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diff --git a/26683.txt b/26683.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef59709 --- /dev/null +++ b/26683.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4470 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl Wanted, by Nixon Waterman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl Wanted + +Author: Nixon Waterman + +Release Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #26683] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL WANTED *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: MARTHA WASHINGTON] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE GIRL WANTED + +A BOOK OF FRIENDLY THOUGHTS + +BY + +NIXON WATERMAN + +AUTHOR OF "BOY WANTED," +"A BOOK OF VERSES," "IN +MERRY MOOD," ETC. + +CHICAGO +FORBES AND COMPANY +1919 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Copyright, 1910, By +Forbes and Company + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + TO + + --The girl wanted, who, + By her beautiful ways, + Shall brighten and gladden + Life's wonderful days. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PREFACE + +The pleasure of giving to the public this volume has been brought +about by the publication of the author's work entitled, "Boy +Wanted," which he presented as "a book of cheerful counsel to his +young friends and such of the seniors as are not too old to accept +a bit of friendly admonition." + +The warm welcome accorded that book, and the many requests it has +called forth for a similar companion volume for girls, has prompted +the author to prepare the series of papers offered herewith, with +the hope that they, too, may find as many youthful friends (between +the ages of seven 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 number of the world's +foremost teachers and philosophers of all times, while the author, +with a due sense of modesty, lays claim to all such examples of +versification as are to be found within this book. + +In these days when the women of the world, with such splendid success, +are writing books for the moral guidance and spiritual uplift of the +men and youth of every land, an author need not feel called upon to +apologize when he presumes to address his remarks to readers of the +opposite sex, as did John Ruskin, to such fine purpose, in the "Pearls +for Young Ladies." + +Since his own mother, wife, sisters, daughters and many of his best +friends belong to the feminine half of humanity, any man who is a +careful observer, a logical reasoner, and an adequate writer ought +to be able to say something of worth and interest to the women and +girls to whom he is permitted to address himself. If in this volume +the author is able to impart to others, in a small degree, the +beneficent influence he has received through the 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 set forth. + +Nor is the author unconscious of the great purpose that should +underlie the writing of a series of papers designed to direct the +daughters of our land toward the greatest factor in the making and +the perpetuity of a nation--a noble and beautiful womanhood. For +observation has 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 + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I CHOOSING THE WAY 13 + +Starting right. The strength of early impressions. "Environment." +The will and the way. Planning the future. "Mother's +Apron Strings." + +II ACCOMPLISHMENTS 27 + +The ability to do things. Elegant and useful accomplishments. +The value of thoroughness. "What Have We Done To-day?" The +service of the heart. "Sympathy." "Only A Word." + +III THE JOY OF DOING 45 + +The power of enthusiasm. Working with heart and hand. +Looking on the bright side. "Just This Minute." Happiness and +its relation to health. Paths of sunshine. "The Sculptor." + +IV SOME EVERY-DAY VIRTUES 65 + +The desire to do right. The importance of every-day incidents. +True culture. "A Rose to the Living." Patience as a virtue. "This +Busy World." + +V THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE 85 + +"Likableness" as a desirable quality. The present the best of all +times. The sunshiny girl. "The Prize Winner." The necessity +of being prepared. "The Conqueror." + +VI A MERRY HEART 105 + +Smoothing the way with a smile. The unselfishness of happiness. +"The Point of View." The joy of living for others. "The +Better Armor." Cultivating happiness. "Song or Sigh." + +VII GOLDEN HABITS 125 + +Good habits and bad. The strength of habit. "True Gentility." +Manners and personality. "What Are You Going to Do?" The +worth of good breeding. "Drudgery." + +VIII THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 145 + +The inspiration of success. Building day by day. "Morning +Gates." The value of a purpose. Women's growing sphere. "Man, +Poor Man." Opportunities and responsibilities. "Morning Prayer." + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +Martha Washington Frontispiece +Queen Victoria Page 26 +Harriet Beecher Stowe " 44 +Louisa M. Alcott " 64 +Julia Ward Howe " 84 +Elizabeth Barrett Browning " 104 +Florence Nightingale " 124 +George Eliot " 144 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +THE GIRL WANTED + +CHAPTER I + +CHOOSING THE WAY + + +Yes, my good girl, I am very glad that we are to have the opportunity +to enjoy a friendly chat through the medium of the printed page, with +its many tongues of type. + +Just here I have a favor to ask of you, and that is that you will +consent to let us talk chiefly about yourself and the manner in which +you are going to live all the golden to-morrows that are awaiting you. + +In a discussion of the topics which are to follow, it will be well for +you to understand that there has never been a period in the world's +history when a girl was of more importance than she is just now. +Indeed, many close observers and clear thinkers are of the opinion +that there never has been a time when a girl was of quite so much +importance as 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 is to witness in the forthcoming years is to be largely inspired +by, and redound to the glory of, the women of the earth. + +Come what will, the future is sufficiently alluring to cause you to +cherish it most fondly and to determine that you will make the years +that are before you as bright and beautiful 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 +the grandest epoch of the world's history and to feel that we are +permitted to be observers of, and if it may so be, active participants +in, the fascinating events that are occurring all about us. + +Yet with all the grand achievements that are being encompassed in +every field of human endeavor, the world to-day, needs most, that +which the world has ever most needed--words helpful and true, hearts +kind and tender, hands willing and ready to lift the less fortunate +over the rough places in the paths of life, goodness and grace, gentle +women and gentlemen. + +And so here we find ourselves, just at this particular spot and at +this very moment, with all of the days, months, years--yes, the whole +of eternity--still to be lived! + +At first thought it seems like a great problem, does this having to +decide how we are going to live out all the great future that is +before us. Yet, when we come to think it over, we see 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 where we can see it and study it and shape it and do with it as we +will. + +Just this minute! + +Surely it will not require a great deal of effort on the part 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 +to live the next one as well, and then the next, and the next until, +finally, we continue to live them rightly, just as a matter of habit. + +When we come to understand clearly that time is the thing of which +lives are made, and that time is divided 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 to us. + +What we are doing this minute, multiplied by sixty, tells us what we +are likely to accomplish in an hour. + +What we do in an hour, multiplied by the number of working hours in +every twenty-four, tells us what we may expect to achieve in a day. + +What we do in a day, multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five, shows +us what it is probable we shall accomplish in a year. + +What we do in a year, when multiplied by the number of years of youth +and health and strength, we have reason to believe are yet before us, +sets forth the result we may hope to secure in a lifetime. For it is +not hard for us to comprehend that. + + If, ever, while this minute's here, + We use it circumspectly, + 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 the deeds we do in life are preceded by the thoughts we think. The +thought is the plan; the deed is the structure. + +"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 may do 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 of +one's early years should be to learn to have right thoughts, which, +later on in life, are to become right actions. + +The pleasant, helpful girl is most likely to become the pleasant, +helpful woman. The seed that is sown in the springtime of life +determines the character of the harvest that must be reaped in the +autumn. + +The cultivation of the right point of view means so much in +determining one's attitude toward all that the years may bring. Three +centuries ago it was written: "What is one man's poison is another's +meat or drink." So there are many things in life that bring pleasure +to some and distress to others. + +There is a beautiful little story about a shepherd boy who was keeping +his sheep in a flowery meadow, and because his heart was happy, he +sang so loudly that the surrounding hills echoed back his song. One +morning the king, who was out hunting, spoke to him and said: "Why are +you so happy, my boy?" + +"Why should I not be happy?" answered the boy. "Our king is not richer +than I." + +"Indeed," said the king, "pray tell me of your great possessions." + +The shepherd boy answered: "The sun in the bright blue sky shines as +brightly upon me as upon the king. The flowers upon the mountain and +the grass in the valley grow and bloom to gladden my sight as well as +his. I would not take a fortune for my hands; my eyes are of more +value than all the precious stones in the world. I have food and +clothing, too. Am I not, therefore, as rich as the king?" + +"You are right," said the king, with a smile, "but your greatest +treasure is your contented heart. Keep it so, and you will always be +happy." + +So much of life's happiness depends upon one's immediate surroundings +that wherever it is a matter of choice they should be made to conform +as nearly as possible to the thoughts and tastes one wishes to +cultivate. As a matter of course but few persons can have just the +surroundings they would like, but it is possible that by pleasant +thinking all of us can make the surroundings we have more likable. We +can, at least, be thoughtful of the character of the friends and +companions we choose to have with us, and it is they who are the most +vital and influential part of our + + ENVIRONMENT + + Shine or shadow, flame or frost, + Zephyr-kissed or tempest-tossed, + Night or day, or dusk or dawn, + We are strangely lived upon. + + Mystic builders in the brain-- + Mirth and sorrow, joy and pain, + Grief and gladness, gloom and light-- + Build, oh, build my heart aright! + + O ye friends, with pleasant smiles, + 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. + + Bring me songs of hope and youth, + Bring me bands of steel and truth, + Bring me love wherein to find + Charity for all mankind. + + Place within my hands the tools + 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. + +If we are to receive help and strength from our friends we must lend +them help and strength in return. And since the deeds of others +inspire us we should not deem it impossible to make our deeds inspire +them. + +Helen Keller, who, though deaf and blind, has achieved so many +wonderful 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 is work makes it precious.... Darwin could work only half +an hour at a time; yet in 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 the mighty shoves of its heroes, but +also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." + +In the same spirit the great French savant, Emile Zola, penned these +words: "Let each one accept his task, a task which should fill his +life. It may be very humble; it will not be the less useful. Never +mind what it is, so long as it exists and keeps you erect! When you +have regulated it, without excess--just the quantity you are able to +accomplish each day--it will cause you to live in health and in joy." + +Some wise observer has said that one of the chief aims of life should +be to learn how to grow old gracefully. This knowledge is deemed by +many to be a great secret and a most valuable one. Yet it can hardly +be called a secret since every girl and boy as well as every person of +maturer years must know that it is but the working out of the laws of +cause and effect. When character-building is begun on the right lines +and those lines are followed to the end the result is as certain as it +is beautiful. When we see a grandmother whose life has been lived on +the happy plane of pure thoughts and kind deeds we ought not to wonder +that her old age is as exquisite as was the perfect bloom of her +youth. We need not marvel how it has come about that her life has been +a long 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. + +She did not expect too much from her friends. + +She made whatever work came to her congenial. + +She retained her faith in others and did not believe all the world +wicked and unkind. + +She relieved the miserable and sympathized with the sorrowful. + +She never forgot that kind words and a smile cost nothing, but are +priceless treasures to the discouraged. + +She did unto others as she would be done by, and now that old age has +come to her, and there is a halo of white hair about her brow, she is +loved and considered. This is the "secret" of a long life and a happy +one. + +Fortunate is the girl who is permitted to dwell within the living +presence of such a matron and to be directed by her into the paths of +usefulness and sunshine. And thrice fortunate is every girl who has +for her guide and counselor a loving mother to whom she can go for +light and wisdom with which to meet all the problems of life. + +"Mother knows." Her earnest, loving words are to be cherished above +all others as many men and many women have learned after the long +miles and the busy years have crept between them and "the old folks at +home." Do not, O Girl! I pray you, ever grow impatient, as boys +sometimes do, to be set beyond the protecting care of + + MOTHER'S APRON-STRINGS + + When I was but a careless youth, + 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 it seemed + 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. + + 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. + +[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.--Thoreau. + +It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a +life worth looking at.--Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +The habit of viewing things cheerfully, and of thinking about life +hopefully, may be made to grow up in us like any other habit. +--Smiles. + +A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any state of the market. +--Charles Lamb. + +The old days never come again, because they would be getting in the +way of the new, better days whose turn it is.--George MacDonald. + +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 and contented +living.--Anonymous. + +Cheerfulness is the very flower of health.--Schopenhauer. + +There are people who do not know how to waste their time alone, and +hence become the scourge of busy people.--De Bonald. + +Not what has happened to myself to-day, but what has happened to +others through me--that should be my thought.--Frederick Deering +Blake. + +Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to +bear are those which never come.--Lowell. + +The highest luxury of which the human mind is sensible is to call +smiles upon the face of misery.--Anonymous. + +He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little from +without.--Goethe. + +Each day should be distinguished by at least one particular act of +love.--Lavater. + +Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his +abilities, and for no more; and none can tell whose sphere is the +largest.--Gail Hamilton. + +Work is the very salt of life, not only preserving it from decay, but +also giving it tone and flavor.--Hugh Black. + +Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. +Consider not what they did, but what they intended.--Thoreau. + +Work! It is the sole law of the world.--Emile Zola. + +No lot is so hard, no aspect of things is so grim, but it relaxes +before a hearty laugh.--George S. Merriam. + +Concentration is the secret of strength.--Emerson. + +Anybody can do things with an "if"--the thing is to do them without. +--Patrick Flynn. + +An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to +be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.--R. L. Stevenson. + +The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder; a waif, a +nothing, a no-man. Have a purpose in life ... and having it, throw +such strength of mind and muscle into thy work as has been given +thee.--Carlyle. + +It is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community than to +perish of inaction in a stagnant solitude.--Mrs. Gaskell. + +The advantage of leisure is mainly that we have the power of choosing +our own work; not certainly that it confers any privilege of +idleness.--Lord Avebury. + +Suffering becomes beautiful, when any one bears great calamities with +cheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness of +mind.--Aristotle. + +Character is a perfectly educated will.--Novalis. + +One of the most massive and enduring gratifications is the feeling of +personal worth, ever afresh, brought into consciousness by effectual +action; and an idle life is balked of its hopes partly because it +lacks this.--Herbert Spencer. + +Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it +out.--Tillotson. + +He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company and choice +of his actions.--Jeremy Taylor. + +Our character is our will; for what we will we are.--Archbishop +Manning. + +He overcomes a stout enemy that overcomes his own anger.--Chilo. + +Good company and good conversation are the sinews of virtue. +--Stephen Allen. + +If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but +moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is +denied to well directed labor; nothing is to be obtained without it. +--Joshua Reynolds. + +If you are doing any real good you cannot escape the reward of your +service.--Patrick Flynn. + +Simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance.--Dickens. + +Happiness is one of the virtues which the people of all nationalities +and every pursuit appreciate.--Joe Mitchell Chapple. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER II + +ACCOMPLISHMENTS + + +I am sure that every girl wishes to become accomplished, and I am +quite as certain that every girl can become so if she will. + +My dictionary defines an accomplishment as an "acquirement or +attainment that tends to perfect or equip in character, manners, or +person." + +Surely every girl can do something, or has acquired some special line +of knowledge, that is covered by this broad definition. + +It means that every girl who can sweep a room; read French or German +or English as it should be read; bake a loaf of bread; play tennis; +darn a stocking; play the violin or pianoforte; give the names of +flowers and birds and butterflies; write a neat, well-composed letter, +either in longhand or shorthand; draw or paint pictures; make a bed or +do one or more of a thousand and one other things is accomplished. The +more things she can do and the greater the number of subjects on which +she is informed, the more highly is she accomplished. + +It is understood, as a matter of course, that thoroughness in one's +accomplishments is the true measure of his worth. One who knows a few +subjects very well is no doubt more accomplished than one who has only +a superficial "smatter" of knowledge concerning many. + +We can all readily understand how much more pleasing it is to hear a +true virtuoso play the violin or pianoforte than it is to listen to 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. + +The desire and disposition to do a thing well, coupled with a firm +determination, are pretty sure to bring the ability necessary for +achieving the wished-for end. The will is lacking more often than is +the way. + +It is a matter of frequent comment that we usually expect too much of +the average young and attractive girl in the way of accomplishments. +Because she is pleasing in her general appearance we are apt to feel a +sense of disappointment if we find that her qualities of mind do not +equal her outward charms. + +Charles Lamb says: "I know that sweet children are the sweetest things +in nature," and adds, "but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the +more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind." 