If we pay attention to history, we will surprise ourselves by the many hidden gems of wisdom we are sure to uncover. While flipping gingerly through my 1877 collection of Dickens’ Works, a birthday gift from my family, my daughter and I discovered several newspaper clippings tucked into the pages. We felt like we had uncovered buried treasure!

This little poem was one of the golden nuggets, and I instantly fell in love with it. Even though it was submitted April 19, 1907, it still applies today. 

Will you choose to smile or sigh?

The Two Sides Of It – Priscilla Leonard

There was a girl who always said

Her fate was very hard;

From the one thing she wanted most

She always was debarred.

There always was a cloudy spot

Nothing was ever quite just right,

She used to always say and sigh.

And yet her sister, strange to say,

Whose lot was quite the same,

Found something pleasant for herself

In every day that came;

Of course, things tangled up sometimes

For just a little while;

But nothing every stayed all wrong,

She used to say and smile.

So one girl sighed, and one girl smiled

Through all their lives together;

It didn’t come from luck or fate,

From clear or cloudy weather.

The reason lay within their hearts,

And colored all outside;

One chose to hope, and one chose to mope,

And so they smiled and sighed.