The Wisdom of Sojourner Truth
By Charles Hall Everest
SOJOURNER TRUTH, the celebrated old colored woman, being asked how it was that she had lived so long, answered, that it was because she hadn't "frittered away her mind thinking on little subjects," and there was a real nugget of wisdom in this quaint reply. It is the truth that the common-place, the trivial, and the monotonous experiences of life shrivel and enervate both soul and body. We are accustomed to look upon great crises and emergencies that demand the utmost exercise of decision and executive power and heroic purpose, as being destructive forces. But men were made for grand efforts and destinies, and a man only comes to his normal condition when he is but "a little lower" than an angel in his design and execution. A harp is not injured or enfeebled by the sweep of a master hand and the sounding of soul-stirring chords, but only when it is thrummed by the unskilled; so life is worn, not by the bold, heroic touch, but by the incessant fingering of petty cares.—Charles Hall Everest.