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 the grace +of face and figure. + +Hence we find that the girl who is most fondly wanted, by the members +of her own family, by her schoolmates, and by all with whom she shall +form an acquaintance, is the one who is as pleasing in her manners as +she is beautiful in her physical features. + +Of all the accomplishments it is possible for a girl to possess, that +of being pleasant and gracious to those about her is the greatest and +most desirable. "There is no beautifier of the complexion, or form, or +behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us," says +Emerson. + +It is possible for persons to acquire a great deal of information and +to become skillful in many things and still be unloved by those with +whom they are associated. + +The heart needs to be educated even more than the mind, for it is the +heart that dominates and colors and gives character and meaning to the +whole of life. Even the kindest of words have little meaning unless +there is a kind heart to make them stand for something that will live. + +"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 scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures +of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been +enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things +too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your +eternal 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 know about--they never fail." + +It is the ability to do the many little acts of kindness, and to make +the most of all the opportunities for gladding the lives of others, +that constitute the finest accomplishment any girl can acquire. + +It often happens that the thought of the great kindnesses we should +like to do, and which we mean to do, "sometime" in the days to come, +keeps us from seeing the many little favors we could, if we would, +grant to those just about us at the present time. Yet we all know that +it is not the things we are going to do that really count. It is the +thing that we do do that is worth while. + +No doubt we should all be much more thoughtful of our many present +opportunities and make better use of them were we frequently to ask +ourselves, + + WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO-DAY? + + We shall do so much in the years 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, + We shall plant a hope 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 after while, + But what have we been to-day? + We shall bring each lonely 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? + + 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 is a knowledge of the fine art of smiling. To know how and +when to smile, not too much and not too little, is a fine mental and +social possession. + +Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smile +that children love." Any one possessing a smile that children as well +as others may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face is +of great worth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged to +look upon it. + +A smile is an indication that the one who is smiling is happy and +every happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we all +understand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There is +truly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forever +grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our most cheerful writers, +"means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the little, smiling lines in +the face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the lines +produced by depression and frowning that grow deeper and deeper until +they become as hard and severe as if they were cut in stone." Such +happiness is one of the virtues which people of all classes and ages, +the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not know what ripples of +healing are set in motion," says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smile +on one another. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as +sunny people." + +Most persons are very quick to see whether or not a smile is genuine +or is manufactured 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 a little too wide or sags at the corners or +something else is wrong with it. + +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 not +genuine, it loses its charm and becomes, in fact, much worse than no +smile at all. Smiles that are genuine are always just right both in +quality and quantity. So the only really safe rule is for us not to +smile until we feel like it and then we shall get on all right. And we +ought to feel like smiling whenever we look into the honest face of +any fellow being. A smile passes current in every country as a mark of +distinction. + +But it is even possible to overdo in the matter of smiling. "I can't +think of anything more irritating to the average human being," says +Lydia Horton 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 pleasant +smile which has all the appearance of being mechanical, and purely a +pose. Now I think the really intelligent person is the one who can +look as though he realized the significance of various incidents or +happenings and who can look sorrowful, even, if the occasion demands +it. It is not a pleasant thing to suffer mentally or physically, for +instance, and have any one come up to you with a smile of patient, +sweet condolence. The average man or woman does not want smiles when +he or she is uncomfortable. We are apt to remember that it is easy +enough to smile when it is somebody else who has the pain. I venture +to say that a smile given at the wrong moment is far more dangerous to +human happiness than the lack of a smile at any given psychological +moment. There is a time and a place for all things, even a smile." + +No expression of feeling is of much moment without a warm heart and an +intelligent thought behind it. The seemingly mechanical, automatic +expressions of feeling and of interest in our affairs are sometimes +even harder to bear than an out and out attitude of indifference. The +thing that really warms and moves us is a touch of heartfelt, +intelligent + + SYMPATHY + + When the clouds begin to 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. + + When the other one has trouble, + 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 +kindly word offered to us in the midst of our daily rounds of duty. +And since we are not often in a position to grant great favors we +should not fail to cultivate the habit of bestowing small ones +whenever we can. It is in giving the many little lifts along the way +that we shall be able to lighten many burdens. + +I do not know it to be a fact, but I have read it somewhere in the +books that the human heart rests nine hours out of every twenty-four. +It manages to steal little bits of rest between beats, and thus it is +ever refreshed and able to go on performing the work nature has +assigned for it to do. + +And therein is a first-rate lesson for most persons, who if they +cannot do something of considerable moment are disposed to do nothing +at all. They forget that it is the brief three-minute rests that +enable the mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the top +whereas longer periods of inactivity might serve to stiffen his limbs +and impede his progress. + +Wise are they who, like the human heart, sprinkle rest and kindness +and heart's-ease all through their daily tasks. They weave a bright +thread of thankful happiness through the web and woof of life's +pattern. 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 that drive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in the +trail of every cloud. They gather flowers where others see nothing but +weeds. They pluck little sprigs of rest where others find only thorns +of distress. + +After the manner of the human heart, they make much of the little +opportunities presented to them. They rest that they may have strength +for others. They gather sunshine with which to dispel the shadows +about them. + +The grandest conception of life is to esteem it as an opportunity for +making others happy. He who is most true to his higher self is truest +to the race. The lamp that shines brightest gives the most light to +all about it. Thoreau says: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly +to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of life." + +He is, indeed, a correct observer and a careful student of human +nature who tells us that the face is such an index of character that +the very growth of the latter can be traced upon the former, and most +of the successive lines that carve the furrowed face of age out of the +smooth outline of childhood are engraved directly or indirectly by +mind. There is no beautifier of the face like a beautiful spirit. + +So we see that if we have acquired the habit of wearing a pleasant +face, or of smiling honestly and cheerfully, we have an accomplishment +that is worth more than many others that are more pretentious and more +superficial. If to this accomplishment we can add another--the ability +to speak a pleasant word to those whom we may meet--we are not to +think 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. The word is +"Complaisance," and it is defined as "the disposition, action, or +habit of being agreeable, or conforming to the views, wishes, or +convenience of others; desire or endeavor to please; courtesy; +politeness." + +Complaisance, as it has been truly said, renders a superior amiable, +an equal agreeable, an inferior acceptable. It sweetens conversation; +it produces good-nature and mutual benevolence; it encourages the +timid, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes +a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages. + +Politeness has been defined as society's method of making things run +smoothly. True complaisance is a more intimate quality. It is an +impulse to seek points of agreement with others. A spirit of welcome, +whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, fresh +impressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactive as long as there +is anybody to please or to make more comfortable. + +The complaisant person need not be lacking in will, in determination, +or individuality. In fact it is the complaisant person's strength of +will that holds in check and harmonizes all the other traits of +character and moulds them into a perfectly balanced disposition. + +Complaisance rounds off the sharp corners, chooses softer and gentler +words and makes it easy and pleasant for all to dwell together in +unity. And it never fails to contribute something to the enjoyment of +everyone even though it be + + ONLY A WORD + + Tell me something that will be + 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. + + 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. + +[Illustration: HARRIET BEECHER STOWE] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +Only to the pure and the true does Nature resign herself and reveal +her secrets.--Goethe. + +Every man carries with him the world in which he must live, the stage +and the scenery for his own play.--F. Marion Crawford. + +The best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more to more.--Sam Walter +Foss. + +Notwithstanding a faculty be born with us, there are several methods +for cultivating and improving it.--Addison. + +Every truth in the universe makes a close joint with every other +truth.--Melvin L. Severy. + +All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie, of which a man +ought to be ashamed.--John Stuart Blackie. + +When we cease to learn, we cease to be interesting.--John Lancaster +Spalding. + +The workless people are the worthless people.--Wm. C. Gannett. + +Our ideals are our better selves.--Bronson Alcott. + +All literature, art, and science are vain, and worse, if they do not +enable you to be glad, and glad, justly.--Ruskin. + +All things else are of the earth, but love is of the sky.--William +Stanley Braithwaite. + +To fill the hour, that is happiness.--Emerson. + +Ah, well that in a wintry hour the heart can sing a summer song. +--Edward Francis Burns. + +Avast there! Keep a bright lookout forward and good luck to you. +--Dickens. + +Genius is the transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all. +--Carlyle. + +For dreams, to those of steadfast hope and will, are things wherewith +they build their world of fact.--Alicia K. Van Buren. + +No man can rest who has nothing to do.--Sam Walter Foss. + +Love is the leaven of existence.--Melvin L. Severy. + +Work is no disgrace but idleness is.--Hesiod. + +Shoddy work is not only a wrong to a man's own personal 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. + +The flowering of civilization is in the finished man, the man of +sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power--the gentleman. +--Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +It is all very well to growl at the cold-heartedness of the world, but +which of us can truthfully say that he has done as much for others as +others have done for him?--Patrick Flynn. + +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 +no peace.--Emerson. + +Some people meet us like the mountain air and thrill our souls with +freshness and delight.--Nathan Haskell Dole. + +I let the willing winter bring his jeweled buds of frost and snow. +--Edward Francis Burns. + +The world is unfinished; let's mold it a bit.--Sam Walter Foss. + +Our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us +and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform. +--Goethe. + +Do not let us overlook the wayside flowers.--Joe Mitchell Chapple. + +Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or +misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a +thunderstorm.--R. L. Stevenson. + +The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and +blesses, and by which he is loved and blessed.--Carlyle. + +The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires +is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.--Jonathan Swift. + +Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.--Lord +Chesterfield. + +Indulge not in vain regrets for the past, in vainer resolves for the +future--act, act in the present.--F. W. Robertson. + +The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in our power.--Hugh +White. + +The man who cannot be practical and mix his religion with his business +is either in the wrong religion or in the wrong business.--Patrick +Flynn. + +I don't think there is a pleasure in the world that can be compared +with an honest joy in conquering a difficult task.--Margaret E. +Sangster. + +Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on +every person's face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of +distortion.--Ruskin. + +Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from +themselves.--J. M. Barrie. + +Politeness is like an air cushion; there may be nothing in it, but it +eases the jolts wonderfully.--George Eliot. + +Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all things easy. +--Benjamin Franklin. + +Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness +without action.--Disraeli. + +We would willingly have others perfect and yet we amend not our own +faults.--Thomas a Kempis. + +The most manifold sign of wisdom is continued cheer.--Montaigne. + +There is only one cure for public distress--and that is public +education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. +--Ruskin. + +To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so.--Wade. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE JOY OF DOING + + +Half-way, half-hearted doings never amount to much. Battles are not +won with flags at half-mast. No, they are run up to the very tops of +their standards and are waved as far toward the heavens as is +possible. + +If we lack enthusiasm we are almost as certain to fail of achieving an +end as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing the grade. +Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long as +the path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comes +to hill-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 to other and more earnest competitors. + +"If you would get the best results, do your work with enthusiasm as +well as fidelity," says Dr. Lyman Abbott. "Only he can who thinks he +can!" says Orison Swett Marden. "The world makes way only for the +determined man who laughs at barriers which limit others, at +stumbling-blocks over which others fall. The man who, as Emerson says, +'hitches his wagon to a star,' is more likely to arrive at his goal +than the one who trails in the slimy path of the snail." + +Every girl knows that the girl friends whom she loves best are the +ones who are alive to the world about them and who feel an enthusiasm +in the tasks and privileges that confront them. + +Enthusiasm is the breeze that fills the sails and sends the ship +gliding over the happy waves. It is the joy of doing things and of +seeing that things are well done. It gives to work a thoroughness and +a delicious zest and to play a whole-souled, health-giving delight. + +Only they who find joy in their work can live the larger and nobler +life; for without work, and work done joyously, life must remain +dwarfed and undeveloped. "If you would have sunlight in your home," +writes Stopford Brooke, "see that you have work in it; that you work +yourself, and set others to work. Nothing makes moroseness and +heavy-heartedness in a house so fast as idleness. The very children +gloom and sulk if they are left with nothing to do. If all have their +work, they have not only their own joy in creating thought, in making +thought into form, in driving on something to completion, but they +have the joy of ministering to the movement of the whole house, when +they feel that what they do is part of a living whole. That in itself +is sunshine. See how the face lights up, how the step is quickened, +how the whole man or child is a different being from the weary, +aimless, lifeless, complaining being who had no work! It is all the +difference between life and death." + +We must play life's sweet keys if we would keep them in tune. Charles +Kingsley says: "Thank God every morning when you get up that you have +something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or +not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in +you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, +cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will +never know." + +All the introspective thinkers of the world have agreed that nothing +else is so hard to do as is "nothing." It is unwholesome for one to +have more leisure than a mere breathing spell now and then for the +purpose of setting to work once more with renewed energy. + +They who work with their hearts as well as their hands do not grow +tired. A labor of love is a labor of growing delight. "The moment toil +is exchanged for leisure," writes Munger, "a gate is opened to vice. +When wealth takes off the necessity of labor and invites to idleness, +nature executes her sharpest revenge upon such infraction 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 that is 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 +that heart can wish and desire,--all contentment--so long as he or she +or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in mind or +body, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, +weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with +every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away +with some foolish phantasy or other." + +But riches do not necessarily have to be associated with idleness. +Riches rightly employed bestow upon the possessors of them the blessed +privilege of being employed in the kind of work where they can serve +to the best advantage and do most for their fellowmen. Indeed, the +possession of riches places upon those who have them the moral +necessity and obligation of doing more and better things in the world +than is expected of the ones less amply supplied with wealth. "From +every man according to his ability; to every man according to his +needs." The larger responsibilities are