The Girl Wanted: A Book of Friendly Thoughts (2024)

Copyright, 1910, By
Forbes and Company

PREFACE

The pleasure of giving to the public this volume hasbeen brought about by the publication of the author’s work entitled,"Boy Wanted," which he presented as "a book of cheerful counselto his young friends and such of the seniors as are not too old to accept a bitof friendly admonition."

The warm welcome accorded that book, and the manyrequests it has called forth for a similar companion volume for girls, hasprompted the author to prepare the series of papers offered herewith, with thehope that they, too, may find as many youthful friends (between the ages ofseven and seventy) awaiting them.

In the present volume, as in "Boy Wanted,"the fine prose thoughts are selected from the writings of a very large numberof the world’s foremost teachers and philosophers of all times, while theauthor, with a due sense of modesty, lays claim to all such examples ofversification as are to be found within this book.

In these days when the women of the world, with suchsplendid success, are writing books for the moral guidance and spiritual upliftof the men and youth of every land, an author need not feel called upon toapologize when he presumes to address his remarks to readers of the oppositesex, as did John Ruskin, to such fine purpose, in the "Pearls for YoungLadies."

Since his own mother, wife, sisters, daughters andmany of his best friends belong to the feminine half of humanity, any man whois a careful observer, a logical reasoner, and an adequate writer ought to beable to say something of worth and interest to the women and girls to whom heis permitted to address himself. If in this volume the author is able to impartto others, in a small degree, the beneficent influence he has received throughthe splendid precepts and noble examples of the women to whom he owes so much,he will deem himself grandly rewarded for the labor of love herein setforth.

Nor is the author unconscious of the great purposethat should underlie the writing of a series of papers designed to direct thedaughters of our land toward the greatest factor in the making and theperpetuity of a nation—a noble and beautiful womanhood. For observationhas taught the world that—

We’re almost sure to find good men,
When, all in all, we choose to take them,
Are, nearly nine times out of ten,
What mothers, wives and sisters make them.

N. W.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

13

What can be expressed in words can be expressed inlife.—Thoreau.Yes,my good girl, I am very glad that we are to have the opportunity to enjoy afriendly chat through the medium of the printed page, with its many tongues oftype.

It is faith in something and enthusiasm for somethingthat makes a life worth looking at.—Oliver Wendell Holmes. Just here Ihave a favor to ask of you, and that is that you will consent to let us talkchiefly about yourself and the manner in which you are going to live all thegolden to-morrows that are awaiting you.

The habit of viewing things cheerfully, and ofthinking about life hopefully, may be made to grow up in us like any otherhabit.—Smiles. In adiscussion of the topics which are to follow, it will be well for you tounderstand that there has never been a period in the world’s history whena girl was of more importance than she is just now. Indeed, many closeobservers and clear thinkers are of the opinion that there 14 never has been atime when a girl was of A laugh is worth a hundredgroans in any state of the market.—Charles Lamb. quite so much importanceas she is to-day.

Some of our most able writers tell us that we are just on the threshold of"the women’s century," and that the great advance the world isto witness in the forthcoming years is to be largely inspired by, and redoundto the glory of, the women of the earth.

The old days never come again, because they would begetting in the way of the new, better days whose turn it is.—George MacDonald. Come what will, thefuture is sufficiently alluring to cause you to cherish it most fondly and todetermine that you will make the years that are before you as bright andbeautiful and as "worth while" as it is possible for you to do.

It is a glorious privilege to dwell in the very forefront of time, in thegrandest epoch of the world’s history and to feel that we are permittedto be observers of, and if it may so be, active participants in, thefascinating events that are occurring all about us.

The man who has learned to take things as they come,and to let go as they depart, has mastered one of the arts of cheerful andcontented living.—Anonymous. Yet with all the grandachievements that are being encompassed in every field of human endeavor, theworld to-day, needs most, that which the world has ever most needed—wordshelpful and true, hearts kind and tender, hands 15 willing andready to lift the less fortunate over the rough places in the paths of life,goodness and grace, gentle women and gentlemen.

Cheerfulness is the very flower ofhealth.—Schopenhauer. And so here we findourselves, just at this particular spot and at this very moment, with all ofthe days, months, years—yes, the whole of eternity—still to belived!

There are people who do not know how to waste theirtime alone, and hence become the scourge of busy people.—De Bonald. At first thought it seemslike a great problem, does this having to decide how we are going to live outall the great future that is before us. Yet, when we come to think it over, wesee that it is not so difficult after all; for, fortunate mortals that we are,we shall never have to live it but one moment at a time. And, better still,that one moment is always to be the one that is right here and just now wherewe can see it and study it and shape it and do with it as we will.

Just this minute!

Not what has happened to myself to-day, but what hashappened to others through me—that should be my thought.—Frederick DeeringBlake. Surely it will not require a great deal of effort on thepart of any one of us to live the next sixty seconds as they should be lived.And having lived one moment properly, it ought to be still easier for us tolive the next one as well, and then the next, and the next until, 16 finally, wecontinue to live them rightly, just as a matter of habit.

Let us be of good cheer, remembering that themisfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.—Lowell. When we come to understandclearly that time is the thing of which lives are made, and that time isdivided into a certain number of units, we can then pretty closely figure out,by simple processes in arithmetic, how much life is going to be worth tous.

What we are doing this minute, multiplied by sixty, tells us what we arelikely to accomplish in an hour.

The highest luxury of which the human mind issensible is to call smiles upon the face of misery.—Anonymous. What we do in an hour,multiplied by the number of working hours in every twenty-four, tells us whatwe may expect to achieve in a day.

What we do in a day, multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five, shows uswhat it is probable we shall accomplish in a year.

He who is plenteously provided for from within, needsbut little from without.—Goethe. What we do in a year, whenmultiplied by the number of years of youth and health and strength, we havereason to believe are yet before us, sets forth the result we may hope tosecure in a lifetime. For it is not hard for us to comprehend that.Each day should be distinguished by at least oneparticular act of love.—Lavater. 17

If, ever, while this minute’shere,
We use it circ*mspectly,
We’ll live this hour, this day, this year,
Yes, all our lives, correctly.

As the work of the builder is preceded by the plans of the architect, so thedeeds we do in life are preceded by the thoughts we think. The thought is theplan; the deed is the structure.

Every person is responsible for all the good withinthe scope of his abilities, and for no more; and none can tell whose sphere isthe largest.—GailHamilton. "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined."Wordsworth tells us: "The child is father of the man." Which means,also, that the child is mother of the woman. That which we dream to-day we maydo to-morrow. The toys of childhood become the tools of our maturer years.

So it follows that an important part of the work and occupation ofone’s early years should be to learn to have right thoughts, which, lateron in life, are to become right actions.

Work is the very salt of life, not only preserving itfrom decay, but also giving it tone and flavor.—Hugh Black. The pleasant, helpful girlis most likely to become the pleasant, helpful woman. The seed that is sown inthe springtime of life determines the character of the harvest that must bereaped in the autumn. 18

Treat your friends for what you know them to be.Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what theyintended.—Thoreau.The cultivation of the right point of view means so much in determiningone’s attitude toward all that the years may bring. Three centuries agoit was written: "What is one man’s poison is another’s meat ordrink." So there are many things in life that bring pleasure to some anddistress to others.

Work! It is the sole law of theworld.—Emile Zola.There is a beautiful little story about a shepherd boy who was keeping hissheep in a flowery meadow, and because his heart was happy, he sang so loudlythat the surrounding hills echoed back his song. One morning the king, who wasout hunting, spoke to him and said: "Why are you so happy, myboy?"

"Why should I not be happy?" answered the boy. "Our king isnot richer than I."

"Indeed," said the king, "pray tell me of your greatpossessions."

No lot is so hard, no aspect of things is so grim,but it relaxes before a hearty laugh.— George S. Merriam. The shepherd boyanswered: "The sun in the bright blue sky shines as brightly upon me asupon the king. The flowers upon the mountain and the grass in the valley growand bloom to gladden my sight as well as his. I would not take a fortune for myhands; my eyes are of more value than all the precious stones 19 in the world. Ihave food and clothing, too. Am I not, therefore, as rich as theking?"

Concentration is the secret ofstrength.—Emerson."You are right," said the king, with a smile, "but your greatesttreasure is your contented heart. Keep it so, and you will always behappy."

Anybody can do things with an"if"—the thing is to do them without.—Patrick Flynn. So much of life’shappiness depends upon one’s immediate surroundings that wherever it is amatter of choice they should be made to conform as nearly as possible to thethoughts and tastes one wishes to cultivate. As a matter of course but fewpersons can have just the surroundings they would like, but it An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is notto be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.—R. L. Stevenson. is possible that bypleasant thinking all of us can make the surroundings we have more likable. Wecan, at least, be thoughtful of the character of the friends and companions wechoose to have with us, and it is they who are the most vital and influentialpart of our

ENVIRONMENT

It is betterto be worn out with work in a thronged community than to perish of inaction ina stagnant solitude.—Mrs.Gaskell. Shine or shadow, flame or frost,
Zephyr-kissed or tempest-tossed,
Night or day, or dusk or dawn,
We are strangely lived upon.

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Mystic builders in thebrain—
Mirth and sorrow, joy and pain,
Grief and gladness, gloom and light—
Build, oh, build my heart aright!

O ye friends, with pleasantsmiles,
Help me build my precious whiles;
Bring me blocks of gold to make
Strength that wrong shall never shake.

Day by day I gather from
All you give me. I become
Yet a part of all I meet
In the fields and in the street.

The advantageof leisure is mainly that we have the power of choosing our own work; notcertainly that it confers any privilege of idleness.—Lord Avebury. Bring me songs of hopeand youth,
Bring me bands of steel and truth,
Bring me love wherein to find
Charity for all mankind.

Place within my hands thetools
And the Master Builder’s rules,
That the walls we fashion may
Stand forever and a day.

Help me build a palace where
All is wonderfully fair—
Built of truth, the while, above,
Shines the pinnacle of love.

Suffering becomes beautiful, when any one bears greatcalamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatnessof mind.—Aristotle.If we are to receive help and strength from our friends we must lend them helpand strength in return. And since the deeds of others inspire us we should21 notdeem it impossible to make our deeds inspire them.

Helen Keller, who, though deaf and Character is aperfectly educated will.—Novalis. blind, has achieved so manywonderful and beautiful victories over the barriers that have beset her, says:"My share in the work of the world may be limited, but the fact that it iswork makes it precious.... Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yetin many diligent half-hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy....Green, the historian, tells us that the world is moved along, not only by themighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes ofeach honest worker."

One of the most massive and enduring gratificationsis the feeling of personal worth, ever afresh, brought into consciousness byeffectual action; and an idle life is balked of its hopes partly because itlacks this.—HerbertSpencer. In the same spirit the great French savant, Emile Zola,penned these words: "Let each one accept his task, a task which shouldfill his life. It may be very humble; it will not be the less useful. Nevermind what it is, so long as it exists and keeps you erect! When you haveregulated it, without excess—just the quantity you are able to accomplisheach day—it will cause you to live in health and in joy."

22

Truth is always consistent with itself, and needsnothing to help it out.—Tillotson. Some wise observer has saidthat one of the chief aims of life should be to learn how to grow oldgracefully. This knowledge is deemed by many to be a great secret and a mostvaluable one. Yet it can hardly be called a secret since every girl and boy aswell as every person He that is choice of his time willbe choice of his company and choice of his actions.—Jeremy Taylor. of maturer years mustknow that it is but the working out of the laws of cause and effect. Whencharacter-building is begun on the right lines and those lines are followed tothe end the result is as certain as it is beautiful. When we see a grandmotherwhose life has been lived on the happy plane of pure thoughts and kind deeds weought not to wonder that her old age is as exquisite as was the perfect bloomof her youth. We need not marvel how it has come about that her life has been along and happy one. Here is the "secret:"

She knew how to forget disagreeable things.

She kept her nerves well in hand and inflicted them on no one.

She mastered the art of saying pleasant things.

Our character is our will; for what we will weare.—ArchbishopManning. She did not expect too much from her friends.

She made whatever work came to her congenial. 23

She retained her faith in others and did not believe all the world wickedand unkind.

He overcomes a stout enemy that overcomes his ownanger.—Chilo. Sherelieved the miserable and sympathized with the sorrowful.

She never forgot that kind words and a smile cost nothing, but are pricelesstreasures to the discouraged.

Good company and good conversation are the sinews ofvirtue.—StephenAllen. She did unto others as she would be done by, and now thatold age has come to her, and there is a halo of white hair about her brow, sheis loved and considered. This is the "secret" of a long life and ahappy one.

If you have great talents, industry will improvethem; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.Nothing is denied to well directed labor; nothing is to be obtained withoutit.—Joshua Reynolds.Fortunate is the girl who is permitted to dwell within the living presence ofsuch a matron and to be directed by her into the paths of usefulness andsunshine. And thrice fortunate is every girl who has for her guide andcounselor a loving mother to whom she can go for light and wisdom with which tomeet all the problems of life.

"Mother knows." Her earnest, loving words are to be cherishedabove all others as many men and many women have learned after the long milesand If you are doing any real good you cannot escape thereward of your service.—PatrickFlynn. the busy years have crept between them and "the oldfolks at home." Do not, 24 O Girl! I pray you, ever grow impatient, as boyssometimes do, to be set beyond the protecting care of

MOTHER’S APRON-STRINGS

Simplicityand plainness are the soul of elegance.—Dickens. When I was but a carelessyouth,
I thought the truly great
Were those who had attained, in truth,
To man’s mature estate.
And none my soul so sadly tried
Or spoke such bitter things
As he who said that I was tied
To mother’s apron-strings.

I loved my mother, yet itseemed
That I must break away
And find the broader world I dreamed
Beyond her presence lay.
But I have sighed and I have cried
O’er all the cruel stings
I would have missed had I been tied
To mother’s apron-strings.

Happiness isone of the virtues which the people of all nationalities and every pursuitappreciate.—Joe MitchellChapple. O happy, trustful girls and boys!
The mother’s way is best.
She leads you ’mid the fairest joys,
Through paths of peace and rest.
If you would have the safest guide,
And drink from sweetest springs,
Oh, keep your hearts forever tied
To mother’s apron-strings.

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CHAPTER II
ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Only to the pure and the true does Nature resignherself and reveal her secrets.—Goethe. I am sure that every girlwishes to become accomplished, and I am quite as certain that every girl canbecome so if she will.

My dictionary defines an accomplishment as an "acquirement orattainment that tends to perfect or equip in character, manners, orperson."

Every man carries with him the world in which he mustlive, the stage and the scenery for his own play.— F. Marion Crawford. Surely every girlcan do something, or has acquired some special line of knowledge, that iscovered by this broad definition.

It means that every girl who can sweep a room; read French or GermanThe best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more tomore.—Sam WalterFoss. or English as it should be read; bake a loaf of bread; playtennis; darn a stocking; play the violin or pianoforte; give the names offlowers and birds and butterflies; write a neat, well-composed letter, eitherin longhand or shorthand; draw or paint pictures; make a bed or 28Notwithstanding a faculty be born with us, there are several methodsfor cultivating and improving it.—Addison. do one or more of a thousandand one other things is accomplished. The more things she can do and thegreater the number of subjects on which she is informed, the more highly is sheaccomplished.

It is understood, as a matter of course, that thoroughness in one’saccomplishments is the true measure of his worth. One who knows a few subjectsvery well is no doubt more accomplished than one who has only a superficial"smatter" of knowledge concerning many.

Every truth in the universe makes a close joint withevery other truth.—Melvin L.Severy. We can all readily understand how much more pleasing itis to hear a true virtuoso play the violin or pianoforte than it is to listento a beginner who can perform indifferently on a number of instruments.

"A little diamond is worth a mountain of glass."

Quality is the thing that counts.

All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie,of which a man ought to be ashamed.—John Stuart Blackie. The desire anddisposition to do a thing well, coupled with a firm determination, are prettysure to bring the ability necessary for achieving the wished-for end. The willis lacking more often than is the way.

29

When we cease to learn, we cease to beinteresting.—John LancasterSpalding. It is a matter of frequent comment that we usuallyexpect too much of the average young and attractive girl in the way ofaccomplishments. Because she is pleasing in her general appearance we are aptto feel a sense of disappointment if we find that her qualities of mind do notequal her outward charms.

