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VOL. IV., NO. S.
PINEHUliST, X. C, DEC. 28, 1900.
PIHCE THREE CENTS
II I HIV l I VII
IQOl.
We offer to the renders of The Out
look our hearty, best wishes for the
New Year and the New Century. Like
little boys and girls in their first arith
metic lesson we begin to write the figure
one. liow many more figures we shall
have to write before the twentieth cen
tury ends for us, who can say? Few
now living will arrive at the lesson when
three nines end it, and they are dismissed
and graduated from this earthly school.
Slowly we learn, slowly gain the wis
dom of this world and an insight of
another life. The years tell us how long
we have lived and only slightly remind
us how many more are our appointed lot.
We live as if we were to live forever.
And this is best; it is an unconscious
evidence that our activities can have no
conclusion, only a change such as Ave
experience in all the years and sometimes
days of our life.
All these years, centuries and every
other division of time, are merely for
convenience. There is actually no such
division. However much we may fore
cast the future or recall the past, time
and action are in a moment which we
call now, and ive can be certain of noth
ing more. Night and day and the sea
sons are the only obvious boundaries that
nature has marked with a definite linger.
As we know not when the world began
to be we have no real point to date from,
and so our modern world agrees upon
various arbitrary first years. With us it
is from the advent of Christianity; with
other people from the reign of some king
or signal event in their history. Hut we
like to think for our individual selves
that we began really to live when we
fell in love, or were married, or a first
child was born. To others life began
when their eyes were opened by religious
experiences, by some new truth, or some
outward accident or event suddenly sur
prised them into new thoughts and a new
manner of life. The New Year's advent
is a good time to remember our past and
make confession to ourselves and our
dearest friends of the influences which
have been the corner stones and turning
points in our careers. And we will set
the example. Our first great day which
has made all subsequent days valuable
was when in an aimless and unprofitable
youth we chanced to read one of Emer
son's books. Now that good fortune has
been the primary cause of all the import
ant steps, all the opportunities, all the
most treasured personal attachments in a
life now past the middle age. Perhaps
it was not more the book that wrought
all this than the time, the circumstances,
the susceptible boy. No matter what
the cause so long as the effects turn out
a benefit. Much slighter things than a
book have had momentous results, as
anyone can recall who knows the history
of men and nations or has been entrusted
with personal confidences. Many of our
readers from the north have probably
heard of the "experience meetings,''
rather more common among the Method
ists than other sects. At those meetings
each one so disposed would relate his
experience, usually of course, of a religi
ous sort. We know an old New Hamp
shire veteran who always attended the
meeting of the Methodists for watching
the old year out and the new year in and
invariably ended his experience with a
confession of his backsliding and a
promise "to do better to-forwards than
he had to-backwards." It is a quaint
phrase yet we can translate it into our
own terms as a resolution for 1901. We
can think of no more entertaining way
of celebrating New Year's Eve than for
a party of friends to gather together in a
private manner, with no spectators, and
each one frankly and simply to relate the
when he states that it is his belief that
si3iieehas contributed as much to the
physical comfort and convenience of
man as is necessary for his well being
and that henceforth the high office of
science will be to interpret the spiritual
truths of which all modern discoveries
and applications are but symbols. Mil
lions cannot buy this; no machinery
can make it; no swiftest railroad can
reach it on time, nor any Congress legis
late it into being, lieyqnd and above all
this there are diviner issues to be grasped
by the human mind before the century
now in front of us can bear the fruits of
which we may be justly proud. Great
things are not to be reckoned by size or
number. The old adage says one is some
times a majority with Cod. Twentj'
yards of a velvet or brocade court train
are not as fine or attractive as the dress
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VILLAGE HALL STAGE.
experience, the event, the book or the
person that has had the most influence
over his life and that has made an epoch
in his intellectual or spiritual tendencies.
Much will be printed as the New Year
opens in review of the nineteenth cen
tury. Its achievements and progress
will be recounted, and we may be sure
of being promised that the twentieth cen
tury will beat the record of the last. We
fear we shall hear of little but material
and scientific movements. There will be
short memories and little space for art
and literature and the finer influences
which in the end shape and over-rule the
destinies of mankind. Expect much brag
over the past. There will also be specu
lations and prophesies of the things
which the new century will see accom
plished. All the while let us not forget
that our civilization, our freedom and
wealth have not yet brought to our doors
the chiefer good without which they
avail nothing. Huxley intimates this
of Indian muslin which can be drawn
through a wedding ring.
So, for our part, we will not boast of
the past nor indulge in extravagant
expectations for the coming century, but
free from care in the pleasant repose of
Pinehurst, greet the New Year with
friendly hopes and invite all the readers
of The Outlook, to begin the year with
the resolution to make it happier and
more profitable than any that have pre
ceded it. Thus shall we help on the
good time which may the end of the
twentieth century see fulfilled. No con
vention, political party, committee, club,
nor legislature can bring it to pass; but
each person working in his own sphere
will at last find himself unconsciously
united with an invincible army.
CliristmaN.
Christmas in Pinehurst began on Mon
day and was ushered in by a soft and
balmy air such as few winter resorts
have. A few thin clouds flecked the
sky, but as the day wore on they sailed
away on a southerly wind to visit our
friends in the north. When Christinas
Eve approached the children's eyes
began to see visions of Santa Claus with
his pack and his great tree twenty feet
high blossoming with all the gifts they
most wished to possess. The evening
sky was filled with long shafts of filmy,
translucent clouds, shaped like scarfs
and feathered arrows extending from
one horizon to the other in a northeast
line to the southwest. These were the
festive decorations which the bright new
moon had selected from her immense
wardrobe of stars, clouds and celestial
colors wherewith to celebrate with old
and young the joyous evening advent of
Christmas.
Santa Claus seems to have remembered
everybody, as the local reporter's graphic
pen will relate in detail to our readers.
The first mail of the day consisted of
four big bags bulging with letters and
packages of all sorts, sizes and shapes.
Two other malls of the day were almost
equally crowded. In addition the express
matter filled the baggage end of the elec
tric car, and our little Clarence, whom
we are always so glad to see approach
ing with Ids colored boy and great
receipt book, was almost buried in tlie
pile of boxes and bundles as they were
discharged from the car and seemed as
happy as if they were all for himself.
This is what came in, and an equal or
greater amount of mail and express went
out from the Pinehurst guests, for both
had been loaded down for a week before
Christmas day. Santa Claus lias a won
derful way of being in two places at
once, and although he seemed to be right
here in Pinehurst; his short, fat legs had
travelled thousands of miles in a twink
ling, and his copius hands had distributed
greetings and gifts to hundreds of friends
separated from us for a brief season. Jiy
his aid and the dear love of our friends
at home as well as the kindness of the
community in which we find ourselves.
Christmas in this pleasant winter retreat
was made entirely happy and memorable.
(reen lMneluirst.
The Pinehurst winters are more or less
green from the abundance of its shrub
bery which never loses its foliage. The
leaves of the rose bushes fall but slowly,
if at all, and some are even still in bloom.
These with the pinks, violets and pansies
always in bloom scare old winter from
the place. Added to this natural greenery
and the flowers this Christmas week has
seen every house festooned with holly,
pine, the bamboo vine and mistletoe.
Parties have been made up to explore
the woods for them, and many boxes of
these and other native green growth
hava been forwarded to friends in the
North as souvenirs of Pinehurst and
tokens of affection. Here the streets