placed upon those to whom are +given the larger means of achievement. + +So it is a mistake to fancy that the possession of great riches would +relieve us from doing all the tasks and duties for ourselves and for +others that are inevitably essential for the physical and spiritual +health and happiness of all mankind. No matter in whatever walk of +life we may find ourselves, 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 our consciences or they will +grow to be blind and unsafe guides that must lead us into dark +distress. + +But to be employed does not mean that we must necessarily work in the +fields, or in the factory, or in the office. There are a thousand ways +in which we may serve the world. The only requirement is that we shall +devote a portion of our time and energy to genuine service in behalf +of our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our teachers, our friends, +and all the world. And we must be grateful for the chance to serve +others and deem it an opportunity rather than an obligation. + +And above all, we must find delight in the work we are privileged to +do. "Every one should enjoy life," writes the ever glad and inspiring +pen guided by the hand of Patrick Flynn: "Life was made to enjoy. We +mean life, itself. The very living and breathing. It is a divine +pleasure to inhale a breath of fragrant air out here in the country +these charming summer mornings. And what jewels can compare in color +or brilliancy with the pearly dewdrops that shine and glisten in the +early sun! And the sun, itself! The great, mysterious, miraculous sun! +Its myriads of vibrations dancing in the warm air like golden fairies +and dazzling one's eyes with their wondrous beauty! Aye, and filling +one's soul with love and one's body with health. And in the evening +when the day's work is done there is above us that mysterious depth of +star-spangled sky. We cannot fathom its mystery but like a stream of +grace descending from heaven, we can feel the cool, refreshing dew on +our upturned brow. Until at last we feel that we should like to take +wing and actually fly up among those unknown worlds and come back with +the story to our readers. And even though we cannot grow the wings, we +go up in fancy and seldom come back without some new tale. The message +is: 'Live life, love life, enjoy life, if you would overcome all fear +of death.'" + +That is the spirit in which we should look upon all the beauty and +wonder about 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 shall be, + When shrined within the memory, + As free from self-inflicted sorrows + As are our hopes of our to-morrows. + +There are many who make the serious mistake of thinking that +joyousness and cheerfulness are only for the play hour and are not to +be made a part and factor of the time we must devote to toil. No view +could be more faulty and regrettable. It is in our working hours that +we should seek to be cheerful and sunshiny. All of our tasks should be +sweetened and glorified with the leaven of good humor. + + The task seems never very long + If measured with a smile and song. + +Listen while one faithful worker, Emory Belle, tells us how she +carried the spirit of good cheer to her daily tasks and what came of +it: + +"I started out to my work one morning, determined to try the power of +cheerful thinking (I had been moody long enough). I said to myself: 'I +have often observed that a happy state of mind has a wonderful effect +upon my physical make-up, so I will try its effect upon others, and +see if my right thinking can be brought to act upon them.' You see, I +was curious. As I walked along, more and more resolved on my purpose, +and persisting that I was happy, that the world was treating me well, +I was surprised to find myself lifted up, as it were; my carriage +became more erect, my step lighter, and I had the sensation of +treading on air. Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught myself in +the act once or twice. I looked into the faces of 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 could +impart to them a wee bit of the sunshine I felt pervading me. + +"Arriving at the office, I greeted the book-keeper with some passing +remark, that for the life of me I could not have made under different +conditions, I am not naturally witty; it immediately put us on a +pleasant footing for the day; she had caught the reflection. The +president of the company I was employed by was a very busy man and +much worried over his affairs, and at some remark that he made about +my work I would ordinarily have felt quite hurt (being too sensitive +by nature and education); but this day I had determined nothing should +mar its brightness, so replied to him cheerfully. His brow cleared, +and there was another pleasant footing established, and so throughout +the day I went, allowing no cloud to spoil its beauty for me or others +about me. At the kind home where I was staying the same course was +pursued, and, where before I had felt estrangement and want of +sympathy, I found congeniality and warm friendship. People will meet +you half-way if you will take the trouble to go that far. + +"So, my sisters, if you think the world is not treating you kindly +don't delay a day, but say to yourselves: 'I am going to keep young in +spite of my gray hairs; even if things do not always come my way I am +going to live for others, and shed sunshine across the pathway of all +I meet.' You will find happiness springing up like flowers around you, +will never want for friends or companionship, and above all the peace +of God will rest upon your soul." + +And all of this was brought about by a change in the attitude of the +mind and a determination to look upon the sunshiny, rather than the +dark, side of life. We can all do as much. It is for us to say whether +we will be happy and make others happy, or whether we shall be +distressed and thereby distress others. + +What sort of girl are you going to be? Are you going to make the world +glad or sorry 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 to carry sunshine and not gloom into the +lives of all you meet? Let us hope that there is no great reform in +this matter to be worked in your life; but that you have ever been a +joy-bringer and not a gloom-maker. + +Therefore let us look well to the attitude of mind and our habit of +looking at things. One of our careful students of human attributes +tells us--and the truth of which we all know--"that there is nothing +surer than that we go and grow in just that direction in which our +mind is most firmly fixed. Hoarding money absorbs the whole time and +mind of the miser; how to scatter it is the chief thought of the +spendthrift. Our daily actions, and their result on our lives, are the +effect of a cause--and that cause is invariably our previous thought. +What you think most of to-day will be most likely what you will repeat +to-morrow. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that we begin to +think as deeply as possible on just those things that build us up. +Half the work is already done if we can only concentrate our minds on +that which we desire to do. It is the mind that drags us either up or +down. Where that leads we follow. The power of direction is with us, +but we cannot send our mind in one direction and then take the +opposite road ourselves. Therefore, whether we are moving upward or +downward in the scale of life depends on whether we are thinking up or +thinking down. This is a truth that every person's experience will +prove to his own satisfaction. Thought impels action, action forms +habit, and habit rules our lives. So that no matter what direction we +may wish to take, up or down, it is only necessary for us to fix our +mind in the desired direction." + +So let us pause and take an 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 or backward, + + JUST THIS MINUTE + + If we're thoughtful, just this minute, + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + +One who finds joy in the doing of things can work more easily and +steadily than one who works unwillingly and unhappily. Good nature is +a lubricant for all the wheels of life. It changes the leaden feet of +duty into the airy wings of opportunity, it not only brings happiness +but that almost necessary adjunct of happiness,--health. + +"In the maintenance of health and the cure of disease," says Dr. A. J. +Sanderson, "cheerfulness is a most important factor. Its power to do +good like a medicine is not an artificial stimulation of the tissues, +to be followed by reaction and greater waste, as is the case with many +drugs; but the effect of cheerfulness is an actual life-giving +influence through a normal channel the results of which reach every +part of the system. It brightens the eye, makes ruddy the countenance, +brings elasticity to the step, and promotes all the 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 is +banished." + +When we note how generally the members of the medical profession +ascribe to cheerfulness the very highest of health-giving powers, we +are led to think that the wise words quoted above possess a foundation +of scientific fact. "Faith, hope and love," says Charles G. Ames, "are +purifiers of the blood. They have a peptic quality. They open and +enlarge all the channels of bodily vitality. As was learned long ago, +'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' And the self-control which +keeps reason on the throne and makes passion serve is the best of all +domestic physicians." + +So the girl who would go down the paths of sunshine will put joy and +enthusiasm into her work and into her play. She will practice her +music lesson, take up her studies at school, assist in performing the +household duties, and in doing the many tasks that come to her hands +in a joyous, whole-hearted manner. + +In so doing she will make a 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 her will and, better +still, she will be able to mold her will to her highest ideal of +splendid womanhood. For none can doubt that man is the architect of +his own fortune, to a very great extent. He is even more than that, he +is of his own self + + THE SCULPTOR + + I am the sculptor: I, myself, the clay, + 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 the insensate stone + Must my enduring passion find its goal; + Within the living statue I enthrone + That essence of eternity, the soul. + + 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. + + It loves the pleasing note of lute and lyre, + The lily's purple, the red rose's glow; + It wonders at the witchery of the fire, + And marvels at the magic of the snow. + + "Who taught," it asks, "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 so wondrous wise? + The nautilus to form his chambered shell? + The carrier-pigeon under alien skies, + Who taught him how his homeward course to tell?" + + By force or favor it would win from fate + The sacred secret of the blood and breath: + Learn all the hidden springs of love and hate, + And gain dominion over life and death. + + In every feature of this sculptured 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 the unnumbered 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. + +[Illustration: LOUISA M. ALCOTT] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. +--Emerson. + +Gentle words, quiet words, are, after all, the most powerful words. +--Washington Gladden. + +Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. +--Thoreau. + +Nothing will be mended by complaints.--Johnson. + +Peace! Peace! How sweet the word and tender! Its very sound should +wrangling discord still.--Nathan Haskell Dole. + +The Spartans did not inquire how many the enemy are, but where they +are.--Agis II. + +The man in whom others believe is a power, but if he believes in +himself he is doubly powerful.--Willis George Emerson. + +The secrecy of success is constancy to purpose.--Disraeli. + +Men talk about the indignity of doing work that is beneath them, but +the only indignity that they should care for is the indignity of doing +nothing.--W. R. Haweis. + +Share your happiness with others, but keep your troubles to yourself. +--Patrick Flynn. + +Neither days, nor lives can be made noble or holy by doing nothing in +them.--Ruskin. + +Use thy youth as the springtime, wherein thou oughtest to plant and +sow all provisions for a long and happy life.--Walter Raleigh. + +To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into +garlands.--Madame Swetchine. + +When a firm decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how +the space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom.--John +Foster. + +That person is blest who does his best and leaves the rest, so do not +worry.--A. E. Winship. + +Work is the best thing to make us love life.--Ernest Renan. + +If you want to be miserable, think about yourself,--about what you +want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay to you, and what +people think of you.--Charles Kingsley. + +Aspiration carries one half the way to one's desire.--Elizabeth +Gibson. + +The best thing is to do well what one is doing at the moment.--Pittacus. + +To work and not to genius I owe my success.--Daniel Webster. + +No thought is beautiful which is not just, and no thought can be just, +that is not founded on truth.--Joseph Addison. + +The loss of self-respect is the only true beggary.--John Lancaster +Spalding. + +The tactful person looks out for opportunities to be helpful, without +being obtrusive.--Margaret E. Sangster. + +It is labor alone, backed by a good conscience, that keeps us healthy, +happy and sane.--Godfrey Blount. + +Labor was truly said by the ancients to be the price which the gods +set upon everything worth having.--Lord Avebury. + +Our daily duties are a part of our religious life just as much as our +devotions are.--Beecher. + +Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, +by fearing to attempt.--Shakespeare. + +The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be +preserved only by the most delicate handling.--Thoreau. + +Energy and determination have done wonders many a time.--Dickens. + +Discretion of speech is more than eloquence: and to speak agreeably to +him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good +order.--F. Bacon. + +Bread of flour is good: but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we +would eat it, in a good book.--John Ruskin. + +What is wrong to-day won't be right to-morrow.--Dutch Proverb. + +We are only so far worthy of esteem as we know how to appreciate. +--Goethe. + +We are grateful that abundant life lies waiting in the heart of +winter, and there is no condition where life is not.--Isabel Goodhue. + +Wishing will bring things in the degree that it incites you to go +after them.--Muriel Strode. + +It is impossible to estimate the power for good of a bright, glad +shining face. Of all the lights you carry on your face Joy shines +farthest out to sea.--Anonymous. + +No one in this world of ours ever became great by echoing the voice of +another, repeating what that other has said.--J. C. Van Dyke. + +One fault mender equals twenty faultfinders.--Earl M. Pratt. + +Let us then, be what we are, speak what we think, and in all things +keep ourselves loyal to truth.--Longfellow. + +There are some people whose smile, the sound of whose voice, whose +very presence, seems like a ray of sunshine, to turn everything they +touch into gold.--Lord Avebury. + +It is work which gives flavor to life. Mere existence without object +and without effort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor, and +languor to disgust.--Amiel. + +How poor are they who have only money to give!--John Lancaster +Spalding. + +Fear begets fear.--A. E. Winship. + +What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a +man and fix our attention on his infirmities!--Addison. + +There can be no true rest without work and the full delight of a +holiday cannot be known except by the man who has earned it.--Hugh +Black. + +The more we do the more we can do; the more busy we are the more +leisure we have.--Hazlitt. + +Lost--a golden hour, set with sixty diamond minutes. There is no +reward, for it is gone forever.--Beecher. + +Good company and good conversation are the sinews of virtue.--Stephen +Allen. + +A triumph is the closing scene of a contest.--A. E. Winship. + +Don't forget that the man who can but doesn't must give place to the +man who can't but tries.--Comtelburo. + +Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, +then act with promptitude.--Sallust. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SOME EVERY-DAY VIRTUES + + +I would rather be right than president!" + +At first thought those words seem to be the declaration of an +unusually upright and conscientious person. But let us study them a +little more deeply and closely. + +The desire to do right and to deserve the approbation of all good +people is very strong in every human breast. Not until a man has lost +his moral sense of values would he trade his integrity and self-respect +for any other gift the world could offer. This being true, who among +us would care to be president if in order to occupy that exalted +position he must be obviously in the wrong? + +Thus we see that after all is said and done, the one great prize for +which we all aspire is the love and good will of our friends and of +the world. For no matter how much of wealth and fame may come to us, +without the love and respect of our fellow beings we must ever remain +poor and friendless. + +He is the richest who deserves the most friends. Wealth is a matter of +the heart and not of the pocket. A thousand slaves piling up wealth +for their master cannot make him rich. It is not that which others do +for us that makes us possessors of great wealth, but that which we do +for others. All true riches are self made. Only when the hand and the +heart are put into one's work does it yield a lasting worth. In the +final true analysis the picture forever belongs to the painter who +paints it; the poem to the poet who writes it; the loaf of bread to +the toiler who earns it. Wealth may acquire these things but it cannot +own them. + +Therefore the true value of character is something that each must +achieve for himself. It cannot be bought; it cannot be bequeathed to +us; it must be earned by each individual who would possess it. Hence +it is that these great riches may be acquired by all who desire to +possess them. + +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 of them? "Whoever you are--wise or foolish, rich or poor," +says Rebecca Harding Davis, "God sent you into His world, as He sent +every other human being, to help the men and women in it, to make them +happier and better. If you do not do that, no matter what your powers +may be, you are mere lumber, a worthless bit of world's furniture. A +Stradivarius, if it hangs dusty and dumb upon the wall, is not of as +much real value as a kitchen poker which is used." + +So we learn that it is the fine practical spirit, content and willing +to do the humble things which are possible of achievement that is +doing most to lift the world to a higher and better plane. "Have you +never met humble men and women," asks Gannett, "who read little, who +knew little, yet who had a certain fascination as of fineness lurking +about them? Know them, and you are likely to find them persons who +have put so much thought and honesty and conscientious trying into +their common work--it may be sweeping rooms, or planing boards, or +painting walls--have put their ideals so long, so constantly, so +lovingly into that common work of theirs, that finally these qualities +have come to permeate not their work only, but so much of their being, +that they are fine-fibred within, even if on the outside the rough +bark clings." + +If we are wisely introspective, we must reach the conclusion that +humble though we may be, we are after all, a component part of the +great expression of being, and that we are well worth while. Then if +we are worth while, it follows that all we do is worth while, for each +of us is, in the end, the sum of all the things he has done. Once we +have this idea that everything stands for something more than the mere +thing itself--that it is correlated in its influences with all the +other things that we and all others are doing, we shall invest all our +tasks, little and big, with more of purpose and importance. Emerson +says: + +"There is no end to the sufficiency of character. It can afford to +wait; it can do without what it calls success; it cannot but succeed. +To a well-principled man existence is victory. He defends himself +against failure 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 chain whose last link he holds in his hand, and is +led by it." + +Perhaps no other