The workless people are the worthlesspeople.—Wm. C.Gannett. Charles Lamb says: "I know that sweet children arethe sweetest things in nature," and adds, "but the prettier the kindof a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of itskind." And so it is with girls who are bright and blithe and beautiful;the world would give them every charming quality of mind and heart to match thegrace of face and figure.

Hence we find that the girl who is most fondly wanted, by the members of herown family, by her schoolmates, and by all with whom she shall form anacquaintance, is the one who is as pleasing in her manners as she is beautifulin her physical features.

Our ideals are our better selves.—Bronson Alcott. Of all theaccomplishments it is possible for a girl to possess, that of being pleasantand gracious to those about her is the greatest and most desirable. "Thereis no beautifier of the complexion, 30

All literature, art, and science are vain, and worse,if they do not enable you to be glad, and glad, justly.—Ruskin. or form, or behavior, like thewish to scatter joy and not pain around us," says Emerson.

It is possible for persons to acquire a great deal of information and tobecome skillful in many things and still be unloved by those with whom they areassociated.

All things else are of the earth, but love is of thesky.—William StanleyBraithwaite. The heart needs to be educated even more than themind, for it is the heart that dominates and colors and gives character andmeaning to the whole of life. Even the kindest of words have little meaningunless there is a kind heart to make them stand for something that willlive.

To fill the hour, that ishappiness.—Emerson."You will find as you look back upon your life," says Drummond,"that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived,are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scansthe past, above and beyond all the transitory Ah, wellthat in a wintry hour the heart can sing a summer song.—Edward Francis Burns. pleasures oflife, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to dounnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to speakabout, but which you feel have entered into your eternal 31 Avast there! Keep a bright lookout forward and good luck toyou.—Dickens. life... Everything else in our lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary.But the acts of love which no man knows about, or can ever knowabout—they never fail."

It is the ability to do the many little acts of kindness, and to make themost of all the opportunities for gladding the lives of others, that constitutethe finest accomplishment any girl can acquire.

It often happens that the thought of the great kindnesses we should like todo, and which we mean to do, "sometime" in the days to come, keeps usfrom seeing the many little favors we could, if we would, grant to those justabout us at the present time. Yet we all know that it is not the things we aregoing to do that really count. It is the thing that we do do that is worthwhile.

No doubt we should all be much more thoughtful of our many presentopportunities and make better use of them were we frequently to askourselves,

32

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO-DAY?

Genius is thetranscendent capacity for taking trouble first of all.—Carlyle. We shall do so much in theyears to come,
But what have we done to-day?
We shall give our gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give to-day?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
For dreams, to those of steadfast hope and will, arethings wherewith they build their world of fact.—Alicia K. Van Buren. We shall plant ahope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer;
But what did we speak to-day?

We shall be so kind in the afterwhile,
But what have we been to-day?
Love is the leaven of existence.—Melvin L. Severy. We shall bring eachlonely life a smile,
But what have we brought to-day?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth;
But whom have we fed to-day?

No man canrest who has nothing to do.—SamWalter Foss. We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown to-day?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built to-day?
’T is sweet in idle dreams to bask,
But here and now do we do our task?
Yes, this is the thing our souls must ask,
"What have we done to-day?"

Among the every-day accomplishments which everyone should wish to possess isa knowledge of the fine art of smiling. To know how and when to smile, not toomuch and not too little, is a fine mental and social possession.

33

Work is no disgrace but idlenessis.—Hesiod.Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smilethat children love." Any one possessing a smile that children as well asothers may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face is of greatworth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged to look upon it.

Shoddy work is not only a wrong to a man’s ownpersonal integrity, hurting his character; but also it is a wrong to society.Truthfulness in work is as much demanded as truthfulness in speech.—Hugh Black. A smile is anindication that the one who is smiling is happy and every happy person helps tomake every one else happy. Yet we all understand that happiness does not meansmiling all the time. There is truly nothing more distressing than a giggler orone who is forever grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our mostcheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and theThe flowering of civilization is in the finished man,the man of sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power—thegentleman.—Ralph WaldoEmerson. little, smiling lines in the face that are so quicklyand easily distinguished from the lines produced by depression and frowningthat grow deeper and deeper until they become as hard and severe as if theywere cut in stone." Such happiness is one of the virtues which people ofall classes and ages, the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not knowwhat ripples of healing are set in motion," It isall very well to growl at the cold-heartedness of the world, but which of uscan truthfully say that he has done as much for others as others have done forhim?—Patrick Flynn.says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smile on one another. Christianity34wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people."

Most persons are very quick to see whether or not a smile is genuine or ismanufactured and put on like a mask for the occasion. The automatic,stock-in-trade smile hardly ever fits the face that tries to wear it. It is alittle too wide or sags at the corners or something else is wrong A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work,and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him nopeace.—Emerson. withit.

A smile may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door; it may be"sweeter than honey," but the instant we detect that it is notgenuine, it loses its charm and becomes, in fact, much worse than no smile atall. Smiles that are genuine are always just right both in quality andquantity. So the only really safe rule is for us not to smile until we feellike it and then we shall get on all right. And we ought to feel like smilingSome people meet us like the mountain air and thrill oursouls with freshness and delight.— Nathan Haskell Dole. whenever we lookinto the honest face of any fellow being. A smile passes current in everycountry as a mark of distinction.

But it is even possible to overdo in the matter of smiling. "Ican’t think of anything more irritating to the average human being,"says Lydia Horton 35 Knowles, "than an incessant, everlasting smile.There are people who have it. When things go wrong they have a patient,martyr-like smile, and when things go right they have a dutifully pleasantsmile which has all the appearance of being I let thewilling winter bring his jeweled buds of frost and snow.—Edward Francis Burns. mechanical, andpurely a pose. Now I think the really intelligent person is the one who canlook as though he realized the significance of various incidents or happeningsand who can look sorrowful, even, if the occasion demands it. It is not apleasant thing The world is unfinished; let’s moldit a bit.—Sam WalterFoss. to suffer mentally or physically, for instance, and haveany one come up to you with a smile of patient, sweet condolence. The averageman or woman does not want smiles when he or she is uncomfortable. We are aptto remember that it is easy enough to smile when it is somebody else who hasthe pain. I venture to say that a smile given at the wrong moment is far moreOur wishes are presentiments of the capabilities whichlie within us and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition toperform.—Goethe.dangerous to human happiness than the lack of a smile at any givenpsychological moment. There is a time and a place for all things, even asmile."

No expression of feeling is of much moment without a warm heart and an36Do not let us overlook the waysideflowers.—Joe MitchellChapple. intelligent thought behind it. The seemingly mechanical,automatic expressions of feeling and of interest in our affairs are sometimeseven harder to bear than an out and out attitude of indifference. The thingthat really warms and moves us is a touch of heartfelt, intelligent

SYMPATHY

Quiet mindscannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at theirown private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.—R. L. Stevenson. When the clouds beginto lower,
That’s a splendid time to smile;
But your smile will lose its power
If you’re smiling all the while.
Now and then a sober season,
Now and then a jolly laugh:
We like best, and there’s a reason,
A good, wholesome half and half.

The wealth ofa man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, and by which he isloved and blessed.— Carlyle. When the other one hastrouble,
We should feel that trouble, too,
For, were we with joy to bubble
’Mid his grief, ’t would hardly do.
Let us own that keen discerning
That can see and bear a part;
For the whole wide world is yearning
For a sympathetic heart.

Nothing is more restful and refreshing than a friendly glance or a kindlyword offered to us in the midst of our daily rounds of duty. And since we arenot 37The stoical scheme of supplyingour wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we wantshoes.—JonathanSwift. often in a position to grant great favors we should notfail to cultivate the habit of bestowing small ones whenever we can. It is ingiving the many little lifts along the way that we shall be able to lightenmany burdens.

I do not know it to be a fact, but I have read it somewhere in the booksthat the human heart rests nine hours out of every twenty-four. It manages tosteal little bits of rest between beats, and thus it is ever refreshed and ableto go on performing the work nature has assigned for it to do.

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doingwell.—LordChesterfield. And therein is a first-rate lesson for mostpersons, who if they cannot do something of considerable moment are disposed todo nothing at all. They forget Indulge not in vainregrets for the past, in vainer resolves for the future—act, act in thepresent.— F. W.Robertson. that it is the brief three-minute rests that enablethe mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the top whereas longer periodsof inactivity might serve to stiffen his limbs and impede his progress.

Wise are they who, like the human heart, sprinkle rest and kindness andheart’s-ease all through their daily tasks. They weave a bright thread ofthankful happiness through the web 38The past cannot bechanged. The future is yet in our power.—Hugh White. and woof of life’spattern. They are never too busy to say a kind word or to do a gentle deed.They may be compelled to sigh betimes, but amid their sighs are smiles thatdrive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in the trail of every cloud.They gather flowers where others see nothing but weeds. They pluck littlesprigs of rest where others find only thorns of distress.

The man who cannot be practical and mix his religionwith his business is either in the wrong religion or in the wrongbusiness.—PatrickFlynn. After the manner of the human heart, they make much of thelittle opportunities presented to them. They rest that they may have strengthfor others. They gather sunshine with which to dispel the shadows aboutthem.

The I don’t think there is a pleasure in theworld that can be compared with an honest joy in conquering a difficulttask.—Margaret E.Sangster. grandest conception of life is to esteem it as anopportunity for making others happy. He who is most true to his higher self istruest to the race. The lamp that shines brightest gives the most light to allabout it. Thoreau says: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly toexclude yourself from the true enjoyment of life."

Every right action and true thought sets the seal ofits beauty on every person’s face; every wrong action and foul thoughtit* seal of distortion.—Ruskin. He is, indeed, a correctobserver and a careful student of human nature who tells us that the face issuch an index of character that the very growth of the 39latter can betraced upon the former, and most of the successive lines that carve thefurrowed face of age out of the smooth outline of childhood are engraveddirectly or indirectly by mind. There is no beautifier of the face like abeautiful spirit.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of otherscannot keep it from themselves.—J.M. Barrie. So we see that if we have acquired the habit ofwearing a pleasant face, or of smiling honestly and cheerfully, we have anaccomplishment that is worth more than many others that are more pretentiousand more superficial. If to this accomplishment we can add another—theability to speak a pleasant word to those whom we may meet—we are not tothink poorly of our equipment for life.

There is a good, old-fashioned word in the dictionary, the study of which,with its definition, is well worth our while. Politenessis like an air cushion; there may be nothing in it, but it eases the joltswonderfully.— GeorgeEliot. The word is "Complaisance," and it is defined as"the disposition, action, or habit of being agreeable, or conforming tothe views, wishes, or convenience of others; desire or endeavor to please;courtesy; politeness."

Complaisance, as it has been truly said, renders a superior amiable, anequal agreeable, an inferior acceptable. It 40Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all thingseasy.—BenjaminFranklin. sweetens conversation; it produces good-nature andmutual benevolence; it encourages the timid, soothes the turbulent, humanizesthe fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusionof savages.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there isno happiness without action.—Disraeli. Politeness has been definedas society’s method of making things run smoothly. True complaisance is amore intimate quality. It is an impulse to seek points of agreement withothers. A spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions,untried pleasures, fresh impressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactiveas long as there is anybody to please or to make more comfortable.

The complaisant person need not be lacking in will, in determination, orindividuality. In fact it is the complaisant We wouldwillingly have others perfect and yet we amend not our ownfaults.—Thomas àKempis. person’s strength of will that holds in check andharmonizes all the other traits of character and moulds them into a perfectlybalanced disposition.

Complaisance rounds off the sharp corners, chooses softer and gentler wordsand makes it easy and pleasant for all to dwell together in unity. And it neverfails to contribute something to 41The most manifold sign ofwisdom is continued cheer.—Montaigne. the enjoyment of everyoneeven though it be

ONLY A WORD

There is onlyone cure for public distress—and that is public education, directed tomake men thoughtful, merciful, and just.—Ruskin. Tell me something that willbe
Joy through all the years to me.
Let my heart forever hold
One divinest grain of gold.
Just a simple little word,
Yet the dearest ever heard;
Something that will bring me rest
When the world seems all distressed.

To believe abusiness impossible is the way to make it so.—Wade. As the candle in the night
Sends abroad its cheerful light,
So a little word may be
Like a lighthouse in the sea.
When the winds and waves of life
Fill the breast with storm and strife,
Just one star my boat may guide
To the harbor, glorified.

45

CHAPTER III
THE JOY OF DOING

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what thepeople think.—Emerson. Half-way, half-hearted doingsnever amount to much. Battles are not won with flags at half-mast. No, they arerun up to the very tops of their standards and are waved as far toward theheavens as is possible.

Gentle words, quiet words, are, after all, the mostpowerful words.—WashingtonGladden. If we lack enthusiasm we are almost as certain to failof achieving an end as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing thegrade. Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long asthe path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comes tohill-climbing and the real experiences of life that serve to develop character,it is likely to give up the contest and surrender the prize it might win toother and more earnest competitors.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good forsomething.—Thoreau."If you would get the best results, do your work with enthusiasm as wellas fidelity," says Dr. Lyman Abbott. "Only he can who thinks hecan!" says Orison 46Swett Marden. "The world makes way only for thedetermined man who laughs at barriers which limit others, at stumbling-blocksover which others fall. The Nothing will be mended bycomplaints.—Johnson.man who, as Emerson says, ’hitches his wagon to a star,’ is morelikely to arrive at his goal than the one who trails in the slimy path of thesnail."

Peace! Peace! How sweet the word and tender! Its verysound should wrangling discord still.—Nathan Haskell Dole. Every girl knowsthat the girl friends whom she loves best are the ones who are alive to theworld about them and who feel an enthusiasm in the tasks and privileges thatconfront them.

Enthusiasm is the breeze that fills the sails and sends the ship glidingover the happy waves. It is the joy of doing things and of seeing that thingsare well done. It gives to work a thoroughness and a delicious zest and to playa whole-souled, health-giving delight.

The Spartans did not inquire how many the enemy are,but where they are.—AgisII. Only they who find joy in their work can live the larger andnobler life; for without work, and work done joyously, life must remain dwarfedand undeveloped. "If you would have sunlight in your home," writesStopford Brooke, "see that you have work in it; that you work yourself,and set others to work. Nothing makes moroseness and 47The man in whom others believe is a power, but if he believes inhimself he is doubly powerful.—Willis George Emerson.heavy-heartedness in a house so fast as idleness. The very children gloom andsulk if they are left with nothing to do. If all have their work, they have notonly their own joy in creating thought, in making thought into form, in drivingon something to completion, but they have the joy of ministering to themovement of the whole house, when they feel that Thesecrecy of success is constancy to purpose.—Disraeli. what they do is part of aliving whole. That in itself is sunshine. See how the face lights up, how thestep is quickened, how the whole man or child is a different being from theweary, aimless, lifeless, complaining being who had no work! It is all thedifference between life and death."

We Men talk about the indignity of doing work that isbeneath them, but the only indignity that they should care for is the indignityof doing nothing.—W. R.Haweis. must play life’s sweet keys if we would keep themin tune. Charles Kingsley says: "Thank God every morning when you get upthat you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like itor not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in youtemperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness andcontent, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know."48

All Share your happiness with others, but keep yourtroubles to yourself.—PatrickFlynn. the introspective thinkers of the world have agreed thatnothing else is so hard to do as is "nothing." It is unwholesome forone to have more leisure than a mere breathing spell now and then for thepurpose of setting to work once more with renewed energy.

Neither days, nor lives can be made noble or holy bydoing nothing in them.—Ruskin. They who work with theirhearts as well as their hands do not grow tired. A labor of love is a labor ofgrowing delight. "The moment toil is exchanged for leisure," writesMunger, "a gate is opened to vice. When wealth takes off Use thy youth as the springtime, wherein thou oughtest to plant andsow all provisions for a long and happy life.— Walter Raleigh. the necessity of laborand invites to idleness, nature executes her sharpest revenge upon suchinfraction of the present order; the idle rich live next door to ruin."And Burton puts the case even more strongly when he says: "He or she thatis idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied,fortunate, happy—let them have all things in abundance and felicity thatTo have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weavethem into garlands.—MadameSwetchine. heart can wish and desire,—allcontentment—so long as he or she or they are idle, they shall never bepleased, never well in mind or body, but weary still, sickly still, vexedstill, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, 49offended with theworld, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried awaywith some foolish phantasy or other."

