way a great many people look at things. This is what is called
covetousness. Covetous people always want something they have not, and
so they are usually unhappy.

The way to be happy is to think of the things you have, and not of the
things you have not. A man was once told that Cæsar was going to cause
him great unhappiness, and he replied that if Cæsar could blot out the
sun with a blanket he might make him unhappy. But if he had the sun to
shine upon him, he would still be happy. We all have the sun to shine
upon us, and other things a-plenty to be happy over, if we will just
count them up. Let us not be like the little boy crying about the nickel
he did not have.




THE THREE FATES


Boys and girls in ancient Greece believed that there were three fates,
in the form of three women seated above the clouds, who spun the thread
of everyone's life, and cut it off with shears when death came.

We no longer believe in such things, but we still speak of fate. Boys
and girls sometimes say that they are fated to fail in examinations, and
so think they cannot help failing. But that is no more true than the
belief about the three women which the Grecian boys and girls held. As a
matter of fact, nothing outside of us makes evil things happen to us. We
make our own fates. Or shall I say, we _are_ our own fates? Someone has
said, "Our fates lie asleep along the roadside until we waken them."