[Illustration: MARTHA WASHINGTON]

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THE GIRL WANTED

A BOOK OF FRIENDLY THOUGHTS

BY

NIXON WATERMAN

AUTHOR OF "BOY WANTED, ""A BOOK OF VERSES, " "INMERRY MOOD, " ETC. 

CHICAGOFORBES AND COMPANY1919

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Copyright, 1910, ByForbes and Company

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 TO

 --The girl wanted, who, By her beautiful ways, Shall brighten and gladden Life's wonderful days. 

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PREFACE

The pleasure of giving to the public this volume has been broughtabout by the publication of the author's work entitled, "BoyWanted, " which he presented as "a book of cheerful counsel to hisyoung friends and such of the seniors as are not too old to accepta bit of friendly admonition. "

The warm welcome accorded that book, and the many requests it hascalled forth for a similar companion volume for girls, has promptedthe author to prepare the series of papers offered herewith, withthe hope that they, too, may find as many youthful friends (betweenthe ages of seven and seventy) awaiting them. 

In the present volume, as in "Boy Wanted, " the fine prose thoughtsare selected from the writings of a very large number of the world'sforemost teachers and philosophers of all times, while the author, with a due sense of modesty, lays claim to all such examples ofversification as are to be found within this book. 

In these days when the women of the world, with such splendid success, are writing books for the moral guidance and spiritual uplift of themen and youth of every land, an author need not feel called upon toapologize when he presumes to address his remarks to readers of theopposite sex, as did John Ruskin, to such fine purpose, in the "Pearlsfor Young Ladies. "

Since his own mother, wife, sisters, daughters and many of his bestfriends belong to the feminine half of humanity, any man who is acareful observer, a logical reasoner, and an adequate writer oughtto be able to say something of worth and interest to the women andgirls to whom he is permitted to address himself. If in this volumethe author is able to impart to others, in a small degree, thebeneficent influence he has received through the splendid preceptsand noble examples of the women to whom he owes so much, he willdeem himself grandly rewarded for the labor of love herein set forth. 

Nor is the author unconscious of the great purpose that shouldunderlie the writing of a series of papers designed to direct thedaughters of our land toward the greatest factor in the making andthe perpetuity of a nation--a noble and beautiful womanhood. Forobservation 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. 

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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'sApron Strings. "

II ACCOMPLISHMENTS 27

The ability to do things. Elegant and useful accomplishments. The value of thoroughness. "What Have We Done To-day?" Theservice 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 andits 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. "ThisBusy World. "

V THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE 85

"Likableness" as a desirable quality. The present the best of alltimes. The sunshiny girl. "The Prize Winner. " The necessityof 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. "TheBetter 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?" Theworth of good breeding. "Drudgery. "

VIII THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 145

The inspiration of success. Building day by day. "MorningGates. " The value of a purpose. Women's growing sphere. "Man, Poor Man. " Opportunities and responsibilities. "Morning Prayer. "

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Martha Washington FrontispieceQueen Victoria Page 26Harriet Beecher Stowe " 44Louisa M. Alcott " 64Julia Ward Howe " 84Elizabeth Barrett Browning " 104Florence Nightingale " 124George Eliot " 144

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THE GIRL WANTED

CHAPTER I

CHOOSING THE WAY

Yes, my good girl, I am very glad that we are to have the opportunityto enjoy a friendly chat through the medium of the printed page, withits many tongues of type. 

Just here I have a favor to ask of you, and that is that you willconsent to let us talk chiefly about yourself and the manner in whichyou 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 foryou to understand that there has never been a period in the world'shistory when a girl was of more importance than she is just now. Indeed, many close observers and clear thinkers are of the opinionthat there never has been a time when a girl was of quite so muchimportance as she is to-day. 

Some of our most able writers tell us that we are just on thethreshold of "the women's century, " and that the great advance theworld is to witness in the forthcoming years is to be largely inspiredby, and redound to the glory of, the women of the earth. 

Come what will, the future is sufficiently alluring to cause you tocherish it most fondly and to determine that you will make the yearsthat are before you as bright and beautiful and as "worth while" as itis possible for you to do. 