But When a firm decisive spirit is recognized, it iscurious to see how the space clears around a man and leaves him room andfreedom.—JohnFoster. riches do not necessarily have to be associated withidleness. Riches rightly employed bestow upon the possessors of them theblessed privilege of being employed in the kind of work where they can serve tothe best advantage and do most for their fellowmen. Indeed, the possession ofriches places upon those who have them the moral necessity and obligation ofdoing more and better things in the world than is expected of the ones lessamply supplied with wealth. "From every man according to his ability; toevery man according to his needs." The larger responsibilities are placedupon those to whom are given the larger means of achievement.

So That person is blest who does his best and leavesthe rest, so do not worry.—A. E.Winship. it is a mistake to fancy that the possession of greatriches would relieve us from doing all the tasks and duties for ourselves andfor others that are inevitably essential for the physical and spiritual healthand happiness of all mankind. No matter in whatever walk of 50 Work is the best thing to make us love life.—Ernest Renan. life we may findourselves, we must exercise our muscles or they will become weak and useless;we must stir and interest our hearts or they will grow hard and unresponsive;we must use our minds or they will become dull and inactive; we must employ ourconsciences or they will grow to be blind and unsafe guides that must lead usinto dark distress.

But If you want to be miserable, think aboutyourself,—about what you want, what you like, what respect people oughtto pay to you, and what people think of you.—Charles Kingsley. to be employed doesnot mean that we must necessarily work in the fields, or in the factory, or inthe office. There are a thousand ways in which we may serve the world. The onlyrequirement is that we shall devote a portion of our time and energy to genuineservice in behalf of our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our teachers, ourfriends, and all the world. And we must be grateful for the chance to serveothers and deem it an opportunity rather than an obligation.

Aspiration carries one half the way to one’sdesire.—ElizabethGibson. And above all, we must find delight in the work we areprivileged to do. "Every one should enjoy life," writes the ever gladand inspiring pen guided by the The best thing is to dowell what one is doing at the moment.—Pittacus. hand of Patrick Flynn:"Life was made to enjoy. We mean life, itself. The 51 very living andbreathing. It is a divine pleasure to inhale a breath of fragrant air out herein the country these charming summer mornings. And what jewels can compare incolor or brilliancy To work and not to genius I owe mysuccess.—DanielWebster. with the pearly dewdrops that shine and glisten in theearly sun! And the sun, itself! The great, mysterious, miraculous sun! Itsmyriads of vibrations No thought is beautiful which isnot just, and no thought can be just, that is not founded ontruth.—JosephAddison. dancing in the warm air like golden fairies and dazzlingone’s eyes with their wondrous beauty! Aye, and filling one’s soulwith love and one’s body with health. And in the evening when theday’s work is done there is above us that mysterious depth ofstar-spangled sky. We cannot fathom its mystery but like a stream of gracedescending from heaven, we can feel the cool, refreshing dew on our upturnedbrow. Until at last we feel that we should like to take wing and actually flyup among those The loss of self-respect is the only truebeggary.—John LancasterSpalding. unknown worlds and come back with the story to ourreaders. And even though we cannot grow the wings, we go up in fancy and seldomcome back without some new tale. The message is: ’Live life, love life,enjoy life, if you would overcome all fear of death.’" 52

That is the spirit in which we should look upon all the beauty and wonderabout us. To-morrow will ever be a joyous hope and yesterday a golden memory,if we are thoughtful regarding the manner in which we live

TO-DAY

Let’s live to-day so it shallbe,
When shrined within the memory,
As free from self-inflicted sorrows
As are our hopes of our to-morrows.

The tactful person looks out for opportunities to behelpful, without being obtrusive.—Margaret E. Sangster. There are manywho make the serious mistake of thinking that joyousness and cheerfulness areonly for the play hour and are not to be made a part and factor of the time wemust devote to toil. No view could be more faulty and regrettable. It is in ourworking hours that we should seek to be cheerful and sunshiny. All of our tasksshould be sweetened and glorified with the leaven of good humor.

The task seems never very long
If measured with a smile and song.

It is labor alone, backed by a good conscience, thatkeeps us healthy, happy and sane.—Godfrey Blount. Listen while onefaithful worker, Emory Belle, tells us how she carried 53the spirit ofgood cheer to her daily tasks and what came of it:

"I started out to my work one morning, determined to try the power ofcheerful thinking (I had been moody long enough). I said to myself: ’Ihave Labor was truly said by the ancients to be theprice which the gods set upon everything worth having.— Lord Avebury. often observed that ahappy state of mind has a wonderful effect upon my physical make-up, so I willtry its effect upon others, and see if my right thinking can be brought to actupon them.’ You see, I was curious. As I walked along, more and moreresolved on my purpose, and persisting that I was happy, that the world wastreating me well, I was surprised to find myself lifted up, as it were; mycarriage became more erect, my step lighter, and I had the sensation oftreading Our daily duties are a part of our religiouslife just as much as our devotions are.—Beecher. on air. Unconsciously, I wassmiling, for I caught myself in the act once or twice. I looked into the facesof the women I passed and there saw so much trouble and anxiety, discontent,even to peevishness, that my heart went out to them, and I wished I couldimpart to Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose thegood we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.—Shakespeare. them a wee bit of thesunshine I felt pervading me.

"Arriving at the office, I greeted the book-keeper with some passingremark, 54that for the life of me I could not have made underdifferent conditions, I am not naturally witty; it immediately put Energy and determination have done wonders many atime.—Dickens. us ona pleasant footing for the day; she had caught the reflection. The president ofthe company I was employed by was a very busy man and much worried over hisaffairs, and at some remark that he made about my work I would ordinarily havefelt quite hurt (being too The finest qualities of ournature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicatehandling.—Thoreau.sensitive by nature and education); but this day I had determined nothingshould mar its brightness, so replied to him cheerfully. His brow cleared, andthere was another pleasant footing established, and so throughout the day Iwent, allowing no cloud to spoil its beauty for me or others about me. At theDiscretion of speech is more than eloquence: and tospeak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words orin good order.—F.Bacon. kind home where I was staying the same course was pursued,and, where before I had felt estrangement and want of sympathy, I foundcongeniality and warm friendship. People will meet you half-way if you willtake the trouble to go that far.

"So, my sisters, if you think the world is not treating you kindlydon’t delay a day, but say to yourselves: ’I am going to keep youngin spite of my gray hairs; 55 Bread of flour is good: butthere is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a goodbook.—John Ruskin.even if things do not always come my way I am going to live for others, andshed sunshine across the pathway of all I meet.’ You will find happinessspringing up like flowers around you, will never want for friends orcompanionship, and above all the peace of God will rest upon yoursoul."

What is wrong to-day won’t be rightto-morrow.—DutchProverb. And all of this was brought about by a change in theattitude of the mind and a determination to look upon the sunshiny, rather thanthe dark, side of life. We can all do as much. It is for us to say whether wewill be happy and make others happy, or whether we shall be distressed andthereby distress others.

We are only so far worthy of esteem as we know how toappreciate.—Goethe.What sort of girl are you going to be? Are you going to make the world glad orsorry that you are in it? Why don’t you decide, as you read these lines,as did Emory Belle when starting to her work that morning, that you will try tocarry sunshine and not gloom into the lives of all you meet? Let us hope thatthere is no great reform in this matter to be worked in your life; but that youhave ever been a joy-bringer and not a gloom-maker.

Therefore let us look well to the 56 We are gratefulthat abundant life lies waiting in the heart of winter, and there is nocondition where life is not.—Isabel Goodhue. attitude of mind andour habit of looking at things. One of our careful students of human attributestells us—and the truth of which we all know—"that there isnothing surer than that we go and grow in just that direction in which our mindis most firmly fixed. Hoarding money absorbs the whole time and mind of themiser; how to scatter it is the chief thought of the spendthrift. Our dailyWishing will bring things in the degree that it incitesyou to go after them.—MurielStrode. actions, and their result on our lives, are the effect ofa cause—and that cause is invariably our previous thought. What you thinkmost of to-day will be most likely what you will repeat to-morrow. Therefore itis of the utmost It is impossible to estimate the powerfor good of a bright, glad shining face. Of all the lights you carry on yourface Joy shines farthest out to sea.—Anonymous. importance that we begin tothink as deeply as possible on just those things that build us up. Half thework is already done if we can only concentrate our minds on that which wedesire to do. It is the mind that drags us either up or down. Where that leadswe follow.

No one in this world of ours ever became great byechoing the voice of another, repeating what that other hassaid.—J. C. VanDyke. The power of direction is with us, but we cannot send ourmind in one direction and then take the opposite road ourselves. Therefore,whether we are moving upward or downward in the scale of life depends onwhether we are thinking up or thinking 57 down. This is a truth that everyperson’s experience will prove to his own Onefault mender equals twenty faultfinders.—Earl M. Pratt. satisfaction. Thoughtimpels action, action forms habit, and habit rules our lives. So that no matterwhat direction we may wish to take, up or down, it is only necessary for us tofix our mind in the desired direction."

Let us then, be what we are, speak what we think, andin all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.—Longfellow. So let us pause and takean account of stock and ascertain whether we are thinking ourselves up or down,whether we are building truthfully or falsely, whether we are going forward orbackward,

JUST THIS MINUTE

If we’re thoughtful, just thisminute,
In whate’er we say or do;
If we put a purpose in it
That is honest, through and through,
We shall gladden life and give it
Grace to make it all sublime;
For, though life is long, we live it
Just this minute at a time.

There aresome people whose smile, the sound of whose voice, whose very presence, seemslike a ray of sunshine, to turn everything they touch intogold.—Lord Avebury.Just this minute we are going
Toward the right or toward the wrong,
Just this minute we are sowing
Seeds of sorrow or of song.
Just this minute we are thinking
On the ways that lead to God,
Or in idle dreams are sinking
To the level of the clod.

58

Yesterday is gone, to-morrow
Never comes within our grasp;
Just this minute’s joy or sorrow,
That is all our hands may clasp.
Just this minute! Let us take it
As a pearl of precious price,
And with high endeavor make it
Fit to shine in paradise.

It is work which gives flavor to life. Mere existencewithout object and without effort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor,and languor to disgust.—Amiel. One who finds joy in the doingof things can work more easily and steadily than one who works unwillingly andunhappily. Good nature is a lubricant for all the wheels of life. It changesthe leaden feet of duty into the airy wings of opportunity, it not only bringshappiness but that almost necessary adjunct of happiness,—health.

"In the maintenance of health and the cure of disease," says Dr.A. J. How poor are they who have only money togive!—John LancasterSpalding. Sanderson, "cheerfulness is a most importantfactor. Its power to do good like a medicine is not an artificial stimulationof the tissues, to be followed by reaction and greater waste, as is the casewith many drugs; but the effect of cheerfulness is 59 Fear begets fear.—A. E.Winship. an actual life-giving influence through a normal channelthe results of which reach every part of the system. It brightens the eye,makes ruddy the countenance, brings elasticity to the step, and promotes allthe inner forces by which life is sustained. The blood circulates more freely,the oxygen comes to its home in the tissues, health is promoted, and disease isbanished."

When we note how generally the What an absurd thingit is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man and fix our attention on hisinfirmities!—Addison. members of the medicalprofession ascribe to cheerfulness the very highest of health-giving powers, weare led to think that the wise words quoted above possess a foundation ofscientific fact. "Faith, hope and love," says Charles G. Ames,"are purifiers of the blood. They have a peptic quality. They open andenlarge all the channels of bodily vitality. As was learned long ago, ’AThere can be no true rest without work and the fulldelight of a holiday cannot be known except by the man who has earnedit.—Hugh Black.merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’ And the self-control which keepsreason on the throne and makes passion serve is the best of all domesticphysicians."

So the girl who would go down the paths of sunshine will put joy andenthusiasm into her work and into her play. She will practice her music60The more we do the more we can do; the more busy we arethe more leisure we have.— Hazlitt. lesson, take up her studiesat school, assist in performing the household duties, and in doing the manytasks that come to her hands in a joyous, whole-hearted manner.

In so doing she will make a Lost—a golden hour,set with sixty diamond minutes. There is no reward, for it is goneforever.—Beecher.pleasure of that which, with dull complaining, would be a drag and a distress.By this cheerful attitude of mind she will be able to mold all things to herwill and, better still, she will be able to mold her will to her highest idealof splendid womanhood. For none can doubt that man Goodcompany and good conversation are the sinews of virtue.—Stephen Allen. is the architect of hisown fortune, to a very great extent. He is even more than that, he is of hisown self

THE SCULPTOR

I am the sculptor: I, myself, theclay,
Of which I am to fashion, as I will,
In deed and in desire, day by day,
The pattern of my purpose, good or ill.

In breathless bronze nor theinsensate stone
Must my enduring passion find its goal;
Within the living statue I enthrone
That essence of eternity, the soul.

A triumph isthe closing scene of a contest.—A.E. Winship. Nor space nor time that soul of yearning bars;
It flashes to the zenith of the sky,
And dwelling mid the mystery of the stars,
Aspires to answer the Eternal Why. 61

It loves the pleasing note of luteand lyre,
The lily’s purple, the red rose’sglow;
It wonders at the witchery of the fire,
And marvels at the magic of the snow.

Don’tforget that the man who can but doesn’t must give place to the man whocan’t but tries.—Comtelburo. "Who taught," itasks, "the ant to build her nest?
The bee her cells? the hermit thrush to sing?
The dove to plume his iridescent breast?
The butterfly to paint his gorgeous wing?

"The spider how to spin sowondrous wise?
The nautilus to form his chambered shell?
The carrier-pigeon under alien skies,
Who taught him how his homeward course totell?"

By force or favor it would win fromfate
The sacred secret of the blood and breath:
Learn all the hidden springs of love and hate,
And gain dominion over life and death.

Advise wellbefore you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act withpromptitude.—Sallust. In every feature of thissculptured face
Of spirit and of substance, I must mold
The shining symbol of a grander grace;
The hope toward which the centuries have rolled.

Oh, hands of mine that theunnumbered years
Evolved from hoof and wing and claw and fin,
’T is ours to bring from out the stress and tears,
A godlike figure fashioned from within.

65

CHAPTER IV
SOME EVERY-DAY VIRTUES

I would rather be right than president!" Each,whatever his estate, in his own unconscious breast bears the talisman offate.—John TownsendTrowbridge.

At first thought those words seem to be the declaration of an unusuallyupright and conscientious person. But let us study them a little more deeplyand closely.

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing,he has one good reason for letting it alone.—Thomas Scott. The desire to do rightand to deserve the approbation of all good people is very strong in every humanbreast. Not until a man has lost his moral sense of values would he trade hisintegrity and self-respect for any other gift the world could offer. This beingtrue, who among us would care to be president if in order to occupy thatexalted position he must be obviously in the wrong?

Once a body laughs he cannot be angrymore.—James M.Barrie. Thus we see that after all is said and done, the onegreat prize for which we all aspire is the love and good will of our friendsand of the world. For no matter 66 Success is usually theresult of a sharpened sense of what is wanted.—Frank Moore Colby. how much of wealthand fame may come to us, without the love and respect of our fellow beings wemust ever remain poor and friendless.

He is the richest who deserves the most friends. Wealth is a matter of theHe that falls in love with himself, will have norivals.—BenjaminFranklin. heart and not of the pocket. A thousand slaves pilingup wealth for their master cannot make him rich. It is not that which others dofor us that makes us possessors of great wealth, but that which we do forothers. All true riches are self made. Only when the hand and the heart are putinto one’s work does it yield a lasting worth. In the final true analysisthe picture forever belongs to the painter who paints it; the poem to the poetwho writes it; the loaf of bread to the toiler who earns it. Wealth may acquirethese things but it cannot own them.

A sinful heart makes a feeblehand.—Walter Scott.Therefore the true value of character is something that each must achieve forhimself. It cannot be bought; it cannot be bequeathed to us; it must be earnedby each individual who would possess it. Hence it is that these great richesmay be acquired by all who desire to possess them. 67

Look within, for you have a lasting foundation ofhappiness at home that will always bubble up if you will but dig forit.—Marcus AureliusAntoninus. Where are they to be found? Right here.

When may we obtain them? Right now.

Do you care to learn the only way in which you can come into possession ofthem? "Whoever you are—wise or foolish, rich or poor," saysRebecca Harding Davis, "God sent you into His To afriend’s house the road is never long.—Danish Proverb. world, as He sentevery other human being, to help the men and women in it, to make them happierand better. If you do not do that, no matter what your powers may be, you aremere lumber, a worthless bit of world’s furniture. A Stradivarius, if ithangs dusty and dumb upon the wall, is not of as much real value as a kitchenpoker which is used."