every-day virtue counts for so much in the general +welfare of the 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, unrecorded deeds of kindness and goodness that we lay the +foundations of character. And because these humble lives, that mean so +much to the other humble lives with which they come into touch, are +never specifically named and shouted by the multitudinous tongues of +type, that many fail to see in them the elements of true and noble +achievement with which they are crowned. "The most inspiring tales," +it has been truly said, "are those that have not been written; the +most heroic deeds are those that have not been told; the world's +greatest successes have been won in the quiet of men's hearts, the +noblest heroes are the countless thousands who have struggled and +triumphed, rising on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher +things." + +Since it is these humbler every-day virtues that one is called upon +oftenest to exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent that the one who +possesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestly +has the greatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration of +others. It is of a girl possessing this fine adaptability to the +world's workaday surroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture: +"Shall I tell the kind of girl that I especially adore? Well, first of +all, let us take the working girl. She is not a 'lady' in the +acceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of this +latter day's hybrid democracy. She is just a blithe, cheery, +sweet-tempered young woman. She may have a father rich enough to support +her at home, but for all that she is a working girl. She is never idle. +She is studying or sewing or helping about the home part of the day. +She is romping or playing or swinging out of doors the other part. She +is never frowsy or untidy or lazy. She is never rude or slangy or +bold. And yet she is always full of fun and ready for frolic. She does +not depend upon a servant to do what she can do for herself. She is +considerate toward all who serve her. She is reverent to the old and +thoughtful of the feeble. She never criticises when criticism can +wound, and she is ready with a helpful, loving word for every one. +Sometimes she has no father, or her parents are too poor to support +her. Then she goes out and earns her living by whatever her hands find +to do. She clerks in a store, or she counts out change at a cashier's +desk, or she teaches school, or she clicks a typewriter, or rather a +telegrapher's key, but always and everywhere she is 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 dove in the air differs from a stuffed bird in a showcase. She is +quick to apologize when she knows she is in the wrong, yet no young +queen ever carried a higher head than she can upon justifiable +occasions. She is not always imagining herself looked down upon +because she is poor. She knows full well that out of her own heart and +mouth proceed the only witnesses that can absolve or condemn her. If +she is quick to be courteous, unselfish, gentle and retiring in speech +and manner in public places, she is true gold, even though her dress +be faded and her hat a little out of style. You cannot mistake any +such girl any more than you can mistake the sunshine that follows the +rain or the lark that springs from the hawthorne hedge. All things +that are blooming and sweet attend her! The earth is better for her +passing through it and heaven will be fairer for her habitation +therein." + +How fortunate it is for us who would practice these little every-day +virtues that we do not have to wait for some noted person at some +remote time to tell the 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 our hand who will be glad to testify +to our goodness. + +Kindness is never shown in vain. + +The gift blesses the giver, even though the one receiving the gift is +ungrateful. Consciously or unconsciously we exert an influence upon +all who come within the zone of our being. Surely those who know us +best ought to be the ones to appreciate us the most intelligently. If +we are lovable, will they not love us? If we love them, will it not +serve to make them lovable? Let us not keep the nice little attentions +and the carefully selected words for the stranger and the passer-by, +but have as much regard for the ones of our own intimate family +circle. We should be happy to do most for them who do most for us. One +of our students of human happiness says to us: "Get into the way of +idealizing what you have; let the picturesqueness of your own +imagination play round the village where you do live, instead of the +one where you wish to live; weave a romance round the brother you have +got, instead of round the Prince Perfect of a husband whom you have +not got." And Marcus Aurelius says: "Think not so much of what thou +hast not, as of what thou hast; but of the things which thou hast, +select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been +sought if thou had'st them not." + +Culture, itself, is but a composite expression of our simple, every-day +virtues. It must be measured by its outward manifestation of +regard for the pleasure, happiness and advancement of others. Literary +culture will open up the windows of the soul that the light of virtue +from within may shine forth and dispel the darkness of vice with which +it comes in contact. "Unless one's knowledge of good books--his +literary scholarship--has so taken hold upon him as to make him +exemplary, in a large measure, he cannot be said to be cultured," says +one of our students of higher ethics. "His learning should cultivate a +choice and beautiful address, a cheerful and loving countenance, a +magnificent and spirited carriage, a refinement of manner, an +agreeable presence." + + +The extent to which we may feel a sense of peaceful satisfaction at +the end of a day, depends upon how we have lived that day. We soon +learn that the day means most for us in which we do most for others. +If we have lived for self alone, it has been + + A LOST DAY + + Count that day truly worse than lost + 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 asked how much +pleasure we had in it, but how much service we gave in it; not how +full it was of success, but how full it was of sacrifice; not how +happy we were, but how helpful we were; not how ambition was +gratified, but how love was served. Life is judged by love; and love +is known by her fruits." + +The every-day virtues include very many fine little traits that serve +unconsciously to make our paths smoother, our skies bluer and all of +life more glad and golden. They constitute a habit of doing the right +thing at all times and so quietly and unostentatiously that no one is +made to feel any sense of obligation. One who possesses these virtues +does not wait for stated times and occasions to bestow evidences of +love and good will upon others, but like a flower in bloom spreads the +fine perfume of friendship upon all who come within the charmed +presence. Intuitively and unconsciously does the owner of these +virtues follow the precept set forth by the philosopher: "I shall pass +through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, +or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. +Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way +again." And in expressing the same sentiment Amiel says: "Do not wait +to be just or pitiful or demonstrative towards those we love until +they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death. Life +is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of +those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh! be swift to +love, make haste to be kind!" We should not wait till some sad +experience has taught us the rare privilege we may now own of offering + + 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. + +Of all the homely virtues there is none more to be commended and +desired than patience. This priceless quality of mind puts its +possessor into friendly relations with whatever the surrounding +conditions may chance to be. There is no irritation, no clash of +interests, no lack of organization for performing to the best of one's +ability the duties of the moment, as they present themselves 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 +that present themselves. "Success in life," says one of our students +of the world's problems, "depends far more upon the decision of +character than upon the possession of what is called genius. The man +who is perpetually hesitating as to which of two things he will do, +will do neither." On the other hand the man who hastily and +impatiently disposes of the problems that confront him also impairs +his chances for making the best of life. + +Have you ever experienced the sorry realization of how one petulant or +peevish member of a household can destroy the happiness of a breakfast +or dinner hour? What would otherwise have been a pleasant coming +together of kindly congenial spirits is made painful and unprofitable +because some one lacked the patience and forbearance to withstand and +to surmount some little trial or irritation that should have been +promptly dismissed from the mind and the heart, or better still, which +never should have been permitted to enter. As has been truly observed, +membership in the family involves the recognition that the normal life +of the individual is to be found only in a perfect union with other +members; in regard for their rights; in deference to their wishes; and +in devotion to that common interest in which each member shares. Each +member must live for the sake of the whole family. "Children owe to +their parents obedience, and such service as they are able to render," +says Dr. DeWitt Hyde. "Parents, on the other hand, owe to children +support, training, and an education sufficient to give them a fair +start in life. Brothers and sisters owe to each other mutual +helpfulness and protection." + +The patient disposition to do the best one can, this day, this hour, +this very moment, counts for much in the building of a life. How +perfectly is its whole purpose set forth in Channing's "Symphony," in +which he so beautifully makes known his heart's desire: "To live +content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; and +refinement rather than fashion; 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 babes and sages, with open +heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry +never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow +up through the common. This is to be my symphony." + +It is this rare sense of poise, this patient regard for our own +happiness and that of others, that enables some sweet spirits to come +as a balm for all the bruises that a busy world can put upon us. +"There is no joy but calm." Until one has learned to do his work +pleasantly and agreeably he has not mastered the most important part +of his lesson. "Blessed is the man who finds joy in his work." He will +succeed where the complaining, discontented person will be almost sure +to fail. So, let us cultivate this one of the chiefest of our every-day +virtues. It will enable us to give to every moment the proper +regard for its value and of the possibilities it offers for +achievement. It will teach us that during every day, every hour, every +moment, there is time for politeness, for kindness, for gentleness, +for the display of strength and tenderness and high purpose, and for +the exercise of that degree of patience that does so much to make life +big and broad and beautiful in + + THIS BUSY WORLD + + It is a very busy world in which we mortals 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. + And yet for every moment'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. + + We scale the mountain's rugged side, not at one mighty leap, + But step by step and breath by breath we climb the lofty steep. + Each simple duty comes alone our willing strength to try; + 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. + +[Illustration: From a Photograph, Copyright, 1902, by J. E. Purdy, Boston +JULIA WARD HOWE] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +Each, whatever his estate, in his own unconscious breast bears the +talisman of fate.--John Townsend Trowbridge. + +When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good +reason for letting it alone.--Thomas Scott. + +Once a body laughs he cannot be angry more.--James M. Barrie. + +Success is usually the result of a sharpened sense of what is wanted. +--Frank Moore Colby. + +He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals.--Benjamin +Franklin. + +A sinful heart makes a feeble hand.--Walter Scott. + +Look within, for you have a lasting foundation of happiness at home +that will always bubble up if you will but dig for it.--Marcus +Aurelius Antoninus. + +To a friend's house the road is never long.--Danish Proverb. + +Honest toil is holy service; faithful work is praise and prayer. +--Henry Van Dyke. + +Give me the toiler's joy who has seen the sunlight burst on the +distant turrets in the land of his desire.--Muriel Strode. + +You can buy a lot of happiness with a mighty small salary, but +fashionable happiness always costs just a little more than you're +making.--George Horace Lorimer. + +A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only +edged tool that grows keener with constant use.--Washington Irving. + +Where there is one man who squints with his eyes, there are a dozen +who squint with their brains.--Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, +that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.--Jonathan Swift. + +What we have got to do is to keep up our spirits and be neighborly. We +shall come all right in the end, never fear.--Dickens. + +Happiness is the feeling we experience when we are too busy to be +miserable.--Thomas L. Masson. + +Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.--Gen. Robert E. +Lee. + +Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done +without hope.--Keller. + +The activity and soundness of a man's actions will be determined by +the activity and soundness of his thoughts.--Beecher. + +What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve, +but the will to labor.--Bulwer Lytton. + +We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others +judge us by what we have already done.--Longfellow. + +The great hope of society is individual character.--Channing. + +Concentrate all your thought upon the work in hand. The sun's rays do +not burn until brought to a focus.--Alexander G. Bell. + +Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation, for +it is better to be alone than in bad company.--George Washington. + +The public school playground transposes many a boy from a public +liability to a public asset.--A. E. Winship. + +Real coolness and self-possession are the indispensable accompaniments +of a great mind.--Dickens. + +One of the crying needs of society is the revival of gentleness and of +a refined considerateness in judging others.--Newell D. Hillis. + +In this world inclination to do things is of more importance than the +mere power.--Chapin. + +Character lives in a man, reputation outside of him.--J. G. Holland. + +Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. +--Johnson. + +Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.--Disraeli. + +Follow your honest convictions and be strong.--Thackeray. + +Admonish your friends privately, but praise them openly.--Publius +Syrus. + +Economy is of itself a great revenue.--Comtelburo. + +Grace is the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. +--Hazlitt. + +Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a +distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.--Carlyle. + +Pull on the oar and not on your influential friends.--A. E. Winship. + +The noblest mind the best contentment hath.--Spenser. + +To be usefully and hopefully employed is one of the great secrets of +happiness.--Smiles. + +The man who has begun to live more seriously within, begins to live +more simply without.--Phillips Brooks. + +Everything in this world depends upon will.--Disraeli. + +A man is valued according to his own estimate of himself.--Comtelburo. + +All men wish to have truth on their side; but few to be on the side of +truth.--Whately. + +Mightier than all the world, the clasp of one small hand upon the +heart.--John Townsend Trowbridge. + +The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.--Napoleon. + +Character must stand behind and back up everything--the sermon, the +poem, the picture, the play. None of them is worth a straw without +it.--J. G. Holland. + +The question every morning is not how to do the gainful thing, but how +to do the just thing.--John Ruskin. + +Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself, loses his +misery.--Matthew Arnold. + +I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be +wrong, leave it undone.--Gilpin. + +What we need most is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize +the real.--F. H. Hedge. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE + + +Do people like you? + +Are your girl playmates and classmates fond of your society? Are they +eager to work with you, play with you, go strolling or sit by the fire +with you? + +This one fact we must know; if we are not liked it must be because we +are not the possessors of that fine quality known as "likableness." +And if those who have had an opportunity to know us and our traits of +character do not love and admire us, it is we and not they who are +responsible for their state of mind. For as sure as the warm sunshine +attracts the flowers, and the fragrant flowers call the attention of +the bee to their store of honey, so a fine likable character is +certain to gain and to hold the admiration of good friends and true. + +The face full of sunshine, the heart full of hope, the lips that are +speaking pleasant words of good cheer and joyous faith in the world, +will attract friends about them as certainly as the magnetic pole +attracts the needle. + +The girl who goes among the people with smiles to offer will find very +many ready to receive her gracious gifts, but if she carries with her +sighs and frowns, instead, she will learn that the world wants none of +them. + +We all love to hear pleasant things. The one who tells us that he +thinks it is going to set in for a long rainy spell of weather is of +less worth to us than the one who says he thinks that the clouds are +going to clear away and that we shall have a beautiful day to-morrow. + +The grandsire who tells his young friends that they ought to be glad +that the grandest, brightest and best era in the world's history is +just before them, does much more to inspire them than does the one who +tells them that the best days of the world were "the good old days of +long ago," and that the golden age will never return again. Brooke +Herford tells us: "There are some people who ride all through the +journey of life with their backs to the horse's head. + +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 things were when they were young. There is no romance in the +world now, and no heroism. The very winters and summers are nothing to +what they used to be; in fact, life is altogether on a small, +commonplace scale. Now that is a miserable sort of thing; it brings a +sort of paralyzing chill over the life, and petrifies the natural +spring of joy that should ever be leaping up to meet the fresh new +mercies that the days keep bringing." + +Know then, my young friends, that the best time that ever was is the +present time, if you will but use it aright. It is full of romance, of +heroism, of splendid opportunity, of all that goes to constitute +experience and to develop character. 