| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 17 |
Page 2 |
One of the secrets of a happy life is the memory of past favour and good. Some people forget the pleasures and kindnesses that made yesterday glad, and today, when there are only unpleasant things, are overwhelmed and cannot find one thing to make them happy. But if we remember how bright last night’s stars were, tonight, when not a star can be seen, ought not to dismay us. Mr. Charles G. Trumbull tells a beautiful little story which illustrates this. It is an incident of an Austrian watering place.
“‘Ah! But I have the remembers,’ said the young Austrian doctor, with a happy smile. The day was gloomy and dismal, for it was raining hard. The great Kaiserbad, with its white steps and handsome architecture, that shone so gleamingly beautiful under the noonday sun, now looked a dirty yellow as the rain beat upon its sides, and trickled down the ins and outs of its masonry. Few people were to be seen on the streets or in the music gardens and open air cafes of the usually lively little Bohemian resort. Even the peaks of the surrounding Austrian Alps could be seen but dimly through the clouds and fog. If one was ever to be depressed by the weather, it seemed as though the time had come.
“So thought an American visitor, who, on ascending the steps of the Kaiserbad for his customary Swedish gymnastics and bath, had met one of the little physicians in attendance. But only yesterday the Prince of Bulgaria had completed his stay in the village. He had conferred an honourable order upon the chief physician at the Kaiserbad, and had given each of the lesser lights a princely fee as a parting token. No wonder that the spirits of the young doctor were not to be damped by a mere rainy day. So, in response to the American’s ‘Good morning. What disagreeable weather!’ came quickly, in broken English, ‘Ah! But I have the remembers.’ The words and the lesson stayed with those to whom they were afterwards repeated, and the thought of the gloom banishing power of the little doctor’s ‘remembers’ had been more effective and far reaching than perhaps he or the Prince of Bulgaria ever dreamed of.”
Page 2