Honest toil is holy service; faithful work is praiseand prayer.—Henry VanDyke. So we learn that it is the fine practical spirit, contentand willing to do the humble things which are possible of achievement that isdoing most to lift the world to a higher and better plane. "Have you nevermet humble men and Give me the toiler’s joy whohas seen the sunlight burst on the distant turrets in the land of hisdesire.— MurielStrode. women," asks Gannett, "who read little, whoknew little, yet who had a certain fascination as of fineness lurking aboutthem? Know them, and you are likely to find them persons who have put so68 muchthought and honesty and conscientious trying into their common work—itmay be sweeping rooms, or planing You can buy a lot ofhappiness with a mighty small salary, but fashionable happiness always costsjust a little more than you’re making.—George Horace Lorimer. boards, orpainting walls—have put their ideals so long, so constantly, so lovinglyinto that common work of theirs, that finally these qualities have come topermeate not their work only, but so much of their being, that they arefine-fibred within, even if on the outside the rough bark clings."

If we are wisely introspective, we must reach the conclusion that humblethough we may be, we are after all, a A tart tempernever mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that growskeener with constant use.—Washington Irving. component part ofthe great expression of being, and that we are well worth while. Then if we areworth while, it follows that all we do is worth while, for each of us is, inthe end, the sum of all the things he has done. Once we have this idea thateverything stands for something more than the mere thing itself—that itis correlated in its influences with all the other things that we and allothers are doing, we shall invest all our tasks, little and big, with more ofpurpose and importance. Emerson says:

"There is no end to the sufficiency of character. It can afford towait; it can 69 Where there is one man whosquints with his eyes, there are a dozen who squint with theirbrains.—Oliver WendellHolmes. do without what it calls success; it cannot but succeed.To a well-principled man existence is victory. He defends himself againstfailure in his main design by making every inch of the road to it pleasant.There is no trifle and no obscurity to him: he feels the immensity of the chainwhose last link he holds in his hand, and is led by it."

When a true genius appears in the world you may knowhim by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy againsthim.—Jonathan Swift.Perhaps no other every-day virtue counts for so much in the general welfare ofthe world as the adapting of one’s self to, and the making the most of,one’s immediate surroundings. It is in the hundreds of little, unrecordeddeeds of kindness and goodness that we lay the foundations of character. Andbecause these humble lives, that mean so much to the other humble lives withwhich they What we have got to do is to keep up ourspirits and be neighborly. We shall come all right in the end, neverfear.—Dickens. comeinto touch, are never specifically named and shouted by the multitudinoustongues of type, that many fail to see in them the elements of true and nobleachievement with which they are crowned. "The most inspiring tales,"it has been truly said, "are those that have not been written; the mostheroic deeds are those that have not been told; the world’s greatestsuccesses have been 70 Happiness is the feeling weexperience when we are too busy to be miserable.—Thomas L. Masson. won in the quiet ofmen’s hearts, the noblest heroes are the countless thousands who havestruggled and triumphed, rising on stepping-stones of their dead selves tohigher things."

Since it is these humbler every-day virtues that one is called upon oftenestto exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent Duty is thesublimest word in the English language.—Gen. Robert E. Lee. that the one whopossesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestly has thegreatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration of others. It is ofa girl possessing this fine adaptability to the world’s workadaysurroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture: "Shall I tellthe kind of girl Optimism is the faith that leads toachievement; nothing can be done without hope.—Keller. that I especially adore? Well,first of all, let us take the working girl. She is not a ’lady’ inthe acceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of this latterday’s hybrid democracy. She is just a blithe, cheery, sweet-temperedThe activity and soundness of a man’s actions willbe determined by the activity and soundness of his thoughts.—Beecher. young woman. She may have afather rich enough to support her at home, but for all that she is a workinggirl. She is never idle. She is studying or sewing or helping about the homepart of the day. She is romping or playing or swinging out of doors the otherpart. She is never 71 What men want is not talent, itis purpose; not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.—Bulwer Lytton. frowsy or untidy orlazy. She is never rude or slangy or bold. And yet she is always full of funand ready for frolic. She does not depend upon a servant to do what she can dofor herself. She is considerate toward all who serve her. She is reverent tothe old and thoughtful of the feeble. She never criticises when criticism canwound, and she is ready with a helpful, loving word for every one. Sometimesshe has no father, or her parents are too poor to support her. Then she goesout and earns her living by whatever her hands find to do. She clerks in astore, or she counts out change at a cashier’s desk, or she teachesschool, or she clicks a typewriter, or rather a telegrapher’s key, butWe judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing,while others judge us by what we have already done.—Longfellow. always and everywhere sheis modest and willing and sweet.

"She has too much dignity to be imposed upon, or put to open affront,but she has humility also, and purity that differs from prudishness as a doveThe great hope of society is individualcharacter.—Channing.in the air differs from a stuffed bird in a showcase. She is quick to apologizewhen she knows she is in the wrong, yet no young queen ever carried a higherhead than she can upon justifiable occasions. She 72Concentrate all your thought upon the work in hand. Thesun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.—Alexander G. Bell. is not alwaysimagining herself looked down upon because she is poor. She knows full wellthat out of her own heart and mouth proceed the only witnesses that can absolveor condemn her. If she is quick to be courteous, unselfish, gentle and retiringin speech and manner in Associate with men of goodquality if you esteem your reputation, for it is better to be alone than in badcompany.—GeorgeWashington. public places, she is true gold, even though herdress be faded and her hat a little out of style. You cannot mistake any suchgirl any more than you can mistake the sunshine that follows the rain or thelark that springs from the hawthorne hedge. All things that are blooming andsweet attend her! The earth is better for her passing through it and heavenwill be fairer for her habitation therein."

How fortunate it is for us who would practice these little every-day virtuesthat we do not have to wait for some noted person at some remote time to tellthe world that we are striving in our own humble way to be kind and thoughtful.There is some one within the sound of our voice and within the reach of ourhand who will be glad to testify to our goodness.

Kindness is never shown in vain. 73

The public school playground transposes many a boyfrom a public liability to a public asset.—A. E. Winship. The gift blesses the giver,even though the one receiving the gift is ungrateful. Consciously orunconsciously we exert an influence upon all who come within the zone of ourbeing. Surely those who know us best ought to be the ones to appreciateReal coolness and self-possession are the indispensableaccompaniments of a great mind.—Dickens. us the most intelligently. Ifwe are lovable, will they not love us? If we love them, will it not serve tomake them lovable? Let us not keep the nice little attentions and the carefullyselected words for the stranger and the passer-by, but have as much regard forthe ones of our own intimate family circle. One of thecrying needs of society is the revival of gentleness and of a refinedconsiderateness in judging others.—Newell D. Hillis. We should be happyto do most for them who do most for us. One of our students of human happinesssays to us: "Get into the way of idealizing what you have; let thepicturesqueness of your own imagination play round the village where you dolive, instead of the one where you wish to live; weave a romance round thebrother you have got, instead In this world inclinationto do things is of more importance than the mere power.—Chapin. of round the Prince Perfect ofa husband whom you have not got." And Marcus Aurelius says: "Thinknot so much of what thou hast not, as of what thou hast; but of the thingswhich thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly 74 they would havebeen sought if thou had’st them not."

Character lives in a man, reputation outside ofhim.—J. G. Holland.Culture, itself, is but a composite expression of our simple, every-dayvirtues. It must be measured by its outward manifestation of regard for thepleasure, Self-confidence is the first requisite togreat undertakings.—Johnson. happiness and advancement ofothers. Literary culture will open up the windows of the soul that the light ofvirtue from within may shine forth and dispel the darkness of vice with whichit comes in contact. "Unless one’s knowledge of good books—hisliterary scholarship—has Patience is a necessaryingredient of genius.—Disraeli. so taken hold upon him as tomake him exemplary, in a large measure, he cannot be said to be cultured,"says one of our students of higher ethics. "His learning should cultivatea choice and beautiful address, a cheerful and loving countenance, amagnificent and spirited carriage, a refinement of manner, an agreeablepresence."

The extent to which we may feel a sense of peaceful satisfaction at the endof a day, depends upon how we have lived that day. We soon learn that the daymeans most for us in which we do most for others. If we have lived for selfalone, it has been 75

A LOST DAY

Count that day truly worse thanlost
You might have made divine,
Through which you sprinkled bits of frost
But never a speck of shine.

"At the end of life," says Hugh Black, "we shall not be askedhow much pleasure Follow your honest convictions and bestrong.—Thackeray.we had in it, but how much service we gave in it; not how full it was ofsuccess, but how full it was of sacrifice; not how happy we were, but howhelpful we were; not how ambition was gratified, but how love was served. Lifeis judged by love; and love is known by her fruits."

The every-day virtues include very many fine little traits that serveunconsciously to make our paths smoother, Admonish yourfriends privately, but praise them openly.—Publius Syrus. our skies bluer and allof life more glad and golden. They constitute a habit of doing the right thingat all times and so quietly and unostentatiously that no one is made to feelany sense of obligation. One who possesses these virtues does not wait forstated times and occasions to bestow evidences of love and good will uponothers, but like a flower in bloom spreads the fine perfume of friendship uponall who come within the charmed presence. Intuitively and unconsciously76Economy is of itself a great revenue.—Comtelburo. does the owner of thesevirtues follow the precept set forth by the philosopher: "I shall passthrough this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or anykindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let meGrace is the outward expression of the inward harmony ofthe soul.—Hazlitt.not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." And inexpressing the same sentiment Amiel says: "Do not wait to be just orpitiful or demonstrative towards those we love until they or we are struck downby illness or threatened with death. Life is short, Pullon the oar and not on your influential friends.—A. E. Winship. and we have never too muchtime for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey withus. Oh! be swift to love, make haste to be kind!" We should not wait tillsome sad experience has taught us the rare privilege we may now own of offeringOur grand business undoubtedly is not to see what liesdimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.—Carlyle.

A ROSE TO THE LIVING

A rose to the living is more
Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead;
In filling love’s infinite store;
A rose to the living is more,
If graciously given before
The hungering spirit is fled,—
A rose to the living is more
Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.

77

Of all the homely virtues there is none more to be commended and desiredthan The noblest mind the best contentmenthath.—Spenser.patience. This priceless quality of mind puts its possessor into friendlyrelations with whatever the surrounding conditions may chance to be. There isno irritation, no clash of interests, no lack of organization for performing tothe best of one’s ability the duties of the moment, as they presentthemselves for consideration. Nothing is so conducive to success as to be able,calmly and patiently, to do to the best of one’s ability the tasks thatpresent themselves. "Success in life," says one of our students ofthe world’s The man who has begun to live moreseriously within, begins to live more simply without.—Phillips Brooks. problems,"depends far more upon the decision of character than upon the possessionof what is called genius. The man who is perpetually hesitating as to which oftwo things he will do, will do neither." On the other hand the man whohastily and impatiently disposes of the problems that confront him also impairshis chances for making the best of life.

To be usefully and hopefully employed is one of thegreat secrets of happiness.—Smiles. Have you ever experienced thesorry realization of how one petulant or peevish member of a household candestroy the happiness of a breakfast or dinner 78 Everything in this world depends upon will.—Disraeli. hour? What would otherwisehave been a pleasant coming together of kindly congenial spirits is madepainful and unprofitable because some one lacked the patience and forbearanceto withstand and to surmount some little trial or irritation that should havebeen promptly dismissed from the mind and the heart, or better still, whichnever should have been permitted to enter. As has been truly observed,membership in the family involves the recognition that Aman is valued according to his own estimate of himself.—Comtelburo. the normal life of theindividual is to be found only in a perfect union with other members; in regardfor their rights; in deference to their wishes; and in devotion to that commoninterest in which each member shares. Each member Allmen wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side oftruth.—Whately. mustlive for the sake of the whole family. "Children owe to their parentsobedience, and such service as they are able to render," says Dr. DeWittHyde. "Parents, on the other hand, owe to children support, training, andan education sufficient to give them a fair start in life. Mightier than all the world, the clasp of one small hand upon theheart.—John TownsendTrowbridge. Brothers and sisters owe to each other mutualhelpfulness and protection."

The patient disposition to do the best one can, this day, this hour, thisvery 79moment, counts for much in the building of a life. How perfectly is its wholepurpose set forth in Channing’s "Symphony," in which he sobeautifully makes known his heart’s desire: "To live content withsmall means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and refinement rather thanfashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard,think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babesand sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, awaitoccasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden andunconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony."

The truest wisdom is a resolutedetermination.—Napoleon. It is this rare sense ofpoise, this patient regard for our own happiness and that of others, thatenables some sweet spirits to come as a balm for all the Character must stand behind and back up everything—the sermon,the poem, the picture, the play. None of them is worth a straw withoutit.—J. G. Holland.bruises that a busy world can put upon us. "There is no joy butcalm." Until one has learned to do his work pleasantly and agreeably hehas not mastered the most important part of his lesson. "Blessed is theman who finds joy in his work." He will succeed where the complaining,discontented person will be 80 almost sure to fail. So, let us cultivate thisThe question every morning is not how to do the gainfulthing, but how to do the just thing.—John Ruskin. one of the chiefest ofour every-day virtues. It will enable us to give to every moment the properregard for its value and of the possibilities it offers for achievement. Itwill teach us that during every day, every hour, every moment, there is timefor politeness, for Resolve to be thyself; and know thathe who finds himself, loses his misery.—Matthew Arnold. kindness, forgentleness, for the display of strength and tenderness and high purpose, andfor the exercise of that degree of patience that does so much to make life bigand broad and beautiful in

THIS BUSY WORLD

It is a very busy world in which wemortals meet,
There are so many weary hands, so many tired feet;
So many, many tasks are born with every morning’s sun.
And though we labor with a will the work seems never done.
I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do itboldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone.—Gilpin. And yet for everymoment’s task there comes a moment’s time:
The burden and the strength to bear are like a perfect rhyme.
The heart makes strong the honest hand, the will seeks out the way,
Nor must we do to-morrow’s work, nor yesterday’s, to-day.

81

We scale the mountain’s ruggedside, not at one mighty leap,
But step by step and breath by breath we climb the lofty steep.
What we need most is not so much to realize the ideal asto idealize the real.—F. H.Hedge. Each simple duty comes alone our willing strength totry;
One little moment at a time and so the days go by.
With strength to lift and heart to hope, we strive from sun to sun,
A little here, a little there, and all our tasks are done;
There’s time to toil and time to sing and time for us to play,
Nor must we do to-morrow’s work, nor yesterday’s, to-day.

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CHAPTER V
THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE

Kind words are worth much and they costlittle.—Proverb. Dopeople like you?

Are your girl playmates and classmates fond of your society? Are they eagerto work with you, play with you, go strolling or sit by the fire with you?The happiness of your life depends upon the quality ofyour thoughts.—Marcus AureliusAntoninus.

This one fact we must know; if we are not liked it must be because we arenot the possessors of that fine quality known as "likableness." Andif those who have had an opportunity to know us and our traits of character donot love and To do something, however small, to makeothers happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope,which can inspire a human being.—Lord Avebury. admire us, it is we andnot they who are responsible for their state of mind. For as sure as the warmsunshine attracts the flowers, and the fragrant flowers call the attention ofthe bee to their store of honey, so a fine likable character is certain to gainand to hold the admiration of good friends and true.

Always laugh when you can; it is a cheap medicine.Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side ofexistence.—Byron.The face full of sunshine, the heart full of hope, the lips that are speakingpleasant 86 words of good cheer and joyous faith in the world, willattract friends about them as certainly as the magnetic pole attracts theneedle.

The girl who goes among the people with smiles to offer will find very manyready to receive her gracious gifts, but if she carries with her sighs andfrowns, Happiness gives us the energy which is the basisof all health.—Amiel. instead, she will learn thatthe world wants none of them.

We all love to hear pleasant things. The one who tells us that he thinks itis going to set in for a long rainy spell of weather is of less worth to usthan the one who says he thinks that the clouds are going to clear away andthat we shall have a beautiful day to-morrow.

