---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 4
published: 1899-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Editor’s Table: Notes,\" *Improvement Era* 2, no. 4 (February 1899): 313."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera24unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera24unse
start_page: 313
end_page: 313
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera24unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Editor’s Table: Notes

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It is best to be ourselves. To ape the mannerism of another is not
the wise way to grow. If we devote ourselves to the cultivation of a
right spirit within, our outward ways will have truest attractiveness.
Hope is a duty as well as a comfort. He who ceases to look forward
to the future with hope ceases to work with a will in the present. As
long as we have work to do or burdens to carry, let us hope for something
better than is now in our possession. We ought not to be satisfied with,
though we have to be contented in, that which the present gives us.
It is a beautiful world once we learn how to live. There is beauty
in every menial duty, there is inspiration in every hardship and sacrifice,
if only once we learn that each hardship and each sacrifice form but one
more stepping-stone that lifts us up above the level of the commonplace
and nearer the heights of divine endurance that makes life a glorification
of the spirit.
Those who push themselves forward, recounting their own deeds and
successes, and claiming the applause and gratitude of the world, are by
no means the greatest benefactors of their race. Often indeed they are
wearing the stolen plumage of their more modest brothers who have done
great deeds without notice or eclat, and are contented to be what the
others greatly wish to appear.
When it comes to be realized by the great majority of the universe
that severity and harshness are usually the result of a poverty of intellect
that fails to comprehend human nature, and that charity, sympathy,
gentleness, and good feeling are the sure fruits, not only of a kindly
heart, but of an educated brain, a long step will have been taken towards
the increase of human welfare and happiness.
The lesson, not of stoicism, but of quiet manly endurance, is one
which is much needed in this sympathetic age. Especially is this the
case in all the smaller miseries of life. Every one has petty vexations,
annoyances, disappointments, hindrances, aches of both body and mind,
some of which can be remedied and others only endured, but none of
which he has any right to add to the load which his neighbor has to carry.
A due regard to the comfort of others and also to his own dignity
demand that such things be relegated to silence, and not suffered to
intrude upon and spoil seasons of intercourse which might otherwise be
gladdening and elevating.