It is a glorious privilege to dwell in the very forefront of time, inthe grandest epoch of the world's history and to feel that we arepermitted to be observers of, and if it may so be, active participantsin, the fascinating events that are occurring all about us. 

Yet with all the grand achievements that are being encompassed inevery field of human endeavor, the world to-day, needs most, thatwhich the world has ever most needed--words helpful and true, heartskind and tender, hands willing and ready to lift the less fortunateover the rough places in the paths of life, goodness and grace, gentlewomen and gentlemen. 

And so here we find ourselves, just at this particular spot and atthis very moment, with all of the days, months, years--yes, the wholeof eternity--still to be lived!

At first thought it seems like a great problem, does this having todecide how we are going to live out all the great future that isbefore us. Yet, when we come to think it over, we see that it is notso difficult after all; for, fortunate mortals that we are, we shallnever 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 justnow where we can see it and study it and shape it and do with it as wewill. 

Just this minute!

Surely it will not require a great deal of effort on the part of anyone of us to live the next sixty seconds as they should be lived. Andhaving lived one moment properly, it ought to be still easier for usto 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 whichlives are made, and that time is divided into a certain number ofunits, we can then pretty closely figure out, by simple processes inarithmetic, how much life is going to be worth to us. 

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

What we do in an hour, multiplied by the number of working hours inevery 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, showsus what it is probable we shall accomplish in a year. 

What we do in a year, when multiplied by the number of years of youthand 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 isnot 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. Thethought is the plan; the deed is the structure. 

"As the twig is bent the tree is inclined. " Wordsworth tells us: "Thechild is father of the man. " Which means, also, that the child ismother 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 ofone'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 lifedetermines the character of the harvest that must be reaped in theautumn. 

The cultivation of the right point of view means so much indetermining one's attitude toward all that the years may bring. Threecenturies ago it was written: "What is one man's poison is another'smeat or drink. " So there are many things in life that bring pleasureto some and distress to others. 

There is a beautiful little story about a shepherd boy who was keepinghis sheep in a flowery meadow, and because his heart was happy, hesang so loudly that the surrounding hills echoed back his song. Onemorning the king, who was out hunting, spoke to him and said: "Why areyou so happy, my boy?"

"Why should I not be happy?" answered the boy. "Our king is not richerthan I. "

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

The shepherd boy answered: "The sun in the bright blue sky shines asbrightly upon me as upon the king. The flowers upon the mountain andthe grass in the valley grow and bloom to gladden my sight as well ashis. I would not take a fortune for my hands; my eyes are of morevalue than all the precious stones in the world. I have food andclothing, too. Am I not, therefore, as rich as the king?"

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

So much of life's happiness depends upon one's immediate surroundingsthat wherever it is a matter of choice they should be made to conformas nearly as possible to the thoughts and tastes one wishes tocultivate. As a matter of course but few persons can have just thesurroundings they would like, but it is possible that by pleasantthinking all of us can make the surroundings we have more likable. Wecan, at least, be thoughtful of the character of the friends andcompanions we choose to have with us, and it is they who are the mostvital 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 lendthem help and strength in return. And since the deeds of othersinspire us we should not deem it impossible to make our deeds inspirethem. 

Helen Keller, who, though deaf and blind, has achieved so manywonderful and beautiful victories over the barriers that have besether, says: "My share in the work of the world may be limited, but thefact that it is work makes it precious.... Darwin could work only halfan hour at a time; yet in many diligent half-hours he laid anew thefoundations of philosophy.... Green, the historian, tells us that theworld is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, butalso by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. "

In the same spirit the great French savant, Emile Zola, penned thesewords: "Let each one accept his task, a task which should fill hislife. It may be very humble; it will not be the less useful. Nevermind what it is, so long as it exists and keeps you erect! When youhave regulated it, without excess--just the quantity you are able toaccomplish 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 shouldbe to learn how to grow old gracefully. This knowledge is deemed bymany to be a great secret and a most valuable one. Yet it can hardlybe called a secret since every girl and boy as well as every person ofmaturer years must know that it is but the working out of the laws ofcause and effect. When character-building is begun on the right linesand those lines are followed to the end the result is as certain as itis beautiful. When we see a grandmother whose life has been lived onthe happy plane of pure thoughts and kind deeds we ought not to wonderthat her old age is as exquisite as was the perfect bloom of heryouth. We need not marvel how it has come about that her life has beena 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 worldwicked and unkind. 