The grandsire who tells his young friends that they ought to be glad thatthe grandest, brightest and best era in the world’s history is justbefore them, does much more to inspire them than does the one who tells themthat the Not in the clamour of the crowded streets, notin the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph anddefeat.—Longfellow.best days of the world were "the good old days of long ago," and thatthe golden age will never return again. Brooke Herford tells us: "Thereare some people who ride all through the journey of life with their backs tothe horse’s head. 87

They are always looking into the past. All the worth of things is there.They are forever talking about the good old times, and how different thingswere when A man should always keep learningsomething—"always," as Arnold said, "keep the streamrunning"—whereas most people let it stagnate about middlelife.—Anonymous.they were young. There is no romance in the world now, and no heroism. The verywinters and summers are nothing to what they used to be; in fact, life isaltogether on a small, commonplace scale. Now that is a miserable sort ofthing; it brings a sort of paralyzing chill over the life, and petrifies thenatural spring of joy that should ever be leaping up to meet the fresh newmercies that A smile passes current in every country asa mark of distinction.—JoeMitchell Chapple. the days keep bringing."

Know then, my young friends, that the best time that ever was is the presenttime, if you will but use it aright. It is full of romance, of heroism, ofThe thoughts of men are widened with the process of thesuns.—Tennyson.splendid opportunity, of all that goes to constitute experience and to developcharacter. There never was a time when there were more good things to be done,or when greater rewards awaited the doers of them. The summers are just as longand bright and golden; the roses blossom just as numerously and as sweetly;human hearts are just as warm and kindly, No man eversunk under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow’s burden is addedto the burden of to-day that the burden is more than a man canbear.—GeorgeMacDonald. as they have been at any time in the world’s88history. Emerson says: "One of the illusions is that the present hour isnot the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is thebest day in the whole year."

So then as far as the time and the hour are concerned, there is nothing inThough sorrow must come, where is the advantage ofrushing to meet it? It will be time enough to grieve when it comes; meanwhile,hope for better things.—Seneca. our surroundings to make usmorose or gloomy or dispirited or indifferent regarding the influence we areexerting upon those around us. There is no obvious reason why we should not bejoyous and happy at the prospect before us. We should have not only graceenough for our own personal needs, but plenty of it to spare for those not sogladly born as ourselves.

And rich beyond computation is the one who has joyousness to spare. BetterAll my old opinions were only stages on the way to theone I now hold, as itself is only a stage on the way to somethingelse.—R. L.Stevenson. than gold, better than food and raiment and allmaterial things, betimes, is a ray of sunshine from the heart, an uplift ofsaving humor from a merry tongue. "I have often felt, myself," saysBenson, "that the time has come to raise another figure to the hierarchyof Christian graces. Faith, Hope and Charity were sufficient in a moreelementary and barbarous age, but, now that the world has 89 Hasten slowly, and, without losing heart, put your work twenty timesupon the anvil.—Boileau. broadened somewhat, I thinkan addition to the trio is demanded. A man may be faithful, hopeful, andcharitable, and yet leave much to be desired. He may be useful, no doubt, withthat equipment, but he may also be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourthquality that I should like to see raised to the highest rank among theChristian graces is the Grace of Humor."

Self-reverence, self-knowledge,self-control—these three alone lead life to sovereignpower.—Tennyson.Splendidly blest is that household that is so fortunate as to possess at leastone member gifted with the grace of good humor. One such person in a home isenough if there cannot be more. Just when all the others are seriouslyIt is curious to what an extent our happiness orunhappiness depends upon the manner in which we view things.—E. C.Burke. confronting whatseems to be a most sad and serious condition of affairs how just one word ofilluminating good humor can change the whole point of view and send theforeboding proposition glimmering into nothingness. "Do you know, mydear," says Mrs. Holden, "that there is absolutely nothing that willhelp you to bear the ills of life so well as a good laugh? Laugh all you canand the small Those who never retract their opinionslove themselves more than they love truth.—Joubert. imps in blue who love topreempt their quarters in a human heart will scatter away like owls before themusic of flutes. 90

There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will notdissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes line breaks, ifthe cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with the roast, if the childrenfall into the mud simultaneously with the advent of clean aprons, if the newTruth is tough; it will not break, like a bubble, at atouch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be roundand full at evening.—OliverWendell Holmes. girl quits in the middle of housecleaning, andthough you search the earth with candles you find none to take her place, ifthe neighbor you have trusted goes back on you and decides to keep chickens, ifthe chariot wheels of the uninvited guest draw near when you are out ofprovender, and the gaping of your empty purse is like the unfilled mouth of ayoung robin, take courage if you have Good manners aremade up of petty sacrifices.—Emerson. enough sunshine in yourheart, to keep the laugh on your lips. Before good nature, half the cares ofdaily living will fly away like midges before the wind. Try it."

What a world of inspiration and cheerfulness in the motto written by EdwardEverett Hale for the Lend-A-Hand Society: "Look up, and not down; lookforward, and not back; look out, and not in; and lend a hand." It is thelifting of the The aids to noble life are allwithin.—MatthewArnold. burden from another’s tired shoulder 91 that does mostto lighten the load resting on our own.

No one who truly is conscious of the value of sunshine upon his own natureNothing is difficult; it is only we who areindolent.—B. R. Haydon. and upon the spirits of thosewith whom he comes into contact will ever, for one minute, permit himself to betaken possession of by

THE "BLUES"

"Blues" are the sorrycalms that come
To make our spirits mope,
And steal the breeze of promise from
The shining sails of hope.

It is a serious thing that we should see the fullbeauty of our lives only when they are passed or in visions of a possiblefuture. What we most need is to see and feel the beauty and joy ofto-day.—Maurice D.Conway. Margaret E. Sangster, who is the kind and gracious fostermother to all the girls of her time and generation, says that "being inbondage to the blues is precisely like being lost in a London fog. The latteris thick and black and obliterates familiar landmarks. A man may be within afew doors of his home, yet grope hopelessly through the murk to find thewell-worn threshold. A person Let us enjoy the sceneryof the present moment. The landscape around the bend will still be there whenour life-train arrives.—Horatio W.Dresser. under the tyranny of the blues is temporarily unable toadjust life to its usual limitations. He or she cannot see an inch beyond thedreadful present. Everything looks dark and forbidding, and despair with aniron 92

clutch pins its victim down. People think, loosely, that trials that may beweighed and measured and felt and handled are the worst trials to which fleshis If we cannot get what we like let us try to like whatwe can get.—SpanishProverb. heir. But they are mistaken. Hearts are elastic, andreal sorrows seldom crush them. Souls have in them a wonderful capacity forrecovering after knockdown blows. It is the intangible, the thing that onedreads vaguely, that catches one in the dark, that suggests and intimates aperil that is spiritual rather than mortal; it is the burden that carriesdismay and terror to the imagination."

Men continually forget that happiness is a conditionof the mind and not a disposition of circ*mstances.— Lecky. A single member of a householdwho is given to having "the blues" often darkens a home that wouldotherwise be bright and sunny. Such an unfortunate person should bear in mindthat when a servant is employed the whole household Delicacy in woman is strength.— Lichtenberg. expects her to be kind,tidy, industrious, moral, gentle, and, above all, good natured in her attitudetoward all. Surely the daughter of a household cannot wish to feel that sheholds her position by accident of birth, and that if her family were notcompelled to keep her they would not. 93 If you would knowthe political and moral condition of a people, ask as to the condition of itswomen.—AimeMartin.

Charles Dickens says: "It is not possible to know how far the influenceof any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flows out into the world."A bright, cheerful, sunshiny daughter in a home can never know how great is herinfluence for making the little household world holier and happier for allwhose life Who has not experienced how, on neareracquaintance, plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm,according to the quality of the heart and mind.—Fredrika Bremer. interests arecentered therein. Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "The day is dark only whenthe mind is dark; all weathers are pleasant when the heart is at rest."Bliss Carman observes that "happiness, perhaps, comes by the grace ofHeaven, but the wearing of a happy countenance, the preserving of a happy mien,is a duty, not a blessing." This thought that it is one’s duty to behappy Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low,—anexcellent thing in woman.—Shakespeare. is set forth still moreforcibly by Lilian Whiting: "No one has any more right to go about unhappythan he has to go about ill-bred."

The girl with sunshine in her thoughts and sunshine in her eyes will findGentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the ThreeGraces of manners.—Marguerite deValois. sunshine everywhere. Wherever she may go her graciouspresence will light the way and make her every path more smooth and beautiful.In the home, in the school, amid whatever conditions 94 surround her,she will shine with the glow of a rose in bloom. She will see the good and thebeautiful in the persons whom she meets; while all the charms of nature, asportrayed in field and forest, will be to her a never-ending source of interestand enjoyment. Above all, she will warmly cherish life and look uponTo have what we want is riches, but to be able to dowithout is power.—GeorgeMacDonald. it as being crowded with priceless opportunities forobtaining happiness for herself and for others. She will be filled with thesame exhuberant spirit of joy in the mere fact of her being that Mrs. Holden sohappily sets forth: "I love this world. I never walk out in the morningwhen all its radiant colors are newly washed with dew, or at splendid noon,when, like an untired racer, the sun has flashed around his mid-day course, orat evening, when a fringe of a shadow, A man is rich inproportion to the number of things which he can afford to letalone.—Thoreau. likethe lash of a weary eye, droops over mountain and valley and sea, or in themajestic pomp of night when stars swarm together like bees, and the moon clearsits way through the golden fields as a sickle through the ripened wheat, that Ido not hug myself for very joy that I am yet alive. What matter if I am poorand unsheltered and costumeless? 95

In truth, how could I feel this gladness now had Inot known the bitterness of woe.—Alicia K. Van Buren. Thank God, I amyet alive! People who tire of this world before they are seventy and pretendthat they are ready to leave it, are either crazy or stuck as full of bodilyailments as a cushion is of pins. The happy, the warm-blooded, thesunny-natured and the loving cling to life as petals cling to the calyx of aOf all the joys we can bring into our own lives there isnone so joyous as that which comes to us as the result of caring for others andbrightening sad lives.—E. C. Burke. budding rose. By and by, whenthe rose is over-ripe, or when the frosts come and the November winds aretrumpeting through all the leafless spaces of the woods, will be time to die.It is no time now, while there is a dark space left on earth that love canbrighten, while there is a human lot to be alleviated by a smile, or a burdento be lifted with a sympathizing tear."

We all understand that it is not so difficult for us to be bright andsmiling and gracious toward everyone when there is naught to disturb theserenity of our Human improvement is from withinoutward.—Froude.thoughts, and when nothing happens to interfere with the fulfillment of ourwishes. But when things go "at sixes and sevens," when our dearestpurposes are thwarted, when some one is about to gain the place or prize whichwe covet, when we are forced to stay within doors 96 when we verymuch prefer to go in the fields; then it requires more of character, more ofstrength, more of the true spirit of sacrifice to wear a smiling face and tomaintain a cheerful heart. But instead of fleeing from the Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are famouspreservers of good looks.—Dickens. petty trials that cross ourpaths we should welcome them as opportunities for testing and strengthening ourgood purposes. Newcomb tells us: "Disappointment should always be taken asa stimulant, and never viewed as a discouragement." To the sunshiny,philosophical person, trials and difficulties but serve to help him to developinto

THE PRIZE WINNER

Oh, the manwho wins the prize
Is the one who bravely tries,
As he works his way amid the toil and stress,
Through the college of Hard Knocks,
So to hew his stumbling-blocks,
They will serve as stepping-stones toward success.

The law of true living is toil.—J. R.Miller. Sunshine has everbeen deemed by the close students of life as a most essential element in theachievement We may make the best of life, or we may makethe worst of it, and it depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joyor misery from it.—Smiles. of the highest and fullestsuccess. The optimist sees open paths leading to pleasant and prosperous fieldsof endeavor where the 97 pessimist can see no way out of the hopelesssurroundings amid which he has been thrust by an unkind fate. The dispositionto seize upon the opportunities Every optimist movesalong with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worldat a standstill.—HelenKeller. lying close at hand and to believe that the here and nowis full of sunshine and golden possibilities has carried many a one to success,where others, lacking the illumination born of good cheer and a hope wellgrounded in a broad and beautiful faith, have sat complainingly by theHe that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarceovertake his business at night.—Benjamin Franklin. way and permittedthe golden chances to go by unobserved.

"Born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinarypersistency," said Professor Maria Mitchell, the distinguished astronomer,in the later years of It is great folly not to part withyour own faults, which is possible, but to try instead to escape from otherpeople’s faults, which is impossible.—Marcus Aurelius. her life in lookingback upon her career. But she added, with a simplicity as rare as it ispleasing: "I did not quite take this in, myself, until I came to minglewith the best girls of our college, and to become aware how rich their minesare and how little they have been worked." At sixteen she left school, andat eighteen accepted the position of librarian of the Nantucket public library.Her duties were light and she had ample opportunity, surrounded as she was bybooks, 98 Labor is discovered to be thegrand conquerer, enriching and building up nations more surely than theproudest battles.—William ElleryChanning. to read and study, while leisure was also left her topursue by practical observation the science in which she afterward becameknown. Those who dwell upon the smaller islands, among which must be classedNantucket, her island It is easier to leave the wrongthing unsaid than to unsay it.—George Horace Lorimer. home, learnalmost of necessity to study the sea and the sky. The Mitchell family possessedan excellent telescope. From childhood Maria had been accustomed to the use ofthis instrument, searching out with its aid, the distant sails upon the horizonby day, and viewing the stars by night. Her father possessed a marked taste forastronomy, and carried on an independent series of observations. He taught hisdaughter all he knew, and what was more to her advancement, she applied herselfto the study and made as much independent Work is theinevitable condition of human life, the true source of humanwelfare.—Tolstoi.advancement as was possible for her to do. It was this cheerful willingness tomake the most of her immediate surroundings that proved to be the secret of herworld-wide fame in after years when her name was included with those of theother prominent astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening ofOctober First, 1847, 99 If you want knowledge, you musttoil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasurecomes through toil, and not by self-indulgence and indolence. When one gets tolove work, his life is a happy one.—Ruskin. she made the discovery whichfirst brought her name before the public. She was gazing through her glass withher usual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "anunknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees." Atfirst she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting, scarcely daringto think that she had really made a discovery, she obtained its right ascensionand declination. She then told her father, who gave Oneof the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you maygive them up.—GeorgeMacDonald. the news to the other astronomers and to the world,and her claim to the discovery was duly accepted and ever after stood to herlasting credit. But had she not been interested in her work and competent toseize upon and to make the most of the opportunity that presented itself, shewould not have been able to make herself the first of all the beings of ourearth to observe and record this strange visitant to our starry realms aboveus.

Every individual has a place to fill in the world,and is important in some respects, whether he chooses to be ornot.—Hawthorne. Itis the faith which the sunshiny spirit has in the "worth whileness"of life and its possibilities that makes him or her who possesses it preparefor the best that is to come. It is because of the "preparedness"achieved by labor that men and 100 women are able to seize upon and make the mostof the "lucky chance" that may bring them happiness and success.

Expediency is man’s wisdom. Doing right isGod’s.—GeorgeMeredith. While Thomas A. Edison was yet a youth, the desire tomake himself of worth to the world and to be able to do something that wouldmake him a living while he was still fitting himself for better things, hespent the leisure which most Diamonds are found only inthe dark places of the earth; truths are found only in the depths ofthought.—VictorHugo. boys would spend in idleness or purposeless pastime inlearning the telegrapher’s code. Later on this knowledge gave him workwhich enabled him to gain experience as a telegraph operator, which in turn ledto his invention of the quadruplex telegraph. But the invention was temporarilya I simply declare my determination not to feed on thebroth of literature when I can get strong soup.—George Eliot. failure, although lateron a great success. Sorely reduced in circ*mstances, he was one day trampingthe streets of New York without a cent.

"I happened one day," he says, "into the office of a’gold ticker’ company which had about five hundred subscribers.A thousand words leave not the same deep print as does asingle deed.—Ibsen.I was standing beside the apparatus when it gave a terrific rip-roar andsuddenly stopped. In a few minutes hundreds of messenger boys blocked up thedoorway and yelled for some one to fix 101 the tickers in the office. The man incharge of the place was completely upset; so I stepped up to him and said:’I think I know what’s the matter.’ I removed a loose contactspring that had fallen between the wheels; the machine went on. The result? Iwas appointed to take charge of the Woman—thecrown of creation.—Herder. service at three hundreddollars a month. When I heard what the salary was I almost fainted." Ithad been his hopeful, cheerful, expectant attitude toward the future that hadever prompted him to fit himself so well that when the opportunity offereditself he was able to show that he possessed the grasp of things that madehim

THE CONQUEROR

There’s a day, there’san hour, a moment of timeHarmony is the essence of poweras well as beauty.—A. E. Winship.
When Fate shall be willing to try us;
This one test of our worth and our purpose sublime,
It will not, it cannot deny us.
’Tis our right to demand one true crisis, else how
Shall we prove by our valor undaunted
That we merit the wreath Fortune lays on the brow
Of the man who is there when he’s wanted?

