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Show ALONG LIFE'S TRAIL By THOMAS A. CLARK Du ( Um, I'nlTtnlty ol IlllaoU. j (IS. 1I4. Hiin Nw.ppr Union.) GETTING AWAY FROM J ONE'S PAST i -p:S grievous,'- an old English A writer says, though I am not at all sure thut he Is correct In this, "that with all amplification of travel both by sea and land, a man can never separate himself from hia pust history." his-tory." We are accustomed ordinarily. In making such reflections, to apply the principle only to those thinga In our past that are unwholesome or questionable, ques-tionable, and to emphasize the permanent perma-nent Influence of evil things, but It la equally true of our contact with healthy or noble or beautiful things. No experience of life, when It Is past, leaves a aian quite the same as he waa before. One man has climbed Long's peak, or crossed the ocean, or heard a great musician, or seen a beautiful picture, or been under the Influence, even for brief time, of a One character, char-acter, cornea away from the experience with a little different view of lift, broader outlook, a higher conception of duty. He can never sink quite to the level he occupied before. Isaiah Harding, oae of our neighbors neigh-bors when I was a child, had never been outside of the state. He had ploughed and sown and reaped hia crops and had known no other outlook than the broad prairies that stretched endlessly before hlra. Then he visited the Centennial exposition In Philadelphia. Philadel-phia. The trtp cost him one hundred hun-dred and fifty dollars, he confessed con-fessed after he came back. It seemed a small fortune In 1878, but It was worth It all. He waa a new man for the experience, he hd Been a new world, he had had an unexpected vis-Ion vis-Ion and he never tired of telling of It; he never got away from It. It was a trifling experience which sent me to college an Irritating stimulating stimu-lating criticism of my appearance and my Ignorance which I could not quite forget or Ignore. The young fellow who was responsible for the remark had no thought of the effect of till words, I Imagine, but his words bored Into my consciousness and I could never get away from them. Ultimately they changed the whole current of my life and thought y It Is true of all of us. Every emotion emo-tion we feel, every noble generous word we utter or thought we have, every experience that la ours, good or bad, leaves a permanent Impression ipon our lives and characters. No one can ever get away from his 1 past. |