She relieved the miserable and sympathized with the sorrowful. 

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

She did unto others as she would be done by, and now that old age hascome to her, and there is a halo of white hair about her brow, she isloved and considered. This is the "secret" of a long life and a happyone. 

Fortunate is the girl who is permitted to dwell within the livingpresence of such a matron and to be directed by her into the paths ofusefulness and sunshine. And thrice fortunate is every girl who hasfor her guide and counselor a loving mother to whom she can go forlight and wisdom with which to meet all the problems of life. 

"Mother knows. " Her earnest, loving words are to be cherished aboveall others as many men and many women have learned after the longmiles and the busy years have crept between them and "the old folks athome. " Do not, O Girl! I pray you, ever grow impatient, as boyssometimes 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered 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 alife worth looking at. --Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

The habit of viewing things cheerfully, and of thinking about lifehopefully, 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 theway 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 asthey depart, has mastered one of the arts of cheerful and contentedliving. --Anonymous. 

Cheerfulness is the very flower of health. --Schopenhauer. 

There are people who do not know how to waste their time alone, andhence become the scourge of busy people. --De Bonald. 

Not what has happened to myself to-day, but what has happened toothers through me--that should be my thought. --Frederick DeeringBlake. 

Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest tobear are those which never come. --Lowell. 

The highest luxury of which the human mind is sensible is to callsmiles upon the face of misery. --Anonymous. 

He who is plenteously provided for from within, needs but little fromwithout. --Goethe. 

Each day should be distinguished by at least one particular act oflove. --Lavater. 

Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of hisabilities, and for no more; and none can tell whose sphere is thelargest. --Gail Hamilton. 

Work is the very salt of life, not only preserving it from decay, butalso 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 relaxesbefore 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 tobe 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, anothing, a no-man. Have a purpose in life ... And having it, throwsuch strength of mind and muscle into thy work as has been giventhee. --Carlyle. 

It is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community than toperish of inaction in a stagnant solitude. --Mrs. Gaskell. 

The advantage of leisure is mainly that we have the power of choosingour own work; not certainly that it confers any privilege ofidleness. --Lord Avebury. 

Suffering becomes beautiful, when any one bears great calamities withcheerfulness, not through insensibility, but through greatness ofmind. --Aristotle. 

Character is a perfectly educated will. --Novalis. 

One of the most massive and enduring gratifications is the feeling ofpersonal worth, ever afresh, brought into consciousness by effectualaction; and an idle life is balked of its hopes partly because itlacks this. --Herbert Spencer. 

Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help itout. --Tillotson. 

He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company and choiceof his actions. --Jeremy Taylor. 

Our character is our will; for what we will we are. --ArchbishopManning. 

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 butmoderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing isdenied 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 yourservice. --Patrick Flynn. 

Simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance. --Dickens. 

Happiness is one of the virtues which the people of all nationalitiesand every pursuit appreciate. --Joe Mitchell Chapple. 

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CHAPTER II

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

I am sure that every girl wishes to become accomplished, and I amquite as certain that every girl can become so if she will. 

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

Surely every girl can do something, or has acquired some special lineof knowledge, that is covered by this broad definition. 

It means that every girl who can sweep a room; read French or Germanor English as it should be read; bake a loaf of bread; play tennis;darn a stocking; play the violin or pianoforte; give the names offlowers and birds and butterflies; write a neat, well-composed letter, either in longhand or shorthand; draw or paint pictures; make a bed ordo one or more of a thousand and one other things is accomplished. Themore things she can do and the greater the number of subjects on whichshe is informed, the more highly is she accomplished. 