102

And whene’er Opportunityknocks at his doorBe faithful to thyself, and fear noother witness but thy fear.—Shelley.
The wise one’s glad greeting is,"Ready!"
He has garnered, of knowledge, an adequate store,
His purpose is seasoned and steady.
With soul and with spirit, with hand and with heart,
And with strength that he never has vaunted,
He is fashioned and fitted to compass his part,
Is the man who is there when he’s wanted.

The world is a stage and our livesare a playTo give heartfelt praise to noble actions is,in some measure, making them our own.—La Rochefoucauld.
And the role that is given us in it
May be grand or obscure, yet there comes the great day
When we speak its best lines for a minute.
And the dream that through all of life’s trials and tears,
The soul, like soft music, has haunted,
Comes true, and the world gives its smiles and its cheers
To the man who is there when he’s wanted.

105

CHAPTER VI
A MERRY HEART

Mirth is God’s medicine; everybody ought tobathe in it.—Holmes.Who among us can presume to estimate the value of a merry heart? What aperpetual blessing it is to its possessor and to all who must come into closerelationship with the owner of it!

The blue of heaven is larger than thecloud—Elizabeth BarrettBrowning. There is nothing more pleasantly "catching"than happiness. The happy person serves to make all about him or her the morehappy. What the bright, inspiring sunshine adds to the beauty of the fields, ahappy disposition adds to the charm of all the incidents and experiences ofone’s daily life.

A gay, serene spirit is the source of all that isnoble and good.—Schiller. Do not you, whose eyes areperusing these lines, love to associate with a friend possessing a cheerfuldisposition? And do you not intuitively refrain from meeting with theunfortunate one whose looks and words are heavy with complainings or whose eyesfail to see the beauty of the world lying all about? And 106 Your manners will depend very much on what you frequently think on;for the soul is as it were tinged with the color and complexion ofthought.—Marcus AureliusAntoninus. if we are given to wise thinking we must reach theconclusion that as we regard these attributes in others, so others must regardthem in us.

Nothing is more eloquent than a beautiful face. It is the open sesame to allour hearts. A sunshiny face melts away all opposition and finds the word"Welcome" written over the doorways where the face wearing a hard,unfriendly look sees only the warning, "No Admittance."

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, forthat is the stuff life is made of.—Benjamin Franklin. But a smile that isonly skin deep is not a true smile, but only a superficial grin. A true smilecomes all the way from the heart. It bears its message of good will andfriendliness. It is a mute salutation of "good luck and happy days toyou!" and it makes whoever receives it better and stronger for thehour.

Be yourself, but make yourself in everything asdelightful as you can.—Margaret E.Sangster. The genuine smile is closely related to, and is a partof, that laughter which beams and sparkles in the eye and makes the little,cheerful, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easilydistinguished from the lines that are the outward sign of an unhappy spiritwithin.

Many centuries ago that wise and 107 The tissue ofthe life to be we weave with colors all our own, and in the field of destiny wereap as we have sown.—Whittier. admirable philosopher,Epictetus, discovered that "happiness is not in strength, or wealth, orpower; or all three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest ofevery ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power of contentment andpeace, and the even flow of life, even in poverty, exile, disease and the veryvalley of the shadow."

What must of necessity be done you can always findout beyond question how to do.—Ruskin. One of the happiest observersof life and its higher purposes—Anne Gilchrist—says: "I usedto think it was great to disregard happiness, to press to a high goal,careless, disdainful of it. But now I see there is nothing so great as to becapable of happiness,—to pluck it out of each moment, The doctrine of love, purity, and right living has, step by step,won its way into the hearts of mankind, and has filled the future with hope andpromise.—WilliamMcKinley. and, whatever happens, to find that one can ride as gayand buoyant on the angry, menacing, tumultuous waves of life as on those thatglide and glitter under a clear sky; that it is not defeat and wretchednesswhich comes out of the storms of adversity, but strength andcalmness."

The strongest incentive for the cultivation of a merry heart is that it is aduty as well as a delight. Sydney Smith has very wisely observed that"mankind is always happier for having been 108 Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let ushonor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he ispassing.—Goethe.happy; so that if you make them happy now, you may make them happy twenty yearshence by the memory of it."

True happiness has about it no suggestion of selfishness. The genuinelyhappy person is the one who would have all the world to be happy. "Isthere any happiness in the world like the happiness of a disposition made happyby the happiness of others?" asks Faber. "There is no joy to becompared with it. The Every wish is a prayer withGod.— Elizabeth BarrettBrowning. luxuries which wealth can buy, the rewards whichambition can obtain, the pleasures of art and scenery, the abounding sense ofhealth and the exquisite enjoyment of mental creations are nothing to this pureand heavenly happiness, where self is drowned in the blessings ofothers."

Say not always what you know, but always know whatyou say.—Claudius.One of the most heavenly attributes of happiness is that it begets morehappiness not only in ourselves but in others about us. It has in it an upliftand a strength that enables us to build the stronger to-day against thedistress that would beset us to-morrow.

"Health and happiness" are terms that are so often closely linkedin our speech and in our literature. One is 109 Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want ofheart.—Hood. almosta synonym for the other. Perhaps the true significance existing between the twowould be more correctly stated were we to reverse the form in which they areusually set forth and say "happiness and health" instead. Allobservers of human nature and its many complex attributes are convinced thathappiness is the Our greatest glory consists not innever falling, but in rising every time we fall.—Goldsmith. fountain spring ofhealth.

One of our keenest students of life tells us that "small annoyances arethe seeds of disease. We cannot afford to entertain them. They are theSo use present pleasures that thou spoilest not futureones.—Seneca.bacteria,—the germs that make serious disturbance in the system, andprepare the way for all derangements. They furnish the mental conditions whichare manifested later in the blood, the tissues, and the organs, under variouspathological names. Good thoughts are the only germicide. We must kill ourresentment and regret, impatience and anxiety. Health will inevitably follow.Every thought that holds us in even the slightest degree to either anticipationA good manner springs from a good heart, and finemanners are the outcome of unselfish kindness.—Margaret E. Sangster. or regrethinders, to some extent, the realization of our present good. It limitsfreedom. Life is in the present tense. Its significant name is Being."110

Whether we are happy or not depends much on our point of view. Thedisposition to look at everything through kind and beautiful eyes makes all theworld more kind and beautiful. If we are gloomy within the whole world appearslikewise. Perhaps the two ways of looking at things could not be better setforth than in these clever lines by E. J. Hardy:

"How dismal you look!" said a bucket to his companion, as theywere Reading and study are in no sense education, unlessthey may contribute to this end of making us feel kindly towards allcreatures.—Ruskin.going to the well.

"Ah!" replied the other, "I was reflecting on the uselessnessof our being filled, for, let us go away never so full, we always come backempty."

"Dear me! how strange to look on it that way!" said the otherbucket; "now I enjoy the thought that however empty we come, we always goaway full. Only look An hour in every day withdrawn fromfrivolous pursuits would, if properly employed, enable a person of ordinarycapacity, to go far toward mastering a science.—Samuel Smiles. at it in that light andyou will always be as cheerful as I am."

The difference between the pessimist and the optimist is in their

POINT OF VIEW

Because each rose must have itsthorn,
The pessimist Fate’s plan opposes;
The optimist, more gladly born,
Rejoices that the thorns have roses.

111

To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It isnot what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fitfor noble career.—E. P.Tenney. Since our happiness is merely the reflex influence of thehappiness we make for others it would seem as though the joy of our livesdwells within our own keeping. "The universe," says Zimmerman,"pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you inreturn; if you frown, you will be frowned at; if He wholoses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but he who losesspirit loses all.—S. A.Nelson. you sing, you will be invited into gay company; if youthink, you will be entertained by thinkers; if you love the world, andearnestly seek for the good therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends,and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth."

If you tell the truth, you have infinite powersupporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you.—Charles G. Gordon. All ofthis being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunities for makingothers happy if we, ourselves, would get the most and highest enjoyment fromlife. "There are gates that swing within your life and mine," writes"Amber," that good woman of sainted memory, "letting in rareopportunities from day to day, that tarry but a moment and are gone, liketravelers bound for points remote. There is the opportunity to resist thetemptation to do a mean thing! Improve it, for it is in a hurry, like the manwhose ticket is 112 Great hearts alone understandhow much glory there is in being good. To be and keep so is not the gift of ahappy nature alone, but it is strength and heroism.—Jules Michelet. bought and whose timeis up. It won’t be back this way, either, for opportunities for good arenot like tourists who travel on return tickets. There is the opportunity to saya pleasant word to the ones within the sound of your voice. All of thepriceless opportunities travel by lightning express and have no time to idlearound the waiting-room. If we improve them at all it must be We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, notbreaths.—Bailey.when the gate swings to let them through."

It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are to findthe larger and truer happiness of life. Says Jenkin Lloyd Jones, "I wouldrather Remember that everybody’s business in thesocial system is to be agreeable.—Dickens. live in an alley, stayed allround with human loves, associations and ambitions, than dwell in a palace withdrawbridge, moat, and portcullis, apart from the community about me, alienatedfrom my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those with whom Idivide nature’s bounty of land and landscape, of air and sky." Andalong this same line of thinking, Charles Hargrove says: "Brother, sister,your mistake is to live alone in a crowded world, to think of yourself and yourown belongings, and what is the matter with you, instead of 113 In the lexicon of youth there is no such word asfail.—Bulwer Lytton.trying to realize, what is the fact—that you are a member of a greathuman society, and that your true interests are one with those of the worldwhich will go on much the same however it fare with you. Live the larger life,and you will find it the happier."

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men,sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thineown.—Lowell. So oneof the chief aims of your life and of mine should be to find happiness and tosee to it that others find it as well. And let us not wait to find happiness inone great offering, but let us discover it whenever and wherever we can. Let uscarefully study our surroundings to see if it is not hiding all about us."Very few things," says Lecky, "contribute so much to thehappiness of The cheerful live longest in years, andafterward in our regards.—Bovee. life as a constant realizationof the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a naturally contented natureand a naturally discontented one is one of the marked differences of innatetemperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on thebenefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positiveenjoyment."

Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivate thegracious habit of being grateful for joys 114 How sweet andgracious, even in common speech, is that fine sense which men callCourtesy!—James T.Fields. that come to us and to seek to appreciate the worth ofthe beneficent gifts that are ever being showered upon us. We are so apt tofall into the habit of accepting blessings as a matter of course and of failingto discover their wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have everthoughtfully dwelt upon Make each goal when reached, astarting point for further quest.—Browning. the priceless attributes ofthe air that is ever and always floating about us. In order that we may have atruer appreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read these wordsby Lord Avebury:

"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathesthe skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of its presence, andyet The world is so full of a number of things,I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.—Robert Louis Stevenson. so strong thatit wafts the odors of flowers and fruit into our rooms, carries our ships overthe seas, the purity of sea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It isthe vehicle of sound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweetmusic of nature; it is the great reservoir of the rain which waters the earth,it softens the heat of day and the cold of night, covers us overhead with aglorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning and evening skies with fire.It is so 115 God bless the good-natured,for they bless everybody else.—Beecher. exquisitely soft and pure, sogentle and yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovableand fascinating of all Nature Spirits."

It is only when we open our eyes to the beauty of the wonders about us thatwe see how much there is to contribute to our happiness if we will but open ourhearts and let it come in. What a perpetual exaltation nature will afford usIf you are acquainted with Happiness, introduce him toyour neighbor.—PhillipsBrooks. when we have cultivated the fine habit of looking upon itwith the welcoming eyes through which Richard Jefferies beholds it: "Thewhole time in the open air," he tells us, "resting at mid-day underthe elms with the ripple of heat flowing through the shadow; at midnightbetween the ripe corn and the hawthorne hedge or the white camomile and thepoppy pale in the duskiness, with face Nor love thylife, nor hate; but what thou liv’st, live well; how long or short,permit to heaven.—Milton. upturned to the thoughtfulheaven. Consider the glory of it, the life above this life to be obtained fromconstant presence with the sunlight and the stars."

So let us cultivate the fine habit of finding joy and of shouting it to ourfriends and neighbors. Life seems bright to us when we are really glad of116The most wasted of all days is that on which one has notlaughed.—Chamfort.anything and we let gladness have voice to express itself. George MacDonaldsays "a poet is a man who is glad of something and tries to make otherpeople glad of it, too." In the possession of this kindly spirit, atleast, we must all strive to be poets.

It is impossible to be just if one is notgenerous.—JosephRoux. Emerson tells us that "there is one topic positivelyforbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers.If you have not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, orthunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and notpollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasantthoughts, by corruption and groans."

The fine tonic effect of a bright, happy face smiling across the breakfasttable is known to all the world. Better a feast of corn bread and a cheerfulcountenance than fruit cake and a sour temperament. People glorify all sorts of bravery, except the bravery they mightshow on behalf of their nearest neighbors.— George Eliot.

So I feel very sure that you, my dear young lady, for whom these lines arewritten, are never going to appear at the breakfast table with aught other thana bright cheery face and a pleasant word How activesprings the mind that leaves the load of yesterday behind.—Pope. 117 for all aboutyou. Some one has said that the first hour of the day is the critical one.Happy is the person who can wake with a song, or who can at least hold back thefears and the grumbles until a thought of gladness has established One of the most charming things in girlhood isserenity.—Margaret E.Sangster. itself as the keynote of the day.

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not," says Shakespeare. While asa rule it is deemed wrong to assume to possess any virtue that we do notpossess, we may and no doubt should, at times, appear to be happy even thoughwe may feel more like indulging in lamentations. To come to the breakfast tableenumerating a Every generous nature desires to make theearning of an honest living but a means to the higher end of adding to the sumtotal of human goodness and human happiness.—Frances E. Willard. list of real orimaginary ailments is a most ill-advised thing to do. We should endeavor toforget our troubles and above all we should be slow to give voice to them sothat thereby they will be multiplied in the minds of others. It has been trulysaid that most people who are unhappy are really miserable and bring theirmisery to others because they allow the failures and discomforts to speak thefirst word in their souls. For misery is voluble and the little discomfortswill turn us into their continual mouthpieces if we will give them a118Attempt the end, and never stand in doubt;nothing’s so hard but search will find it out.— Richard Lovelace. chance. But thetruly thoughtful and considerate person will have none of them. Instead ofdisplaying the flag of distress and surrender, the wiser method is to pull ourcourage and determination together and don

THE BETTER ARMOR

If throughthick and through thinThere is only one way to get readyfor immortality, and that is to love this life and live it as bravely andcheerfully and faithfully as we can.—Henry Van Dyke.
You are eager to win,
Don’t go shrouded in Fear and in Doubt,
But with Hope and with Truth
And the blue sky of Youth
Go through life with the sunny side out.

So let us determine that we will cultivate the happy habit; for indeed evenhappiness is largely a habit. "As he thinketh in his heart, so ishe." If he thinks trouble, he is very likely to find it. If he thinkssickness, he is He that composes himself is wiser thanhe that composes books.—BenjaminFranklin. likely to be ill. If he thinks unkind things, he isquite sure to put them into the deeds of his daily life. The thought is thearchitect’s plans which the hands are likely to set about to build. Tothe one who thinks the weather is Anxiety never yetsuccessfully bridged over any chasm.—Ruffini. bad, it is sure to bedisagreeable. To the one who seeks to find something pleasant about it, it iscertain to offer some happy phases. 119

How poor are they that have not patience! What wounddid ever heal but by degrees?—Shakespeare. We must all answer"yes" to this question asked by one of our fine writers on our socialamenities: "Don’t you get awfully tired of people who are alwayscroaking? A frog in a big, damp, malarial pond is expected to make all the fusshe can in protest of his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown, andborn that he may be educated for the court of a king! Placed in an emeraldworld with a hither side of opaline shadow, and a fine dust of diamonds to setDuty determines destiny. Destiny which results from dutyperformed, may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure anddishonor.—WilliamMcKinley. it sparkling when winter days are flying; with tenmillion singing birds to make it musical, and twice ten million flowers to makeit sweet; with countless stars to light it up with fiery splendor, and white,new moons to wrap it round with mystery; with other souls within it to love andmake happy, and the hand of God to uphold it on its rushing way among thecountless worlds that crowd its path; If I can stop oneheart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.—Emily Dickinson. what right has man tofind fault with such a world? When the woodtick shall gain a hearing, as hecomplains that the grand old century oak is unfit to shelter him, or thebluebird be harkened to when he murmurs that the horizon is off color, and doesnot 120 match his wings, then, I think, it will be time forman to find fault with the appointments of the magnificent sphere in which helives."

