RANDOM READINGS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 691, 9 December 1921, Page 7

RANDOM READINGS.

THE ART OR BEING HAPPY.

To bo heigh'. an 1 eucrifui, wrote Lord uicen requires an effort; there is a certain art in keeping 1 ourselves happy; and in this respect, as in others, we require to watch over and manage ourselves, almost as if we were somebody else. Everyone must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a BUDny day, shedding brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison. We have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some sorrows, alas ! are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves ; but others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of troubk's. If wo face them boldly we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination. If we do our best, if wo do not magnify trifling troubles, if we look resolutely, Ido not say at the bright side of things, but at things as they really are; if we avail ourselVes of the manifold blessings which surround us, we cannot but fool that life is, indeed, a glorious inheritance.

WAGNER'S CABHORSE. A story of Wagner is v told by the “Vossischc Zeitung. •’ A', hen the composer was m a really merry mood, the right mood for story-telling, he used to say that being in Berlin on a very hot summer s any, and finding himself in the Donimiispin z, he summoned one of the first-class droschkes that were still fairly numerous at that time, and told the driver where to go. His destination 'was at tne very furthest point of a district, within . which only the lowest fare could be demanded.

It struck Wagner immediately that his driver \vus\ taking- a very a dee ting leave of one of his fellows, as though he were starting- on a life or death journey. ‘‘Good-bye, William,” he said, “we shan’t see each other again for a long time.” After the carriage had 1 rattled on -for a good while it came suddenly to a Standstill. The driver gfot down from his box on the right-hand side, opened the carriage door, 4 and banged it to again; then he went round to the left side, and repeated the performance, climbed up on to his box, and resumed the journey. At the end of the drive Wagner asked him what this dumb-crambo show meant. The driver, with a sly look, made answer, “I just wanted to bamboozle my old nag"; he would never have believed that the whole drive was for a minimum fare, and would have refused to go on. But by banging- the doors 1 got him to imagine that one fare had got but and another got in.”

Wagner laughed heartily over this explanation, and the driver, in spite of his greed, over which the composer made very merry in his letters, realised the hand?ome tip on which he had been speculating.