleman could order his lackeys to seize Voltaire the greatest mind in Europe--and beat him almost to death. Voltaire was locked up in the Bastile for complaining.

Thanks to the eternal row that Voltaire kicked up, you can never be treated as he was. So be thankful to Voltaire.

Be thankful to the long line of plucky men and fighters--not forgetting Christopher Columbus--who have gone before you.

Be thankful that you are alive in an interesting age with interesting events happening.

Be thankful also that with thankfulness you combine the feeling of dissatisfaction, of unrest that will push you ahead and give you cause for fresh thankfulness next year. ----

We are thankful to have you for a reader.

We are thankful for the criticisms and friendly comments that you occasionally send.

We hope that you will enjoy your dinner to-day and not regret it to-morrow.

WHAT WILL 999 YEARS MEAN TO THE HUMAN RACE

The street railroad company in the Borough of Brooklyn has just executed some leases to endure 999 years. Leases of property have also been made for the same period, though, of course, a lease of 999 years will be about as binding 999 years from now as would a lease of the great pyramid executed the day after it was finished, if such a lease should be presented at present to the Egyptian Government.

These preposterous leases are interesting because they bring vividly before the human mind the certainty of wonderful and splendid changes in human affairs.

The street railroad leases are especially fascinating to the imaginative mind.

They deal with present conditions and will seem inconceivably primitive hundreds of years before the leases will have ended.

These leases deal with miserable little electric cars crawling slowly over the face of the earth, at either end an underpaid, overworked man, and in the middle a crowd of poor, dissatisfied, ill-housed human beings.