No book is worth anything which is not worth much;nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and lovedagain.—Ruskin.Therefore let it be determined between us, right here and now, that come whatmay, we shall each of us endeavor to keep a merry heart and a pleasant face. Aswe love to see a happy expression on the faces of our parents, brothers,sisters and friends, so must they enjoy seeing a pleasant look overspreadingour Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the bestflower of civilization.—Emerson. features. And with this goodand kindly resolve in our minds it will never be difficult for us to decidewhether we shall give to the good world about us the gladness or the gloom thatis embodied in

SONG OR SIGH

If you were a bird and shut in acage,
Now what would you better do,—
Would you grieve your throat with a sorry note
And mourn the whole day through;
Or would you swing and chirp and sing,
Though the world were warped with wrong,
Till you filled one place with the perfect grace
And gladness of your song?

121

It is so easyto perceive other people’s little absurdities, and so difficult todiscover our own.— EllenThornycroft Fowler. If you were a man and shut in a world,
Now what would you better do,—
On a gloomy day, when skies were gray,
Would you be gloomy, too?
When crossed with care would you let despair
Life’s happy hope destroy,
Or with a smile work on the while
You found the path to joy?

125

CHAPTER VII
GOLDEN HABITS

We often hear I think that there is success in allhonest endeavor, and that there is some victory gained in every gallantstruggle that is made.—Dickens. persons speaking of "theforce of habit" as though it were something to be regretted. "Habitis second nature," is a saying that is included among the classic epigramsof men. That habits do become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimesto its sorrow and sometimes to its advantage and delight.

For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and inthat Every noble work is at firstimpossible.—Carlyle.we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance from wrongdoing.

The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual growthought Truth is a strong thing, let man’s life betrue.—Browning. tobe very much to our advantage. This very fundamental principle of theirconstruction should result in giving us very many more good habits than badhabits. This happy conclusion is based on the supposition that while many of126Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformlyjoyous—a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautifulbecause bright.—Carlyle. us are so constituted that itis possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is unlikelywe could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the questionableaction become a fixed habit.

The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober secondPass no day idly; youth does notreturn.—ChineseProverb. thought, that it was a mistake on our part to havepermitted ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we wouldthen and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that thewrong should not occur again.

In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good deedinspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same kind. WrongIf, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could castthe gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be givingas the angels must give.—GeorgeMacDonald. deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment ofthoughtlessness when one’s conscience, one’s higher and betterself, is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full andproud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful sense ofretrospective pleasure, after they have been done.

"Could the young," says Henry 127 Nothing canconstitute good breeding that has not good manners for itsfoundation.—BulwerLytton. James, "but realize how soon they will become merewalking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while inthe plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literateness,wiped out." One of our latter day philosophers tells us that"happiness is a matter of habit; and you had better gather it fresh everyday or you will never get it at all."

In speaking of the success he had achieved in life, Charles Dickens said:"I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked muchharder The common earth is common only to those who aredeaf to the voices and blind to the visions which wait on it and make itsflight a music and its path a light.—H. W. Mabie. and not succeeded half sowell; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits ofpunctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentratemyself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should comeupon its heels."

When we come to study carefully the full meaning of the word"habit" we find it to be a very comprehensive term. In the sense inwhich it is here employed The truest lives are thosethat are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to themany-planed aspects of the world about them.—Oliver Wendell Holmes. the dictionarydefines it as being "a tendency or inclination toward an action orcondition, which by repetition has become easy, spontaneous or even128unconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusionthat one’s habits are in fact one’s manners, one’sprinciples, one’s mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of thetheme finally brings one to a clear realization of the secret of

TRUE GENTILITY

One cannot from the worldconceal
The current of his thought;
It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life likethis: Count always your highest moments your truest moments.—Phillips Brooks. A word or action willreveal
The thing his brain hath wrought.

True goodness from within mustcome
And deeds, to be refined,
Their outer grace must borrow from
Politeness of the mind.

Our manners are ourselves. They constitute our personality and it is by ourWe only begin to realize the value of our possessionswhen we commence to do good to others with them.— Joseph Cook. personality that we arejudged. If that is frank and pleasant and agreeable we shall not lack forfriends.

A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the mannersare Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and Iwill find few things more worth while than comradeship.—Margaret E. Sangster. perfect theywill call forth admiration as nothing else could do.

Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It isthe 129 spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profitethnothing." We are told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thoughtof man is inscribed on his brain, Do noble things, notdream them, all day long, and so make life, death, and the vast forever, onegrand, sweet song.—CharlesKingsley. for volition and thoughts have their beginnings in thebrain, whence they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate.Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the brain in thebody, according to the order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in hisphysique, and thus the angels discover his autobiography in hisstructure."

And to get peace, if you do want it, make foryourself nests of pleasant thoughts.—Ruskin. Since good habits and pleasingmanners are such important aids in the making of character and personality weshould leave nothing undone to strengthen the better side of our lives. Andsince we all are constantly being acted upon by When oneis so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose that he has nothought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy—the joy ofself-sacrifice.—LymanAbbott. suggestion we should invite to our assistance anythingthat will tend to keep us in the most exemplary frame of mind.

In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, andothers honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our good resolvesby reading good books and in framing 130 Morality isconformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous action, with the bestintention founded on principle.—A.E. Winship. for our own benefit a code of rules for our betterconduct.

It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable quotationsand display them in some manner where the eye must see them with frequency. Acalendar with a daily quotation admirably serves this purpose. Oftentimes whena good thought is put into the mind in the early morning it tends to direct theTo have a friend is to have one of the sweetest giftsthat life can bring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education ofsoul from day to day.—AnnaRobertson Brown. course of our thinking throughout the day. Thefollowing quotations are offered only as suggestions. They can be added toindefinitely:

A man’s own good breeding isthe best security against other people’s illmanners.—Chesterfield.

Good breeding shows itself most whento an ordinary eye it appears the When it comes to doinga thing in this world, I don’t ask myself whether I like it or not, but,what’s the best way to get it done.—Ellen Glasgow.least.—Addison.

Good manners is the art of makingthose people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasyis the best bred in the company.—Swift.

Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies oflife, for smooth do you make the road of it.—Sterne.

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Civility costs nothing and buyseverything.—Lady Montague.Do you ask to be thecompanion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for theconversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hearit.—Ruskin.

Evil communications corrupt goodmanners.—Bible.

No pleasure is comparable tostanding on the vantage ground of truth.—Lord Bacon.

They are never alone that areaccompanied with noble thoughts.—Sidney.

Let your speech be always withgrace, seasoned with salt.—New Testament.

Sweet mercy is nobility’s truebadge.—Shakespeare.There is no cosmetic for homelyfolks like character. Even the plainest face becomes beautiful in noble andradiant moods.—Newell DwightHillis.

Honest labor bears a lovelyface.—Dekker.

The gods give nothing reallybeautiful without labor and diligence.—Xenophon.

The key to pleasure is honest work.All dishes taste good with that sauce.—H. R. Haweis.

Work is as necessary for peace ofmind as for health of body.—Lord Avebury.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shadesgreener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of betterthoughts.—Thoreau.Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the worldwould be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty ofHappiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we 132 ought to beas cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the mosteffectual contribution to the happiness of A good bookis the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up onpurpose to a life beyond life.—Milton.others."

Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those aboutus unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state of mind intowhich Happiness is the natural flower ofduty.—PhillipsBrooks. they throw those about them are not good mannered. Whileit is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in the greatgriefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be forever stirringthem with all the real or fancied ills with which we can regale them. Eitherextreme is more or By wisdom wealth is won; but richespurchased wisdom yet for none.—Bayard Taylor. less absurd andunwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too willinglyupon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the Orient we deem to beso ludicrously polite in matters of this nature as to almost arouse ourmirth.

It is surely better to pardon too much than tocondemn too much.—GeorgeEliot. An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says:"There must really have been a double portion of politeness bestowed uponthese people who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that aguest in the home might 133 not be burdened with their sorrow. The habit is instriking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning streamers, thehatbands, plumes, palls, black To be a strong hand inthe dark to another in the time of need, to be a cup of strength to a humansoul in a crisis of weakness, is to know the glory of life.—Hugh Black. chargers, and funeralhearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of allbeholders!"

In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching ofmorality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would deem itstrange It is not the result of our acts that makes thembrave and noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved usto do them.—R. L.Stevenson. if a master gave them an hour’s instruction inthe correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters. Yetsuch knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it does in Japanwhere it is counted the most vital instruction of all. Step by step theJapanese child is led along the course of behavior, learning how to stand up,sit down, bow, hang up its hat, and how to think of its parents, brothers andsisters, and of its country. Later on these lessons are repeated withillustrations from short stories, and still later by incidents from actualhistory and the lives of great men of all Use thy youthso that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsakenthee.—WalterRaleigh. countries. Before the end of the course of instructionis reached all manner of virtues and 134 points of behavior have beenintroduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially in the case ofgirls) the proper way of advancing and retiring, offering and accepting things,sleeping and eating, visiting, congratulating and condoling, mourning andholding public meetings. So the school course continues It is easy to condemn; it is better to pity.—Abbott. from year to year, theelementary school course lasting four years and the secondary course four yearsmore, and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their dutyto ancestors, to other people’s property, other people’s honor,other people’s freedom, and, finally, to self-discipline, modesty,dignity, dress, labor, the treatment of animals, and the due relations of menand women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords" ofcreation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior rather thanknowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest detail of what our goodgreat-grandmothers valued as deportment.

To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of habit,If you don’t scale the mountain, you can’tview the plain.—ChineseProverb. some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Somemen’s behavior," said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein everysyllable is measured," and he warned us that manners must be like apparel,"not too strait or point-device, but free for exercise or 135 For him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, lifemay lead through the thorns, but it never stops in thedesert.—Anonymous.motion." However, it is better to err on the side of too much attention toour manners rather than to be thought careless of our persons and ourbehavior.

Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners, refinement,good Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are meansthe happier to arise.—WilliamShakespeare. breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the formsof etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from savagery,and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one who does not see fitto cultivate the grace of gentility.

It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the breach ofBe resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humblywhat you aspire to be.—Thoreau.written or traditional laws,and choose our society, and even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. Itis not an uncommon occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageousposition in life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by agraciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead tosuccess.

For some quite unwarranted reason 136 If people onlyknew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of Heaven would not be faroff.—GeorgeMacDonald. society seems to have taken the position that we havea right to expect more from our girls than from our boys in the matter of goodmanners. This, however, is not the view held by those who know the true meaningof good breeding. The The shadows of our own desiresstand between us and our better angel.—Dickens. demand that every boy shallbe a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that which says that every girlmust be a gentle woman and a thorough lady.

Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, sisters,If every day we can feel, if only for a moment, therealization of being our best selves, you may be sure that we aresucceeding.—BlissCarman. teachers, society and the world intend that she shall begood and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of allthat and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to pursue onlythe paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities of person andcharacter may be found. So here and now it is timely to ask of the readers ofthese lines—

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

What are you going to do,girls,
With the years that are hurrying on?
Do you mean to begin life’s purpose to win
In the freshness and strength of the dawn?

137

The builders who build in themorning,If you know how to spend less than you get, youhave the philosopher’s stone.—Benjamin Franklin.
At even may joyfully rest,
Their victories won, as they watch the glad sun
Sink down in the beautiful west.

What are you going to do,girls,
With time as it ceaselessly flows?
Are you molding a heart that will pleasures impart
As perfume exhales from the rose?

Let all that is purest andgrandest
In duty’s fair wreath be entwined;
There is no other grace can illumine the face
Like the charm of a beautiful mind.

He only is advancing in life, whose heart is gettingsofter, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering intoliving peace.—Ruskin. A student of the subject ofethics must understand that the true spirit of good manners is very closelyallied to that of good morals. It has been pointed out that no stronger proofof this assertion is required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in hisgreat moral teachings, so frequently touches upon the The fine art of living, indeed, is to draw from each person hisbest.—LilianWhiting. subject of manners. He teaches that modesty is the truespirit of good behavior, and openly rebukes the forward manner of His followersin taking the upper seats at the banquet and the highest seats in thesynagogues.

The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they were,138Reflect upon your present blessings—of which everyman has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men havesome.—Dickens.themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail to teach theimportance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have left behind them acode of ethics that might easily be turned into a "Guide to the CompleteGentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay on manners in which hereminds If the day and the night are such that you greetthem with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scentedherbs—is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is yoursuccess.—Thoreau. usthat a stone must be of very high value to do without a setting.

The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow andsuperficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one wish to bepolite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise one’s selfinto a society supposed to be better than his own. It is unnecessary to statethat Lord Chesterfield’s good manners, fine as they appear, do not bearthe true Blessings ever wait on virtuousdeeds.—Congreve.stamp of genuineness. There is not the living person back of them possessingheart and character. They seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does tothe wax figure in the dressmaker’s window. True manners mean more thanThe microscope gives us a world, a universe, a singledrop of dew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnestmeditation.—MadameSwetchine. mannerisms. They cannot be taught entirely from a bookin which there are sets of rules to be observed on any and every occasion. They139are rather a cultivated method of thinking and feeling and the forming of acharacter that knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing todo without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth.

Better is it to have a small portion of good sense,with humility and a slender understanding, than great treasures of science,with vain self-complacency.—Thomasà Kempis. It is generally agreed that our best and only rightmotive in the cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves betterthan we otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom wemay meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are placed. Withthese objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty to cultivateone’s manners as it is to cultivate one’s mind, and no one can denythat we are better citizens when we observe the nicer amenities of society thanwe are when we pay no heed to them.

Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom, bothupon There is one road to peace and that istruth.—Shelley. mindand body. Therefore, since custom is the principle magistrate of man’slife, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs. Certainly custom ismost perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, whichis, in effect, but an early custom." 140

He hath from his childhood conversed with books andbookmen; and always being where the frankincense of the temple was offered,there must be some perfume remaining about him.—Thomas Fuller. So we see that our truecharacters are but the expression of our habits and of our manners. And we seethat only those habits that are formed in the early years of life seem to fitus perfectly and naturally throughout all the years.

It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "itis hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in laterlife the manners and graces that escape us in youth.

Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the goodEverything great is not always good, but all good thingsare great.—Demosthenes. influences of a culturedhome. She has at hand the material from which to select all that she may needto build the fine character the world shall observe and admire. Such felicitoussurroundings should teach her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenienttoward others whose early years are lived among less Theturmoil of the world will always die, if we set our faces to climbheavenward.—Hawthorne. advantageous surroundings.For if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify herheart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost.

Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable forthe forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the prize ofgentility 141 If I can put one touch of arosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have workedwith God.—GeorgeMacDonald. which they would obtain. And in this very struggleagainst adverse circ*mstances will be engendered a strength and a spirit ofself-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy equivalent for the loss ofa more kindly and propitious environment.

It is experience that develops character, and character is the one thingthat distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual thing ofsupreme beauty. Our business in life is not to get aheadof other people but to get ahead of ourselves.—Maltbie D. Babco*ck.

The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring.Golden habits that have been hammered out of our life experiences are to beimplicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point. They have beenshaped out of the very necessity of one’s surroundings. They are worthevery effort that The narrow kingdom of to-day is betterworth ruling over than the widest past or future.—Edith Wharton. they have cost. Theworld will never know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, howmuch of its beauty it owes to that which we are all so prone to call

DRUDGERY

Dull drudgery, "gray angel ofsuccess;"There’s always a bloom on the worldif one looks.—Abby M.Roach.
Enduring purpose, waiting long and long,

142

Headache or heartache, blent withsigh or song,
Forever delving mid the strife and stress:
Within the bleak confines of your duress
Are laid the firm foundations, deep and strong,
Whereon men build the right against thewrong,—
The toil-wrought monuments that lift and bless.