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 long and bright and golden; the +roses blossom just as numerously and as sweetly; human hearts are just +as warm and kindly, as they have been at any time in the world's +history. Emerson says: "One of the illusions is that the present hour +is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every +day is the best day in the whole year." + +So then as far as the time and the hour are concerned, there is +nothing in our surroundings to make us morose or gloomy or dispirited +or indifferent regarding the influence we are exerting upon those +around us. There is no obvious reason why we should not be joyous and +happy at the prospect before us. We should have not only grace enough +for our own personal needs, but plenty of it to spare for those not so +gladly born as ourselves. + +And rich beyond computation is the one who has joyousness to spare. +Better than gold, better than food and raiment and all material +things, betimes, is a ray of sunshine from the heart, an uplift of +saving humor from a merry tongue. "I have often felt, myself," says +Benson, "that the time has come to raise another figure to the +hierarchy of Christian graces. Faith, Hope and Charity were sufficient +in a more elementary and barbarous age, but, now that the world has +broadened somewhat, I think an addition to the trio is demanded. A man +may be faithful, hopeful, and charitable, and yet leave much to be +desired. He may be useful, no doubt, with that equipment, but he may +also be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourth quality that I +should like to see raised to the highest rank among the Christian +graces is the Grace of Humor." + +Splendidly blest is that household that is so fortunate as to possess +at least one member gifted with the grace of good humor. One such +person in a home is enough if there cannot be more. Just when all the +others are seriously confronting what seems to be a most sad and +serious condition of affairs how just one word of illuminating good +humor can change the whole point of view and send the foreboding +proposition glimmering into nothingness. "Do you know, my dear," says +Mrs. Holden, "that there is absolutely nothing that will help you to +bear the ills of life so well as a good laugh? Laugh all you can and +the small imps in blue who love to preempt their quarters in a human +heart will scatter away like owls before the music of flutes. + +There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will not +dissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes line +breaks, if the cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with the +roast, if the children fall into the mud simultaneously with the +advent of clean aprons, if the new girl quits in the middle of +housecleaning, and though you search the earth with candles you find +none to take her place, if the neighbor you have trusted goes back on +you and decides to keep chickens, if the chariot wheels of the +uninvited guest draw near when you are out of provender, and the +gaping of your empty purse is like the unfilled mouth of a young +robin, take courage if you have enough sunshine in your heart, to keep +the laugh on your lips. Before good nature, half the cares of daily +living will fly away like midges before the wind. Try it." + +What a world of inspiration and cheerfulness in the motto written by +Edward Everett Hale for the Lend-A-Hand Society: "Look up, and not +down; look forward, and not back; look out, and not in; and lend a +hand." It is the lifting of the burden from another's tired shoulder +that does most to lighten the load resting on our own. + +No one who truly is conscious of the value of sunshine upon his own +nature and upon the spirits of those with whom he comes into contact +will ever, for one minute, permit himself to be taken possession of by + + THE "BLUES" + + "Blues" are the sorry calms that come + To make our spirits mope, + And steal the breeze of promise from + The shining sails of hope. + +Margaret E. Sangster, who is the kind and gracious foster mother to +all the girls of her time and generation, says that "being in bondage +to the blues is precisely like being lost in a London fog. The latter +is thick and black and obliterates familiar landmarks. A man may be +within a few doors of his home, yet grope hopelessly through the murk +to find the well-worn threshold. A person under the tyranny of the +blues is temporarily unable to adjust life to its usual limitations. +He or she cannot see an inch beyond the dreadful present. Everything +looks dark and forbidding, and despair with an iron clutch pins its +victim down. People think, loosely, that trials that may be weighed +and measured and felt and handled are the worst trials to which flesh +is heir. But they are mistaken. Hearts are elastic, and real sorrows +seldom crush them. Souls have in them a wonderful capacity for +recovering after knockdown blows. It is the intangible, the thing that +one dreads vaguely, that catches one in the dark, that suggests and +intimates a peril that is spiritual rather than mortal; it is the +burden that carries dismay and terror to the imagination." + +A single member of a household who is given to having "the blues" +often darkens a home that would otherwise be bright and sunny. Such an +unfortunate person should bear in mind that when a servant is employed +the whole household expects her to be kind, tidy, industrious, moral, +gentle, and, above all, good natured in her attitude toward all. +Surely the daughter of a household cannot wish to feel that she holds +her position by accident of birth, and that if her family were not +compelled to keep her they would not. + +Charles Dickens says: "It is not possible to know how far the +influence of 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 her influence for making the little household +world holier and happier for all whose life interests are centered +therein. Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "The day is dark only when the +mind is dark; all weathers are pleasant when the heart is at rest." +Bliss Carman observes that "happiness, perhaps, comes by the grace of +Heaven, 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 be happy is set forth still more forcibly by Lilian Whiting: +"No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about +ill-bred." + +The girl with sunshine in her thoughts and sunshine in her eyes will +find sunshine everywhere. Wherever she may go her gracious presence +will light the way and make her every path more smooth and beautiful. +In the home, in the school, amid whatever conditions surround her, she +will shine with the glow of a rose in bloom. She will see the good and +the beautiful in the persons whom she meets; while all the charms of +nature, as portrayed in field and forest, will be to her a never-ending +source of interest and enjoyment. Above all, she will warmly +cherish life and look upon it as being crowded with priceless +opportunities for obtaining happiness for herself and for others. She +will be filled with the same exhuberant spirit of joy in the mere fact +of her being that Mrs. Holden so happily sets forth: "I love this +world. I never walk out in the morning when 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, or at evening, +when a fringe of a shadow, like the lash of a weary eye, droops over +mountain and valley and sea, or in the majestic pomp of night when +stars swarm together like bees, and the moon clears its way through +the golden fields as a sickle through the ripened wheat, that I do not +hug myself for very joy that I am yet alive. What matter if I am poor +and unsheltered and costumeless? + +Thank God, I am yet alive! People who tire of this world before they +are seventy and pretend that they are ready to leave it, are either +crazy or stuck as full of bodily ailments as a cushion is of pins. The +happy, the warm-blooded, the sunny-natured and the loving cling to +life as petals cling to the calyx of a budding rose. By and by, when +the rose is over-ripe, or when the frosts come and the November winds +are trumpeting 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 can brighten, while there is a human lot to be +alleviated by a smile, or a burden to be lifted with a sympathizing +tear." + +We all understand that it is not so difficult for us to be bright and +smiling and gracious toward everyone when there is naught to disturb +the serenity of our thoughts, and when nothing happens to interfere +with the fulfillment of our wishes. But when things go "at sixes and +sevens," when our dearest purposes are thwarted, when some one is +about to gain the place or prize which we covet, when we are forced to +stay within doors when we very much prefer to go in the fields; then +it requires more of character, more of strength, more of the true +spirit of sacrifice to wear a smiling face and to maintain a cheerful +heart. But instead of fleeing from the petty trials that cross our +paths we should welcome them as opportunities for testing and +strengthening our good purposes. Newcomb tells us: "Disappointment +should always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as a +discouragement." To the sunshiny, philosophical person, trials and +difficulties but serve to help him to develop into + + THE PRIZE WINNER + + Oh, the man who 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. + +Sunshine has ever been deemed by the close students of life as a most +essential element in the achievement of the highest and fullest +success. The optimist sees open paths leading to pleasant and +prosperous fields of endeavor where the pessimist can see no way out +of the hopeless surroundings amid which he has been thrust by an +unkind fate. The disposition to seize upon the opportunities lying +close at hand and to believe that the here and now is 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 well +grounded in a broad and beautiful faith, have sat complainingly by the +way and permitted the golden chances to go by unobserved. + +"Born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinary persistency," +said Professor Maria Mitchell, the distinguished astronomer, in the +later years of her life in looking back upon her career. But she +added, with a simplicity as rare as it is pleasing: "I did not quite +take this in, myself, until I came to mingle with the best girls of +our college, and to become aware how rich their mines are and how +little they have been worked." At sixteen she left school, and at +eighteen accepted the position of librarian of the Nantucket public +library. Her duties were light and she had ample opportunity, +surrounded as she was by books, to read and study, while leisure was +also left her to pursue by practical observation the science in which +she afterward became known. Those who dwell upon the smaller islands, +among which must be classed Nantucket, her island home, learn almost +of necessity to study the sea and the sky. The Mitchell family +possessed an excellent telescope. From childhood Maria had been +accustomed to the use of this instrument, searching out with its aid, +the distant sails upon the horizon by day, and viewing the stars by +night. Her father possessed a marked taste for astronomy, and carried +on an independent series of observations. He taught his daughter all +he knew, and what was more to her advancement, she applied herself to +the study and made as much independent advancement as was possible for +her to do. It was this cheerful willingness to make the most of her +immediate surroundings that proved to be the secret of her world-wide +fame in after years when her name was included with those of the other +prominent astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening of +October First, 1847, she made the discovery which first brought her +name before the public. She was gazing through her glass with her +usual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "an +unknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees." At +first she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting, +scarcely daring to think that she had really made a discovery, she +obtained its right ascension and declination. She then told her +father, who gave the news to the other astronomers and to the world, +and her claim to the discovery was duly accepted and ever after stood +to her lasting credit. But had she not been interested in her work and +competent to seize upon and to make the most of the opportunity that +presented itself, she would not have been able to make herself the +first of all the beings of our earth to observe and record this +strange visitant to our starry realms above us. + +It is the faith which the sunshiny spirit has in the "worth whileness" +of life and its possibilities that makes him or her who possesses it +prepare for the best that is to come. It is because of the +"preparedness" achieved by labor that men and women are able to seize +upon and make the most of the "lucky chance" that may bring them +happiness and success. + +While Thomas A. Edison was yet a youth, the desire to make himself of +worth to the world and to be able to do something that would make him +a living while he was still fitting himself for better things, he +spent the leisure which most boys would spend in idleness or +purposeless pastime in learning the telegrapher's code. Later on this +knowledge gave him work which enabled him to gain experience as a +telegraph operator, which in turn led to his invention of the +quadruplex telegraph. But the invention was temporarily a failure, +although later on a great success. Sorely reduced in circumstances, he +was one day tramping the 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. I was standing +beside the apparatus when it gave a terrific rip-roar and suddenly +stopped. In a few minutes hundreds of messenger boys blocked up the +doorway and yelled for some one to fix the tickers in the office. The +man in charge 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 +contact spring that had fallen between the wheels; the machine went +on. The result? I was appointed to take charge of the service at three +hundred dollars a month. When I heard what the salary was I almost +fainted." It had been his hopeful, cheerful, expectant attitude toward +the future that had ever prompted him to fit himself so well that when +the opportunity offered itself he was able to show that he possessed +the grasp of things that made him + + THE CONQUEROR + + There's a day, there's an hour, a moment of time + 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? + + And whene'er Opportunity knocks at his door + 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 lives are a play + 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. + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +Kind words are worth much and they cost little.--Proverb. + +The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. +--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. + +Always laugh when you can; it is a cheap medicine. Merriment is a +philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence. +--Byron. + +To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is +the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a +human being.--Lord Avebury. + +Happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of all health. +--Amiel. + +Not in the clamour of the crowded streets, not in the shouts and +plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat. +--Longfellow. + +A man should always keep learning something--"always," as Arnold said, +"keep the stream running"--whereas most people let it stagnate about +middle life.--Anonymous. + +A smile passes current in every country as a mark of distinction. +--Joe Mitchell Chapple. + +The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. +--Tennyson. + +No man ever sunk under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow's +burden is added to the burden of to-day that the burden is more than a +man can bear.--George MacDonald. + +Though sorrow must come, where is the advantage of rushing to meet it? +It will be time enough to grieve when it comes; meanwhile, hope for +better things.--Seneca. + +All my old opinions were only stages on the way to the one I now hold, +as itself is only a stage on the way to something else.--R. L. Stevenson. + +Hasten slowly, and, without losing heart, put your work twenty times +upon the anvil.--Boileau. + +Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control--these three alone lead +life to sovereign power.--Tennyson. + +It is curious to what an extent our happiness or unhappiness depends +upon the manner in which we view things.--E. C. Burke. + +Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they +love truth.--Joubert. + +Truth is tough; it will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you +may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and +full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.--Emerson. + +The aids to noble life are all within.--Matthew Arnold. + +Nothing is difficult; it is only we who are indolent.--B. R. Haydon. + +It is a serious thing that we should see the full beauty of our lives +only when they are passed or in visions of a possible future. What we +most need is to see and feel the beauty and joy of to-day.--Maurice D. +Conway. + +Let us enjoy the scenery of the present moment. The landscape around +the bend will still be there when our life-train arrives.--Horatio W. +Dresser. + +If we cannot get what we like let us try to like what we can get. +--Spanish Proverb. + +Men continually forget that happiness is a condition of the mind and +not a disposition of circumstances.--Lecky. + +If you would know the political and moral condition of a people, ask +as to the condition of its women.--Aime Martin. + +Delicacy in woman is strength.--Lichtenberg. + +Who has not experienced how, on nearer acquaintance, plainness becomes +beautified, and beauty loses its charm, according to the quality of +the heart and mind.--Fredrika Bremer. + +Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low,--an excellent thing in +woman.--Shakespeare. + +Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces of +manners.--Marguerite de Valois. + +To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is +power.--George MacDonald. + +A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can +afford to let alone.--Thoreau. + +In truth, how could I feel this gladness now had I not known the +bitterness of woe.--Alicia K. Van Buren. + +Of all the joys we can bring into our own lives there is none so +joyous as that which comes to us as the result of caring for others +and brightening sad lives.--E. C. Burke. + +Human improvement is from within outward.--Froude. + +Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are famous +preservers of good looks.--Dickens. + +The law of true living is toil.--J. R. Miller. + +We may make the best of life, or we may make the worst of it, and it +depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or misery from +it.--Smiles. + +Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every +pessimist would keep the world at a standstill.--Helen Keller. + +He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his +business at night.--Benjamin Franklin. + +It is great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible, +but to try instead to escape from other people's faults, which is +impossible.--Marcus Aurelius. + +Labor is discovered to be the grand conquerer, enriching and building +up nations more surely than the proudest battles.--William Ellery +Channing. + +It is easier to leave the wrong thing unsaid than to unsay it.--George +Horace Lorimer. + +Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of +human welfare.--Tolstoi. + +If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must +toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure comes through toil, and not by +self-indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is +a happy one.--Ruskin. + +One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your +rights, you may give them up.--George MacDonald. + +Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in +some respects, whether he chooses to be or not.--Hawthorne. + +Expediency is man's wisdom. Doing right is God's.--George Meredith. + +Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are +found only in the depths of thought.--Victor Hugo. + +I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth of +literature when I can get strong soup.--George Eliot. + +A thousand words leave not the same deep print as does a single deed. +--Ibsen. + +Woman--the crown of creation.--Herder. + +Harmony is the essence of power as well as beauty.--A. E. Winship. + +Be faithful to thyself, and fear no other witness but thy fear. +--Shelley. + +To give heartfelt praise to noble actions is, in some measure, making +them our own.--La Rochefoucauld. