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Updated: May 14, 2025
Thus went the days by, the weeks and the months; four days in the front line, the harassing journey to and from it, the monotonous sentry-go, the spy-hole on the plain, the mesmerism of the empty outlook and of the deserts of waiting; and after that, four days of rest-camp full of marches and parades and great cleansings of implements and of streets, with regulations of the strictest, anticipating all the different occasions for punishment, a thousand fatigues, each with as many harsh knocks, the litany of optimist phrases, abstruse and utopian, in the orders of the day, and a captain who chiefly concerned himself with the two hundred cartridges and the reserve rations.
When this proposal was first mooted it was regarded as a counsel of perfection, and Mr O'Brien was looked upon as a genial visionary or a well-meaning optimist. But nobody thought it was a demand that the Government or Parliament would agree to. Happily, however, for the foresight of Mr O'Brien, it was his much-derided bonus scheme which became the very pivot of the Land Conference Report.
"You're an incurable optimist, my boy." "It isn't optimism this time. It's our big stick." "Didn't know we had one." "Do you remember House Bill 19?" "No. What's that got to do with it?" "It slipped through early in the session. Anderson introduced it. Nobody paid any attention to it because he's a back country Swede and his bill was very wordy. The governor signed it to-day.
Any sign of weakening would be ruinous in its effect on his subordinates. The citadel of his egoism must remain unassailable. He must be the optimist, the front of Jove, for all. When he called his chiefs of divisions it was hardly for a staff council.
Aunt Jane spoke at last, and her words were an echo of my thought. "There's lots of satisfactory things in this world, child," she said, beaming at me over her spectacles with the smile of the optimist who is born, not made. "There's a satisfaction in roundin' off the toe of a stockin', like I'm doin' now, and knowin' that your work's goin' to keep somebody's feet warm next winter.
The true optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary "Indignant Ratepayer" who sees in them an opportunity for grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be supported, but scarcely enjoyed.
"But it only costs a dime, which is little enough the hired enthusiast, indeed, stationed just outside the entrance, reminds us over and over again that it is only 'the tenth part of a dollar, and he sometimes adds that 'it will neither make nor break nor set a man up in business. He is a flagrant optimist in small money matters, ever looking on the bright side."
"The ship is rolling frightfully, and Lieutenant Hamilton has said enough to assure us that Captain Shadburn is alarmed, even apprehensive." "Perhaps I am too much of an optimist, but I stick to my statement that while we are in some danger any fool can see that we are by no means lost," said Hugh, looking at Gregory when he used the word fool.
The Serb and the Greek differ in most essentials. The one is by habit and training a good soldier, a proverbial idler, an easygoing optimist endowed with genial temper and a happy-go-lucky nature, capable indeed of extremes, yet mostly inclined to the tolerant indifference that leaves things as they are; the other, whose martial qualities have vanished in the melting pot of time, has developed the defensive traits that come to the aid of all races who can no longer maintain their cause in the tented field.
Optimist, on your opinions," quoth I, "but your observation leads me to suppose, that you are both an historian and a traveller: am I right?" "Why," answered the box-bearer, "I have dabbled a little in books, and wandered not a little among men. I am just returned from Germany, and am now going to my friends in London. I am charged with this box of goods; God send me the luck to deliver it safe."
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