The coral reefs; the bee’so’erflowing cells;The reward of one duty is thepower to fulfill another.—GeorgeEliot.
The Pyramids; all things that shall endure;
The books on books wherein all wisdom dwells,
Are wrought with plodding patience, slow andsure.
Yours the time-tempered fashioning that spells
Of chaos, order, perfect and secure.

145

CHAPTER VIII
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

He who works for sweetness and light works to makereason and the will of God prevail.—Matthew Arnold. "Nothing succeedslike success."

Perhaps the true meaning of this old French proverb is that once we have ameasure of success we are the more likely to achieve still more victories. Thediscovery that our strength, perseverance and determination have been capableof bending circ*mstances to our will and bringing to fulfillment the end forwhich Let us ever glory in something, and strive toretain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all thatwould enrich and beautify our life.—Phillips Brooks. we have wished andworked, gives us renewed courage and inspiration for the undertaking of new andlarger duties.

We learn to do by doing. Achievement leads to still greater achievement.Orison Swett Marden, one of the world’s wisest of observers and deepestof philosophers, says, "The world makes way for the determined man."And so it does 146 Nothing of worth or weight canbe achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lameendeavor.—Barrow.for the determined woman, or the determined girl or boy.

Regarding this thing called "Success," too many of us are apt tothink that it means some one, isolated, remarkable achievement, that comes atthe end of a Good manners are part of goodmorals.—Whately.long period of striving in some particular field of endeavor. This is notentirely true. Every great success is made of very many lesser successes thathave preceded it. Just as the cap-stone at the top of the tallest building isheld in its lofty position by every stone beneath it even down to the ones deepin the earth at the very foundation of the structure, which are indeed perhapsAfter all, the kind of world one carries about withinone’s self is the important thing, and the world outside takes all itsgrace, color and value from that.—Lowell. the most important of all.

So the thing which the world is pleased to call "Success" is builtup by a thousand little successes on which it must finally rest. The buildingof a life success begins with the earliest dawn of being and must be carried onwith as much care as a mason would give to the laying of the walls of astructure designed to stand for years. The mason knows that if he does not layhis In character, in manner, in style, in all things thesupreme excellence is simplicity.—Longfellow. foundations deep and firm,that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he 147 puts faultybricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a success. The work atevery stage must be a success or the completed structure must be a failure.

So it is in life. If our moments are not successful, the hours can never beso, and the days and years can but enlarge upon and emphasize their failure."Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is a world made new,"says Susan Coolidge. There is a chance for attaining success every hour and dayof our lives.

Success is not alone for the great men of the world who find new continents,The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennobleit.—Bovee. explorethe poles, navigate the air, write great poems, paint great pictures, or whoamass fortunes of millions of dollars. No, success is for any and all of us,here and now, any and all the time.

Were you prepared in your studies at school to-day? If you were, that wasNever mind if you cannot do all things just as well asyou would like to. It is only necessary to do things just as well as youcan.—Patrick Flynn.success.

Have you your music lesson well in hand for this afternoon? If so, thatmeans success.

Have you been kind to everybody to-day, and with a pleasant word and a148willing hand, done all you could to make life pleasanter and happier for thoseabout you? If so, that is a fine moral success. And if you will multiply theNot so much beautiful features as a beautiful soul canmake a beautiful face.—Margaret E.Sangster. achievements of to-day by the days that are in theyears before you, you can see the result that you have a reason to expect, asyour life’s work.

Success means doing all that we can do as well as we can do it. It may beThere is a marvelous power in a well-definedindividuality.—Joe MitchellChapple. work or it may be play. It may be something of seeminglylittle account or it may be something of importance, but unless we do it well,and to the best of our ability it will not be a success.

"Every day," says Bunsen, "ought to be begun as a seriouswork, standing alone in itself, and yet connected with the past and thefuture." And Ruskin still further emphasizes this thought in the words:"Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and everysetting sun be to you as its close; then let every one of these short livesleave its sure record of some Resolution always gives uscourage.— A. E.Winship. kindly thing done for others."

We begin to achieve success when we do the things that are necessary forsuch achievement. Huxley expressed the 149 Of allfruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that has gone is the mostfruitless.—Dickens.whole secret of the matter when he said: "Perhaps the most valuable resultof all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do,when it ought to be done, as it ought to be done, whether you like to do it ornot."

A good life, which is but another name for success, does not comeYou can never be wise unless you lovereading.—Johnson. byaccident. Fortune may seem to favor it but it is the disposition to seize uponthe opportunities that present themselves that make some lives seem more blestwith "good chances" than others.

Self cultivation is the secret of most all attainments in the realm of humanendeavor. As a matter of fact, all that others can do for us is as nothing toThe perfecting of one’s self is the fundamentalbase of all progress and all moral development.—Confucius. that which we may do forourselves. Persons who do things usually have to work for results, or they haveat some time had to work to acquire the habits that later on make it seem soeasy for them to do fine things. "We think," says J. C. Van Dyke,"because the completed work looks easy or reads easy, that it must havebeen done easily. But the geniuses of the world have all put upon record theirconviction that there is more virtue in perspiration than in inspiration. The150Nothing can be beautiful which is nottrue.—Ruskin. greatpoets, whether in print or in paint, have spent their weeks andmonths—yes, years—composing, adjusting, putting in and taking out.They have known what it is to ’lick things into shape,’ to laborand be baffled, to despair and to hope anew."

With the dawning of every morning, life comes bringing to us a new andIt is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no goodcomes to those who have it so often in their mouth.—Carlyle. wonderful day to employ it aswe will. Shall it be a fine, gratifying success, or shall it be a failure?Shall it be part success and part failure? There can be no doubt about it beinga matter that is very largely in our own keeping.

MORNING GATES

Each golden dawn presents twogates
That open to the day;
Through one a path of joy awaits,
I wasted time, and now time doth wasteme.—Shakespeare.Through one a weary way.
Choose well, for by that choice is willed
If ye shall be distressed
At eventide, or richly filled
With strength and peace and rest.

"Every true life," says J. R. Miller, "should be a perpetualclimbing upward. We should put our faults under our feet, and make them stepson which to lift ourselves daily a little higher.... We never 151 Youth, all possibilities are in its hands.—Longfellow. in this world get to apoint where we may regard ourselves as having reached life’s goal, ashaving attained the loftiest height within our reach; Thought is deeper than all speech.— Cranch. there are always other roundsof the ladder to climb."

So we know that the purpose of life is not to make a failure of it. And weknow that we cannot make it a success unless we work toward that end. "Thefirst People influence us who have no business to do it,simply because we have neglected to train ourselves to attend to our ownaffairs.—A. E.Winship. great rule is, we must do something—that life musthave a purpose and an aim—that work should be not merely occasional andspasmodic, but steady and continuous," says Lecky. "Pleasure is ajewel which will retain its luster only when it is in a setting of work, and avacant life is one of the worst of pains, though the islands of leisure thatstud a crowded, well-occupied life may be among the things to which we lookback with the greatest delight."

There can be no interest where there is no purpose. How tiresome it wouldAs the heart, so is the life. The within is ceaselesslybecoming the without.—JamesAllen. very soon become if we were compelled to make idle,useless marks upon paper, without any design whatsoever. But to be able to drawpictures is a delight that no one can forego. "The most pitiable152life is the aimless life," says Jenkin Lloyd Jones. "Heaven help theman or woman, the boy or girl, who is not interested in anything outside of hisor her own immediate comfort and that related thereto, who eats bread to makestrength I have faith in the people.—Abraham Lincoln. for no special cause,who pursues science, reads poetry, studies books, for no earthly or heavenlypurpose than mere enjoyment or acquisition; who goes on accumulating wealth,piling up money, with no definite or absorbing purpose to apply it to anythingin particular."

Perhaps we expect to-day, more than men have at any other time in theOf all the propensities which teach mankind to tormentthemselves, that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful andpitiable.—WalterScott. world’s history, that girls as well as boys, mustlook forward to doing something definite in life. It is not deemed sufficientfor anyone simply "to be." The whole world is now living the verb"to do." The grace, strength, beauty and worth of womanhood is beingenhanced with the constantly enlarging sphere of women’s work. Theprimitive, almost heathen, notion that the feminine sex constituted a handicapin the achieving of great success in a great majority of the fields of humanendeavor is 153 He who cannot smile ought notto keep a shop.—ChineseProverb. rapidly fading away. It can no longer stand in the lightof the brilliant achievements women are making everywhere. Indeed, men arebecoming well convinced that their presumed supremacy in many of theworld’s spheres of Common sense bows to theinevitable and makes use of it.—Wendell Phillips. work is beingsuccessfully challenged at every point. So general is this experience becomingthat the present status of things might well be set forth somewhat after thefollowing style:

MAN, POOR MAN!

The question used to be, ’t istrue,
"What tasks are there for girls to do?"
But now we’ve reached an epoch when
We ask: "What is there left for men?"

They’ll keep enlarging"woman’s sphere"
Till man, poor, shrinking man, we fear,
Must If you wish success in life, make perseverance yourbosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, andhope your guardian genius.—Addison. grow quite useless, afterwhile,
And go completely out of style.

This piece of frivolity can well be pardoned on account of its absurdity.The great work of the world is so broad, so deep, so high, that it calls forthe best endeavors of all girls and boys, women and men. That the door ofopportunity is henceforth to be open to all is an assurance that the work is tobe more grandly 154 Self-distrust is the cause ofmost of our failures.—Bovee. and beautifully done than everbefore. What women may do in the years to come is wonderfully set forth by whatwomen have done in the past. All history is filled with the splendidachievements of the women of the world. A girl of to-day will find It is generally the idle who complain they cannot find time to dothat which they fancy they wish.—Lubbock.no reading more helpful andinspiring than the lives of such noble women as Martha Washington, QueenVictoria, Sally Bush—Abraham Lincoln’s goodstep-mother—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, MissLouisa Alcott, Laura Bridgman, Charlotte Cushman, Maria Mitchell, LadyFranklin, What ardently we wish we soonbelieve.—Young. Mrs.Julia Ward Howe, and Florence Nightingale.

If the girls of to-day are to have larger rewards in the world’s work,they must fit themselves for the larger responsibilities. Every prudent girlwill, of course, talk over the prospect of her future years with her parents,her brothers and sisters, her teachers, or with mature and responsible friends.So very, very much depends on laying the right foundations. But there are manyqualities that must constitute parts of every enduring foundation. 155

Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, good behavior,Nature never stands still, nor souls neither; they evergo up or go down.—Julia C. R.Dorr. modesty, gentility, enlightenment, all of these and moreare essential to success and for the highest achievement of the true purpose ofliving.

It has been well said that it is the repetition of little acts whichconstitutes not only the sum of human character, but which determines thecharacter of nations; and where men or nations have broken down, it will almostinvariably be found that neglect of little things was the rock on which theywere wrecked.

Every human being has duties to be performed, and, therefore, has need ofThought alone is eternal.—Owen Meredith. cultivating thecapacity for doing them—whether the sphere of action be the management ofa household, the conduct of a trade or a profession, or the government of anation.

Only those live who do good.— Tolstoi. The one fixed truth in thematter of character-building is the fact that steady attention to the littlematters of detail lies at the very foundation of human progress.

The splendid trees that lift their branches heavenward depend for theirsustenance on the tiny thread-like roots 156 The greatesttruths are the simplest.—Hare. that come into very closerelations with the soil and can thus take in the nourishment needed for themaking of growth. This, the larger roots have not the capacity for doing. So inthe growth of the human intellect and human character, it is the littleactions, day by day, that really do the permanent building. With patientpurpose to do successfully the many little tasks that confront us we can lateron achieve the larger success awaiting us.

Many people owe the grandeur of their lives to theirtremendous difficulties.—Spurgeon. The world’s history isfull of the triumphs of those who have had to struggle from beginning to endfor recognition. Carey, the great missionary, began life as a shoemaker; thechemist Vanquelin was the son of a peasant; the poet Burns was a farmer boy anda day laborer; Ben Jonson was a bricklayer; Livingstone, the traveler andexplorer, was a weaver; Abraham Lincoln was a "rail-splitter" and afarmer boy.

Thought by thought piled, till some great truth isloosened.—Shelley.At the plow, on the bench, at the loom, these men dreamed of the futuregreatness, and step by step, day by day, they persevered until they won thefull measure of success.

The great and good women of the 157 Thechild’s reasoning powers are, as it were, the wings with which he willeventually have to fly.—Landon. world have won theirdistinction in the same manner. They cultivated the sterling qualities thatmade for success. They acquired the manners that attracted toward them help andstrength of others interested in good causes and those struggling to advancethem.

Choose always the way that seems the best, howeverrough it may be. Custom will render it easy and agreeable.— Pythagoras. And the girl who isreading these lines, can, if she will, make her life a happy success. She maybe praised by the world or it may be by the small circle of friends with whomshe comes in contact. Her name may never be written in history but it may befondly spoken by parents, sisters, brothers, schoolmates, Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turnedout.—Richter.friends. In a thousand gracious ways she can make the hours, days and yearsgood and golden for her own precious self and for all who know her. She must bethoughtful and intelligently alert to the opportunities lying all about herready to be fashioned into shining deeds. She must know that she is a preciouscraft on the sea of life and that she must not be permitted to drift from theharbor of youth and of home without a life pilot. And this pilot should be herMemory is the treasure-house of themind.—Fuller. ownconscience, hedged about with the learning, the good breeding, 158 the finecharacter that she herself, under proper guidance, must cultivate through theimpressionable years of childhood and maidenhood. If she so wills it, beautyand grace and true worth are all hers. And let her greet and go forth in thefreshness of each golden day, as indeed, she must greet life, itself, with aglad, hopeful, helpful

MORNING PRAYER

Habit is aninternal principle which leads us to do easily, naturally, and with growingcertainty, what we do often.—Webster.Oh, may I be strong and brave,to-day,
And may I be kind and true,
And greet all men in a gracious way,
With frank good cheer in the things I say,
And love in the deeds I do.

May the simple heart of a child bemine,
And the grace of a rose in bloom;
Let me fill the day with a hope divine
And turn my face to the sky’s glad shine,
With never a cloud of gloom.

With the golden levers of love andlight
The vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal thatyou enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this youwill become.—JamesAllen. I would lift the world, andwhen,
Through a path with kindly deeds made bright,
I come to the calm of the starlit night,
Let me rest in peace. Amen.

By MARGARET E. SANGSTER

HAPPY SCHOOLDAYS

A Book forGirls

In this book, Mrs. Sangster, the popular friend of allgirls, writes to them charmingly and sympathetically of the things nearest totheir hearts. The book will delight every girl.

It ought to reach the hands of everygirl.—St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The book is as fascinating as a story.—DesMoines Register and Leader.

Every girl’s mother ought to make her a presentof this book.—St. Louis Times.

Youthful and adult readers alike will enjoy andcommend this book.—Chicago Record-Herald.

Chatty and with many a merry anecdote the book is asbeguiling as a romance.—San Francisco Chronicle.

A charming book pervaded with the spirit of sweetfriendliness, complete comprehension and joyous helpfulness.—ChicagoNews.

An interesting, suggestive, sensible book, in whichMrs. Sangster is at her best. It is a book of great worth, and whoever extendsits usefulness by increasing its readers is a publicbenefactor.—Journal of Education, Boston.

Handsome cover. Cloth, 12mo.$1.00

FORBES &COMPANY
PUBLISHERSCHICAGO

By NIXON WATERMAN

"BOYWANTED"

A book of jolly, sparkling, invigorating counsel, inprose and verse, that any girl or boy will read with interest. It will alsoplease their parents and teachers.

Should be read by all boys, and girls, too.—Detroit News.

"Boy Wanted" is an unusualachievement.—San Francisco Call.

It is clever, cheery and full of soundideas.—Chicago Record-Herald.

Its message is earnest and thrilling. Full ofinspiration and encouragement.—Pittsburg Gazette.

A very bright and stimulating book on making the mostof opportunities.—Montreal Daily Witness.

Strongly written. A good book to place in the hands ofany boy of any age up to eighty.—Denver Republican.

It is the talk of a big brother to a younger one on atramp off together. A mine of condensed inspiration.—BostonAdvertiser.

The book is beautifully made. It is handsomely boundand illustrated and has some novel typographical features.—BostonGlobe.

Illustrated. Attractive Cover.Cloth, 8vo. $1.00

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PUBLISHERSCHICAGO