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A MERRY HEART + + +Who among us can presume to estimate the value of a merry heart? What +a perpetual blessing it is to its possessor and to all who must come +into close relationship with the owner of it! + +There is nothing more pleasantly "catching" than happiness. The happy +person serves to make all about him or her the more happy. What the +bright, inspiring sunshine adds to the beauty of the fields, a happy +disposition adds to the charm of all the incidents and experiences of +one's daily life. + +Do not you, whose eyes are perusing these lines, love to associate +with a friend possessing a cheerful disposition? And do you not +intuitively refrain from meeting with the unfortunate one whose looks +and words are heavy with complainings or whose eyes fail to see the +beauty of the world lying all about? And if we are given to wise +thinking we must reach the conclusion that as we regard these +attributes in others, so others must regard them in us. + +Nothing is more eloquent than a beautiful face. It is the open sesame +to all our 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." + +But a smile that is only skin deep is not a true smile, but only a +superficial grin. A true smile comes all the way from the heart. It +bears its message of good will and friendliness. It is a mute +salutation of "good luck and happy days to you!" and it makes whoever +receives it better and stronger for the hour. + +The genuine smile is closely related to, and is a part of, that +laughter which beams and sparkles in the eye and makes the little, +cheerful, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easily +distinguished from the lines that are the outward sign of an unhappy +spirit within. + +Many centuries ago that wise and admirable philosopher, Epictetus, +discovered that "happiness is not in strength, or wealth, or power; or +all three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest of +every ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power of +contentment and peace, and the even flow of life, even in poverty, +exile, disease and the very valley of the shadow." + +One of the happiest observers of life and its higher purposes--Anne +Gilchrist--says: "I used to 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 be capable of happiness,--to pluck it +out of each moment, and, whatever happens, to find that one can ride +as gay and buoyant on the angry, menacing, tumultuous waves of life as +on those that glide and glitter under a clear sky; that it is not +defeat and wretchedness which comes out of the storms of adversity, +but strength and calmness." + +The strongest incentive for the cultivation of a merry heart is that +it is a duty as well as a delight. Sydney Smith has very wisely +observed that "mankind is always happier for having been happy; so +that if you make them happy now, you may make them happy twenty years +hence by the memory of it." + +True happiness has about it no suggestion of selfishness. The +genuinely happy person is the one who would have all the world to be +happy. "Is there any happiness in the world like the happiness of a +disposition made happy by the happiness of others?" asks Faber. "There +is no joy to be compared with it. The luxuries which wealth can buy, +the rewards which ambition can obtain, the pleasures of art and +scenery, the abounding sense of health and the exquisite enjoyment of +mental creations are nothing to this pure and heavenly happiness, +where self is drowned in the blessings of others." + +One of the most heavenly attributes of happiness is that it begets +more happiness not only in ourselves but in others about us. It has in +it an uplift and a strength that enables us to build the stronger +to-day against the distress that would beset us to-morrow. + +"Health and happiness" are terms that are so often closely linked in +our speech and in our literature. One is almost a synonym for the +other. Perhaps the true significance existing between the two would be +more correctly stated were we to reverse the form in which they are +usually set forth and say "happiness and health" instead. All +observers of human nature and its many complex attributes are +convinced that happiness is the fountain spring of health. + +One of our keenest students of life tells us that "small annoyances +are the seeds of disease. We cannot afford to entertain them. They are +the bacteria,--the germs that make serious disturbance in the system, +and prepare the way for all derangements. They furnish the mental +conditions which are manifested later in the blood, the tissues, and +the organs, under various pathological names. Good thoughts are the +only germicide. We must kill our resentment and regret, impatience and +anxiety. Health will inevitably follow. Every thought that holds us in +even the slightest degree to either anticipation or regret hinders, to +some extent, the realization of our present good. It limits freedom. +Life is in the present tense. Its significant name is Being." + +Whether we are happy or not depends much on our point of view. The +disposition to look at everything through kind and beautiful eyes +makes all the world more kind and beautiful. If we are gloomy within +the whole world appears likewise. Perhaps the two ways of looking at +things could not be better set forth than in these clever lines by E. +J. Hardy: + +"How dismal you look!" said a bucket to his companion, as they were +going to the well. + +"Ah!" replied the other, "I was reflecting on the uselessness of our +being filled, for, let us go away never so full, we always come back +empty." + +"Dear me! how strange to look on it that way!" said the other bucket; +"now I enjoy the thought that however empty we come, we always go away +full. Only look at it in that light and you 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 its thorn, + The pessimist Fate's plan opposes; + The optimist, more gladly born, + Rejoices that the thorns have roses. + +Since our happiness is merely the reflex influence of the happiness we +make for others it would seem as though the joy of our lives dwells +within our own keeping. "The universe," says Zimmerman, "pays every +man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; if +you frown, you will be frowned at; if you sing, you will be invited +into gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; +if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, you +will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your +lap the treasures of the earth." + +All of this being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunities +for making others happy if we, ourselves, would get the most and +highest enjoyment from life. "There are gates that swing within your +life and mine," writes "Amber," that good woman of sainted memory, +"letting in rare opportunities from day to day, that tarry but a +moment and are gone, like travelers bound for points remote. There is +the opportunity to resist the temptation to do a mean thing! Improve +it, for it is in a hurry, like the man whose ticket is bought and +whose time is up. It won't be back this way, either, for opportunities +for good are not like tourists who travel on return tickets. There is +the opportunity to say a pleasant word to the ones within the sound of +your voice. All of the priceless opportunities travel by lightning +express and have no time to idle around the waiting-room. If we +improve them at all it must be when the gate swings to let them +through." + +It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are to +find the larger and truer happiness of life. Says Jenkin Lloyd Jones, +"I would rather live in an alley, stayed all round with human loves, +associations and ambitions, than dwell in a palace with drawbridge, +moat, and portcullis, apart from the community about me, alienated +from my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those with +whom I divide nature's bounty of land and landscape, of air and sky." +And along 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 your own belongings, and what is the matter with you, +instead of trying to realize, what is the fact--that you are a member +of a great human society, and that your true interests are one with +those of the world which will go on much the same however it fare with +you. Live the larger life, and you will find it the happier." + +So one of the chief aims of your life and of mine should be to find +happiness and to see to it that others find it as well. And let us not +wait to find happiness in one great offering, but let us discover it +whenever and wherever we can. Let us carefully study our surroundings +to see if it is not hiding all about us. "Very few things," says +Lecky, "contribute so much to the happiness of life as a constant +realization of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a +naturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one of +the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to +cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which +converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment." + +Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivate +the gracious habit of being grateful for joys that come to us and to +seek to appreciate the worth of the beneficent gifts that are ever +being showered upon us. We are so apt to fall into the habit of +accepting blessings as a matter of course and of failing to discover +their wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have ever +thoughtfully dwelt upon the priceless attributes of the air that is +ever and always floating about us. In order that we may have a truer +appreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read these +words by Lord Avebury: + +"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathes +the skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of its +presence, and yet so strong that it wafts the odors of flowers and +fruit into our rooms, carries our ships over the seas, the purity of +sea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It is the vehicle of +sound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweet music +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 a glorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning and +evening skies with fire. It is so exquisitely soft and pure, so gentle +and yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovable +and fascinating of all Nature Spirits." + +It is only when we open our eyes to the beauty of the wonders about us +that we see how much there is to contribute to our happiness if we +will but open our hearts and let it come in. What a perpetual +exaltation nature will afford us when we have cultivated the fine +habit of looking upon it with the welcoming eyes through which Richard +Jefferies beholds it: "The whole time in the open air," he tells us, +"resting at mid-day under the elms with the ripple of heat flowing +through the shadow; at midnight between the ripe corn and the +hawthorne hedge or the white camomile and the poppy pale in the +duskiness, with face upturned to the thoughtful heaven. Consider the +glory of it, the life above this life to be obtained from constant +presence with the sunlight and the stars." + +So let us cultivate the fine habit of finding joy and of shouting it +to our friends and neighbors. Life seems bright to us when we are +really glad of anything and we let gladness have voice to express +itself. George MacDonald says "a poet is a man who is glad of +something and tries to make other people glad of it, too." In the +possession of this kindly spirit, at least, we must all strive to be +poets. + +Emerson tells us that "there is one topic positively forbidden 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, or +thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, +and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene +and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans." + +The fine tonic effect of a bright, happy face smiling across the +breakfast table is known to all the world. Better a feast of corn +bread and a cheerful countenance than fruit cake and a sour +temperament. + +So I feel very sure that you, my dear young lady, for whom these lines +are written, are never going to appear at the breakfast table with +aught other than a bright cheery face and a pleasant word for all +about you. 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 the fears and the grumbles until a thought of +gladness has established itself as the keynote of the day. + +"Assume a virtue, if you have it not," says Shakespeare. While as a +rule it is deemed wrong to assume to possess any virtue that we do not +possess, we may and no doubt should, at times, appear to be happy even +though we may feel more like indulging in lamentations. To come to the +breakfast table enumerating a list of real or imaginary ailments is a +most ill-advised thing to do. We should endeavor to forget our +troubles and above all we should be slow to give voice to them so that +thereby they will be multiplied in the minds of others. It has been +truly said that most people who are unhappy are really miserable and +bring their misery to others because they allow the failures and +discomforts to speak the first word in their souls. For misery is +voluble and the little discomforts will turn us into their continual +mouthpieces if we will give them a chance. But the truly thoughtful +and considerate person will have none of them. Instead of displaying +the flag of distress and surrender, the wiser method is to pull our +courage and determination together and don + + THE BETTER ARMOR + + If through thick and through thin + 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 +even happiness is largely a habit. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is +he." If he thinks trouble, he is very likely to find it. If he thinks +sickness, he is likely to be ill. If he thinks unkind things, he is +quite sure to put them into the deeds of his daily life. The thought +is the architect's plans which the hands are likely to set about to +build. To the one who thinks the weather is bad, it is sure to be +disagreeable. To the one who seeks to find something pleasant about +it, it is certain to offer some happy phases. + +We must all answer "yes" to this question asked by one of our fine +writers on our social amenities: "Don't you get awfully tired of +people who are always croaking? A frog in a big, damp, malarial pond +is expected to make all the fuss he can in protest of his +surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown, and born that he may be +educated for the court of a king! Placed in an emerald world with a +hither side of opaline shadow, and a fine dust of diamonds to set it +sparkling when winter days are flying; with ten million singing birds +to make it musical, and twice ten million flowers to make it 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 and make happy, and the hand of God to uphold it on its rushing +way among the countless worlds that crowd its path; what right has man +to find fault with such a world? When the woodtick shall gain a +hearing, as he complains that the grand old century oak is unfit to +shelter him, or the bluebird be harkened to when he murmurs that the +horizon is off color, and does not match his wings, then, I think, it +will be time for man to find fault with the appointments of the +magnificent sphere in which he lives." + +Therefore let it be determined between us, right here and now, that +come what may, we shall each of us endeavor to keep a merry heart and +a pleasant face. As we love to see a happy expression on the faces of +our parents, brothers, sisters and friends, so must they enjoy seeing +a pleasant look overspreading our features. And with this good and +kindly resolve in our minds it will never be difficult for us to +decide whether we shall give to the good world about us the gladness +or the gloom that is embodied in + + SONG OR SIGH + + If you were a bird and shut in a cage, + 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? + + 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? + +[Illustration: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +Mirth is God's medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it.--Holmes. + +The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.--Elizabeth Barrett +Browning. + +A gay, serene spirit is the source of all that is noble and good. +--Schiller. + +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 of +thought.--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. + +Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff +life is made of.--Benjamin Franklin. + +Be yourself, but make yourself in everything as delightful as you +can.--Margaret E. Sangster. + +The tissue of the life to be we weave with colors all our own, and in +the field of destiny we reap as we have sown.--Whittier. + +What must of necessity be done you can always find out beyond question +how to do.--Ruskin. + +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 and promise.--William McKinley. + +Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us +honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing. +--Goethe. + +Every wish is a prayer with God.--Elizabeth Barrett Browning. + +Say not always what you know, but always know what you say.--Claudius. + +Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart.--Hood. + +Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every +time we fall.--Goldsmith. + +So use present pleasures that thou spoilest not future ones.--Seneca. + +A good manner springs from a good heart, and fine manners are the +outcome of unselfish kindness.--Margaret E. Sangster. + +Reading and study are in no sense education, unless they may +contribute to this end of making us feel kindly towards all +creatures.--Ruskin. + +An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if +properly employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity, to go far +toward mastering a science.--Samuel Smiles. + +To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one +does, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit for +noble career.--E. P. Tenney. + +He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but +he who loses spirit loses all.--S. A. Nelson. + +If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if +not, you have infinite power against you.--Charles G. Gordon. + +Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good. +To be and keep so is not the gift of a happy nature alone, but it is +strength and heroism.--Jules Michelet. + +We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths.--Bailey. + +Remember that everybody's business in the social system is to be +agreeable.--Dickens. + +In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail.--Bulwer Lytton. + +Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping, but +never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own.--Lowell. + +The cheerful live longest in years, and afterward in our regards. +--Bovee. + +How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, is that fine sense +which men call Courtesy!--James T. Fields. + +Make each goal when reached, a starting point for further quest. +--Browning. + +The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be +as happy as kings.--Robert Louis Stevenson. + +God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.--Beecher. + +If you are acquainted with Happiness, introduce him to your neighbor. +--Phillips Brooks. + +Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st, live well; how long +or short, permit to heaven.--Milton. + +The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed. +--Chamfort. + +It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.--Joseph Roux. + +People glorify all sorts of bravery, except the bravery they might +show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.--George Eliot. + +How active springs the mind that leaves the load of yesterday behind. +--Pope. + +One of the most charming things in girlhood is serenity.--Margaret E. +Sangster. + +Every generous nature desires to make the earning of an honest living +but a means to the higher end of adding to the sum total of human +goodness and human happiness.--Frances E. Willard. + +Attempt the end, and never stand in doubt; nothing's so hard but +search will find it out.--Richard Lovelace. + +There is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to +love this life and live it as bravely and cheerfully and faithfully as +we can.--Henry Van Dyke. + +He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes books. +--Benjamin Franklin. + +Anxiety never yet successfully bridged over any chasm.--Ruffini. + +How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but +by degrees?--Shakespeare. + +Duty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed, +may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor.--William +McKinley. + +If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. +--Emily Dickinson. + +No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it +serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and loved +again.--Ruskin. + +Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the best flower of +civilization.--Emerson. + +It is so easy to perceive other people's little absurdities, and so +difficult to discover our own.--Ellen Thornycroft Fowler. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +GOLDEN HABITS + + +We often hear persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though it +were something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature," is a saying +that is included among the classic epigrams of men. That habits do +become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrow +and sometimes to its advantage and delight. + +For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and +in that we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance +from wrong doing. + +The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual +growth ought to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamental +principle of their construction should result in giving us very many +more good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based on +the supposition that while many of us are so constituted that it is +possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is +unlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the +questionable action become a fixed habit. + +The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober +second thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permitted +ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we would +then and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that +the wrong should not occur again. + +In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good +deed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same +kind. Wrong deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment of +thoughtlessness when one's conscience, one's higher and better self, +is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full and +proud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful +sense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done. + +"Could the young," says Henry James, "but realize how soon they will +become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to +their conduct while in the 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 every day 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 much harder and not succeeded half so well; but I never could +have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, +and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one +object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon +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 in which it +is here employed the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency or +inclination toward an action or condition, which by repetition has +become easy, spontaneous or even + +unconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusion +that one's habits are in fact one's manners, one's principles, one's +mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finally +brings one to a clear realization of the secret of + + TRUE GENTILITY + + One cannot from the world conceal + The current of his thought; + A word or action will reveal + The thing his brain hath wrought. + + True goodness from within must come + 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 our personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasant +and agreeable we shall not lack for friends. + +A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the +manners are perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing else +could do. + +Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It +is the spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing." We are +told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man is +inscribed on his brain, for volition and thoughts have their +beginnings in the brain, 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 the body, according to the +order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and +thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure." + +Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in the +making of character and personality we should leave nothing undone to +strengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all are +constantly being acted upon by suggestion we should invite to our +assistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplary +frame of mind. + +In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, +and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our +good resolves by reading good books and in framing for our own benefit +a code of rules for our better conduct. + +It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable +quotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see them +with frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably serves +this purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind in +the early morning it tends to direct the course of our thinking +throughout the day. The following quotations are offered only as +suggestions. They can be added to indefinitely: + + A man's own good breeding is the best security against other + people's ill manners.--Chesterfield. + + Good breeding shows itself most when to an ordinary eye it appears + the least.--Addison. + + Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we + converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred + in the company.--Swift. + + Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do you make + the road of it.--Sterne. + + Civility costs nothing and buys everything.--Lady Montague. + + Evil communications corrupt good manners.--Bible. + + No pleasure is comparable to standing on the vantage ground of + truth.--Lord Bacon. + + They are never alone that are accompanied with noble + thoughts.--Sidney. + + Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with + salt.--New Testament. + + Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.--Shakespeare. + + Honest labor bears a lovely face.--Dekker. + + The gods give nothing really beautiful 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 of mind as for health of + body.--Lord Avebury. + +Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the +world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the +duty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we ought to +be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the +most effectual contribution to the happiness of others." + +Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those +about us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state +of mind into which they throw those about them are not good mannered. +While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in +the great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be +forever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which we +can regale them. Either extreme is more or less absurd and +unwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too +willingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the +Orient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this nature +as to almost arouse our mirth. + +An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says: "There must really +have been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these people +who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that a +guest in the home might not be burdened with their sorrow. The habit +is in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning +streamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, black chargers, and funeral +hearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of +all beholders!" + +In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching +of morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would +deem it strange if a master gave them an hour's instruction in the +correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters. +Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it +does in Japan where it is counted the most vital instruction of all. +Step by step the Japanese 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 and sisters, and of its country. Later +on these lessons are repeated with illustrations from short stories, +and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives of +great men of all countries. Before the end of the course of +instruction is reached all manner of virtues and points of behavior +have been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially +in the case of girls) the proper way of advancing and retiring, +offering and accepting things, sleeping and eating, visiting, +congratulating and condoling, mourning and holding public meetings. So +the school course continues from year to year, the elementary school +course lasting four years and the secondary course four years more, +and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their +duty to 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 men and women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords" +of creation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior +rather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest +detail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment. + +To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of +habit, some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men's behavior," +said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured," and +he warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait or +point-device, but free for exercise or motion." However, it is better +to err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than to +be thought careless of our persons and our behavior. + +Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners, +refinement, good breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the forms +of etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from +savagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one +who does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility. + +It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the +breach of written or traditional laws, and choose our society, and +even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommon +occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position in +life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by a +graciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead +to success. + +For some quite unwarranted reason society seems to have taken the +position that we have a right to expect more from our girls than from +our boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the view +held by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. The demand +that every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that +which says that every girl must be a gentle woman and a thorough lady. + +Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, +sisters, teachers, society and the world intend that she shall be good +and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of +all that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to +pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities +of person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely to +ask of the readers of these 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? + The builders who build in the morning, + 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 and grandest + In duty's fair wreath be entwined; + There is no other grace can illumine the face + Like the charm of a beautiful mind. + +A student of the subject of ethics must understand that the true +spirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals. +It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this assertion is +required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moral +teachings, so frequently touches upon the subject of manners. He +teaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openly +rebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seats +at the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues. + +The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they +were, themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail +to teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have +left behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a +"Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay +on manners in which he reminds us that a stone must be of very high +value to do without a setting. + +The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow and +superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one +wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise +one's self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is +unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield's good manners, fine as +they appear, do not bear the true stamp of genuineness. There is not +the living person back of them possessing heart and character. They +seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure in +the dressmaker's window. True manners mean more than mannerisms. They +cannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rules +to be observed on any and every occasion. They are rather a cultivated +method of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character that +knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to do +without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth. + +It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in the +cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than we +otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom we +may meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are +placed. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty +to cultivate one's manners as it is to cultivate one's mind, and no +one can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the nicer +amenities of society than we are when we pay no heed to them. + +Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom, +both upon mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principle +magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good +customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young +years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early +custom." + +So we see that our true characters are but the expression of our +habits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that are +formed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly and +naturally throughout all the years. + +It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "it +is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in +later life the manners and graces that escape us in youth. + +Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the good +influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which +to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world +shall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teach +her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward others +whose early years are lived among less advantageous surroundings. For +if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify +her heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost. + +Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable +for the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the +prize of gentility which they would obtain. And in this very struggle +against adverse circumstances will be engendered a strength and a +spirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy +equivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment. + +It is experience that develops character, and character is the one +thing that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual +thing of supreme beauty. + +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 be implicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point. +They have been shaped out of the very necessity of one's surroundings. +They are worth every effort that they have cost. The world will never +know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much of +its beauty it owes to that which we are all so prone to call + + DRUDGERY + + Dull drudgery, "gray angel of success;" + Enduring purpose, waiting long and long, + Headache or heartache, blent with sigh 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 the wrong,-- + The toil-wrought monuments that lift and bless. + + The coral reefs; the bee's o'erflowing cells; + The Pyramids; all things that shall endure; + The books on books wherein all wisdom dwells, + Are wrought with plodding patience, slow and sure. + Yours the time-tempered fashioning that spells + Of chaos, order, perfect and secure. + +[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +I think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that there +is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made.--Dickens. + +Every noble work is at first impossible.--Carlyle. + +Truth is a strong thing, let man's life be true.--Browning. + +Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous--a spirit +all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. +--Carlyle. + +Pass no day idly; youth does not return.--Chinese Proverb. + +If, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a +lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the +angels must give.--George MacDonald. + +Nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good manners for its +foundation.--Bulwer Lytton. + +The common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voices +and blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a music +and its path a light.--H. W. Mabie. + +The truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with +many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about +them.--Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count +always your highest moments your truest moments.--Phillips Brooks. + +We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence +to do good to others with them.--Joseph Cook. + +Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things +more worth while than comradeship.--Margaret E. Sangster. + +Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, and so make life, +death, and the vast forever, one grand, sweet song.--Charles Kingsley. + +And to get peace, if you do _want_ it, make for yourself nests of +pleasant thoughts.--Ruskin. + +When one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose +that he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy--the +joy of self-sacrifice.--Lyman Abbott. + +Morality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous +action, with the best intention founded on principle.--A. E. Winship. + +To have a friend is to have one of the sweetest gifts that life can +bring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education of soul +from day to day.--Anna Robertson Brown. + +When it comes to doing a 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. + +Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you +shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to +understand it, and you shall hear it.--Ruskin. + +There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character. Even the +plainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods.--Newell +Dwight Hillis. + +A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our +prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.--Thoreau. + +A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and +treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.--Milton. + +Happiness is the natural flower of duty.--Phillips Brooks. + +By wisdom wealth is won; but riches purchased wisdom yet for none. +--Bayard Taylor. + +It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much. +--George Eliot. + +To be a strong hand in the dark to another in the time of need, to be +a cup of strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know +the glory of life.--Hugh Black. + +It is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and noble, but +the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to do them. +--R. L. Stevenson. + +Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it +hath forsaken thee.--Walter Raleigh. + +It is easy to condemn; it is better to pity.--Abbott. + +If you don't scale the mountain, you can't view the plain.--Chinese +Proverb. + +For him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, life may +lead through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert.--Anonymous. + +Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are means the happier to +arise.--William Shakespeare. + +Be resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspire +to be.--Thoreau. + +If people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of +Heaven would not be far off.--George MacDonald. + +The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angel. +--Dickens. + +If every day we can feel, if only for a moment, the realization of +being our best selves, you may be sure that we are succeeding.--Bliss +Carman. + +If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's +stone.--Benjamin Franklin. + +He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose +blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into +living peace.--Ruskin. + +The fine art of living, indeed, is to draw from each person his best. +--Lilian Whiting. + +Reflect upon your present blessings--of which every man has many--not +on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.--Dickens. + +If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and +life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--is more +elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.--Thoreau. + +Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds.--Congreve. + +The microscope gives us a world, a universe, a single drop of +dew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnest +meditation.--Madame Swetchine. + +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.--Thomas a Kempis. + +There is one road to peace and that is truth.--Shelley. + +He hath from his childhood conversed with books and bookmen; and +always being where the frankincense of the temple was offered, there +must be some perfume remaining about him.--Thomas Fuller. + +Everything great is not always good, but all good things are great. +--Demosthenes. + +The turmoil of the world will always die, if we set our faces to climb +heavenward.--Hawthorne. + +If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or +woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.--George MacDonald. + +Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people but to get +ahead of ourselves.--Maltbie D. Babcock. + +The narrow kingdom of to-day is better worth ruling over than the +widest past or future.--Edith Wharton. + +There's always a bloom on the world if one looks.--Abby M. Roach. + +The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.--George Eliot. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE PURPOSE OF LIFE + + +"Nothing succeeds like success." + +Perhaps the true meaning of this old French proverb is that once we +have a measure of success we are the more likely to achieve still more +victories. The discovery that our strength, perseverance and +determination have been capable of bending circumstances to our will +and bringing to fulfillment the end for which we have wished and +worked, gives us renewed courage and inspiration for the undertaking +of new and larger 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 deepest of philosophers, says, "The world makes way for +the determined man." And so it does for the determined woman, or the +determined girl or boy. + +Regarding this thing called "Success," too many of us are apt to think +that it means some one, isolated, remarkable achievement, that comes +at the end of a long period of striving in some particular field of +endeavor. This is not entirely true. Every great success is made of +very many lesser successes that have preceded it. Just as the cap-stone +at the top of the tallest building is held in its lofty position +by every stone beneath it even down to the ones deep in the earth at +the very foundation of the structure, which are indeed perhaps the +most important of all. + +So the thing which the world is pleased to call "Success" is built up +by a thousand little successes on which it must finally rest. The +building of a life success begins with the earliest dawn of being and +must be carried on with as much care as a mason would give to the +laying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. The +mason knows that if he does not lay his foundations deep and firm, +that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he puts +faulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a +success. The work at every 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 be so, 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 day of our lives. + +Success is not alone for the great men of the world who find new +continents, explore the poles, navigate the air, write great poems, +paint great pictures, or who amass 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 +was success. + +Have you your music lesson well in hand for this afternoon? If so, +that means success. + +Have you been kind to everybody to-day, and with a pleasant word and a +willing hand, done all you could to make life pleasanter and happier +for those about you? If so, that is a fine moral success. And if you +will multiply the achievements of to-day by the days that are in the +years before you, you can see the result that you have a reason to +expect, as your life's work. + +Success means doing all that we can do as well as we can do it. It may +be work or it may be play. It may be something of seemingly little +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 serious work, +standing alone in itself, and yet connected with the past and the +future." And Ruskin still further emphasizes this thought in the +words: "Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, +and every setting sun be to you as its close; then let every one of +these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for +others." + +We begin to achieve success when we do the things that are necessary +for such achievement. Huxley expressed the whole secret of the matter +when he said: "Perhaps the most valuable result of 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 or +not." + +A good life, which is but another name for success, does not come by +accident. Fortune may seem to favor it but it is the disposition to +seize upon the opportunities that present themselves that make some +lives seem more blest with "good chances" than others. + +Self cultivation is the secret of most all attainments in the realm of +human endeavor. As a matter of fact, all that others can do for us is +as nothing to that which we may do for ourselves. Persons who do +things usually have to work for results, or they have at some time had +to work to acquire the habits that later on make it seem so easy 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 have been done +easily. But the geniuses of the world have all put upon record their +conviction that there is more virtue in perspiration than in +inspiration. The great poets, whether in print or in paint, have spent +their weeks and months--yes, years--composing, adjusting, putting in +and taking out. They have known what it is to 'lick things into +shape,' to labor and be baffled, to despair and to hope anew." + +With the dawning of every morning, life comes bringing to us a new and +wonderful day to employ it as we 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 being a matter that is very +largely in our own keeping. + + MORNING GATES + + Each golden dawn presents two gates + That open to the day; + Through one a path of joy awaits, + 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 perpetual climbing +upward. We should put our faults under our feet, and make them steps +on which to lift ourselves daily a little higher.... We never in this +world get to a point where we may regard ourselves as having reached +life's goal, as having attained the loftiest height within our reach; +there are always other rounds of the ladder to climb." + +So we know that the purpose of life is not to make a failure of it. +And we know that we cannot make it a success unless we work toward +that end. "The first great rule is, we must do something--that life +must have a purpose and an aim--that work should be not merely +occasional and spasmodic, but steady and continuous," says Lecky. +"Pleasure is a jewel which will retain its luster only when it is in a +setting of work, and a vacant life is one of the worst of pains, +though the islands of leisure that stud a crowded, well-occupied life +may be among the things to which we look back with the greatest +delight." + +There can be no interest where there is no purpose. How tiresome it +would very soon become if we were compelled to make idle, useless +marks upon paper, without any design whatsoever. But to be able to +draw pictures is a delight that no one can forego. "The most pitiable +life is the aimless life," says Jenkin Lloyd Jones. "Heaven help the +man or woman, the boy or girl, who is not interested in anything +outside of his or her own immediate comfort and that related thereto, +who eats bread to make strength for no special cause, who pursues +science, reads poetry, studies books, for no earthly or heavenly +purpose than mere enjoyment or acquisition; who goes on accumulating +wealth, piling up money, with no definite or absorbing purpose to +apply it to anything in particular." + +Perhaps we expect to-day, more than men have at any other time in the +world's history, that girls as well as boys, must look forward to +doing something definite in life. It is not deemed sufficient for +anyone simply "to be." The whole world is now living the verb "to do." +The grace, strength, beauty and worth of womanhood is being enhanced +with the constantly enlarging sphere of women's work. The primitive, +almost heathen, notion that the feminine sex constituted a handicap in +the achieving of great success in a great majority of the fields of +human endeavor is rapidly fading away. It can no longer stand in the +light of the brilliant achievements women are making everywhere. +Indeed, men are becoming well convinced that their presumed supremacy +in many of the world's spheres of work is being successfully +challenged at every point. So general is this experience becoming that +the present status of things might well be set forth somewhat after +the following style: + + MAN, POOR MAN! + + The question used to be, 't is true, + "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 grow quite useless, after while, + 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 for the best endeavors of all girls and boys, women and +men. That the door of opportunity is henceforth to be open to all is +an assurance that the work is to be more grandly and beautifully done +than ever before. What women may do in the years to come is +wonderfully set forth by what women have done in the past. All history +is filled with the splendid achievements of the women of the world. A +girl of to-day will find no reading more helpful and inspiring than +the lives of such noble women as Martha Washington, Queen Victoria, +Sally Bush--Abraham Lincoln's good step-mother--Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miss Louisa Alcott, Laura +Bridgman, Charlotte Cushman, Maria Mitchell, Lady Franklin, 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 girl will, 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 many qualities that must +constitute parts of every enduring foundation. + +Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, good behavior, +modesty, gentility, enlightenment, all of these and more are essential +to success and for the highest achievement of the true purpose of +living. + +It has been well said that it is the repetition of little acts which +constitutes not only the sum of human character, but which determines +the character of nations; and where men or nations have broken down, +it will almost invariably be found that neglect of little things was +the rock on which they were wrecked. + +Every human being has duties to be performed, and, therefore, has need +of cultivating the capacity for doing them--whether the sphere of +action be the management of a household, the conduct of a trade or a +profession, or the government of a nation. + +The one fixed truth in the matter of character-building is the fact +that steady attention to the little matters of detail lies at the very +foundation of human progress. + +The splendid trees that lift their branches heavenward depend for +their sustenance on the tiny thread-like roots that come into very +close relations with the soil and can thus take in the nourishment +needed for the making of growth. This, the larger roots have not the +capacity for doing. So in the growth of the human intellect and human +character, it is the little actions, day by day, that really do the +permanent building. With patient purpose to do successfully the many +little tasks that confront us we can later on achieve the larger +success awaiting us. + +The world's history is full of the triumphs of those who have had to +struggle from beginning to end for recognition. Carey, the great +missionary, began life as a shoemaker; the chemist Vanquelin was the +son of a peasant; the poet Burns was a farmer boy and a day laborer; +Ben Jonson was a bricklayer; Livingstone, the traveler and explorer, +was a weaver; Abraham Lincoln was a "rail-splitter" and a farmer boy. + +At the plow, on the bench, at the loom, these men dreamed of the +future greatness, and step by step, day by day, they persevered until +they won the full measure of success. + +The great and good women of the world have won their distinction in +the same manner. They cultivated the sterling qualities that made for +success. They acquired the manners that attracted toward them help and +strength of others interested in good causes and those struggling to +advance them. + +And the girl who is reading these lines, can, if she will, make her +life a happy success. She may be praised by the world or it may be by +the small circle of friends with whom she comes in contact. Her name +may never be written in history but it may be fondly spoken by +parents, sisters, brothers, schoolmates, friends. In a thousand +gracious ways she can make the hours, days and years good and golden +for her own precious self and for all who know her. She must be +thoughtful and intelligently alert to the opportunities lying all +about her ready to be fashioned into shining deeds. She must know that +she is a precious craft on the sea of life and that she must not be +permitted to drift from the harbor of youth and of home without a life +pilot. And this pilot should be her own conscience, hedged about with +the learning, the good breeding, the fine character that she herself, +under proper guidance, must cultivate through the impressionable years +of childhood and maidenhood. If she so wills it, beauty and grace and +true worth are all hers. And let her greet and go forth in the +freshness of each golden day, as indeed, she must greet life, itself, +with a glad, hopeful, helpful + + MORNING PRAYER + + 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 be mine, + 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 and light + I would lift the world, and when, + Through a path with kindly deeds made bright, + I come to the calm of the starlit night, + Let me rest in peace. Amen. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are +gathered in this section.] + +He who works for sweetness and light works to make reason and the will +of God prevail.--Matthew Arnold. + +Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration +for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich +and beautify our life.--Phillips Brooks. + +Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a +faint heart, and with a lame endeavor.--Barrow. + +Good manners are part of good morals.--Whately. + +After all, the kind of world one carries about within one's self is +the important thing, and the world outside takes all its grace, color +and value from that.--Lowell. + +In character, in manner, in style, in all things the supreme +excellence is simplicity.--Longfellow. + +The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.--Bovee. + +Never mind if you cannot do all things just as well as you would like +to. It is only necessary to do things just as well as you can. +--Patrick Flynn. + +Not so much beautiful features as a beautiful soul can make a +beautiful face.--Margaret E. Sangster. + +There is a marvelous power in a well-defined individuality.--Joe +Mitchell Chapple. + +Resolution always gives us courage.--A. E. Winship. + +Of all fruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that has +gone is the most fruitless.--Dickens. + +You can never be wise unless you love reading.--Johnson. + +The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress +and all moral development.--Confucius. + +Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.--Ruskin. + +It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes to those +who have it so often in their mouth.--Carlyle. + +I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.--Shakespeare. + +Youth, all possibilities are in its hands.--Longfellow. + +Thought is deeper than all speech.--Cranch. + +People influence us who have no business to do it, simply because we +have neglected to train ourselves to attend to our own affairs. +--A. E. Winship. + +As the heart, so is the life. The within is ceaselessly becoming the +without.--James Allen. + +I have faith in the people.--Abraham Lincoln. + +Of all the propensities which teach mankind to torment themselves, +that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful and +pitiable.--Walter Scott. + +He who cannot smile ought not to keep a shop.--Chinese Proverb. + +Common sense bows to the inevitable and makes use of it.--Wendell +Phillips. + +If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, +experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope +your guardian genius.--Addison. + +Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures.--Bovee. + +It is generally the idle who complain they cannot find time to do that +which they fancy they wish.--Lubbock. + +What ardently we wish we soon believe.--Young. + +Nature never stands still, nor souls neither; they ever go up or go +down.--Julia C. R. Dorr. + +Thought alone is eternal.--Owen Meredith. + +Only those live who do good.--Tolstoi. + +The greatest truths are the simplest.--Hare. + +Many people owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous +difficulties.--Spurgeon. + +Thought by thought piled, till some great truth is loosened. +--Shelley. + +The child's reasoning powers are, as it were, the wings with which he +will eventually have to fly.--Landon. + +Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. +Custom will render it easy and agreeable.--Pythagoras. + +Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out. +--Richter. + +Memory is the treasure-house of the mind.--Fuller. + +Habit is an internal principle which leads us to do easily, naturally, +and with growing certainty, what we do often.--Webster. + +The vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone +in your heart--this you will build your life by, this you will +become.--James Allen. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +By MARGARET E. SANGSTER + +HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS + +A Book for Girls + +In this book, Mrs. Sangster, the popular friend of all girls, writes +to them charmingly and sympathetically of the things nearest to their +hearts. The book will delight every girl. + +It ought to reach the hands of every girl.--St. Paul Pioneer Press. + +The book is as fascinating as a story.--Des Moines Register and Leader. + +Every girl's mother ought to make her a present of this book. +--St. Louis Times. + +Youthful and adult readers alike will enjoy and commend this book. +--Chicago Record-Herald. + +Chatty and with many a merry anecdote the book is as beguiling as a +romance.--San Francisco Chronicle. + +A charming book pervaded with the spirit of sweet friendliness, +complete comprehension and joyous helpfulness.--Chicago News. + +An interesting, suggestive, sensible book, in which Mrs. Sangster is +at her best. It is a book of great worth, and whoever extends its +usefulness by increasing its readers is a public benefactor. +--Journal of Education, Boston. + +Handsome cover. Cloth, 12mo. $1.00 + +FORBES & COMPANY +PUBLISHERS--CHICAGO + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +By NIXON WATERMAN + +"BOY WANTED" + +A book of jolly, sparkling, invigorating counsel, in prose and verse, +that any girl or boy will read with interest. It will also please +their parents and teachers. + +Should be read by all boys, and girls, too.--Detroit News. + +"Boy Wanted" is an unusual achievement.--San Francisco Call. + +It is clever, cheery and full of sound ideas.--Chicago +Record-Herald. + +Its message is earnest and thrilling. Full of inspiration and +encouragement.--Pittsburg Gazette. + +A very bright and stimulating book on making the most of opportunities. +--Montreal Daily Witness. + +Strongly written. A good book to place in the hands of any boy of any +age up to eighty.--Denver Republican. + +It is the talk of a big brother to a younger one on a tramp off +together. A mine of condensed inspiration.--Boston Advertiser. + +The book is beautifully made. It is handsomely bound and illustrated +and has some novel typographical features.--Boston Globe. + +Illustrated. Attractive Cover. 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