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

We can all readily understand how much more pleasing it is to hear atrue virtuoso play the violin or pianoforte than it is to listen to abeginner 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 firmdetermination, are pretty sure to bring the ability necessary forachieving the wished-for end. The will is lacking more often than isthe way. 

It is a matter of frequent comment that we usually expect too much ofthe average young and attractive girl in the way of accomplishments. Because she is pleasing in her general appearance we are apt to feel asense of disappointment if we find that her qualities of mind do notequal her outward charms. 

Charles Lamb says: "I know that sweet children are the sweetest thingsin nature, " and adds, "but the prettier the kind of a thing is, themore desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind. " And so itis with girls who are bright and blithe and beautiful; the world wouldgive them every charming quality of mind and heart to match the graceof face and figure. 

Hence we find that the girl who is most fondly wanted, by the membersof her own family, by her schoolmates, and by all with whom she shallform an acquaintance, is the one who is as pleasing in her manners asshe is beautiful in her physical features. 

Of all the accomplishments it is possible for a girl to possess, thatof being pleasant and gracious to those about her is the greatest andmost desirable. "There is no beautifier of the complexion, or form, orbehavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us, " saysEmerson. 

It is possible for persons to acquire a great deal of information andto become skillful in many things and still be unloved by those withwhom they are associated. 

The heart needs to be educated even more than the mind, for it is theheart that dominates and colors and gives character and meaning to thewhole of life. Even the kindest of words have little meaning unlessthere 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, "thatthe moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. Asmemory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasuresof life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have beenenabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, thingstoo trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into youreternal life ... Everything else in our lives is transitory. Everyother good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knowsabout, or can ever know about--they never fail. "

It is the ability to do the many little acts of kindness, and to makethe 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 shouldlike 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 thatit is not the things we are going to do that really count. It is thething that we do do that is worth while. 

No doubt we should all be much more thoughtful of our many presentopportunities and make better use of them were we frequently to askourselves, 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 topossess is a knowledge of the fine art of smiling. To know how andwhen to smile, not too much and not too little, is a fine mental andsocial possession. 

Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smilethat children love. " Any one possessing a smile that children as wellas others may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face isof great worth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged tolook upon it. 

A smile is an indication that the one who is smiling is happy andevery happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we allunderstand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There istruly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forevergrimacing. "True happiness, " says one of our most cheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the little, smiling lines inthe face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the linesproduced by depression and frowning that grow deeper and deeper untilthey become as hard and severe as if they were cut in stone. " Suchhappiness is one of the virtues which people of all classes and ages, the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not know what ripples ofhealing are set in motion, " says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smileon one another. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world assunny people. "

Most persons are very quick to see whether or not a smile is genuineor is manufactured and put on like a mask for the occasion. Theautomatic, stock-in-trade smile hardly ever fits the face that triesto wear it. It is a little too wide or sags at the corners orsomething else is wrong with it. 

A smile may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door; it maybe "sweeter than honey, " but the instant we detect that it is notgenuine, it loses its charm and becomes, in fact, much worse than nosmile at all. Smiles that are genuine are always just right both inquality and quantity. So the only really safe rule is for us not tosmile until we feel like it and then we shall get on all right. And weought to feel like smiling whenever we look into the honest face ofany fellow being. A smile passes current in every country as a mark ofdistinction. 

But it is even possible to overdo in the matter of smiling. "I can'tthink of anything more irritating to the average human being, " saysLydia Horton Knowles, "than an incessant, everlasting smile. There arepeople who have it. When things go wrong they have a patient, martyr-likesmile, and when things go right they have a dutifully pleasantsmile which has all the appearance of being mechanical, and purely apose. Now I think the really intelligent person is the one who canlook as though he realized the significance of various incidents orhappenings and who can look sorrowful, even, if the occasion demandsit. It is not a pleasant thing to suffer mentally or physically, forinstance, and have any one come up to you with a smile of patient, sweet condolence. The average man or woman does not want smiles whenhe or she is uncomfortable. We are apt to remember that it is easyenough to smile when it is somebody else who has the pain. I ventureto say that a smile given at the wrong moment is far more dangerous tohuman happiness than the lack of a smile at any given psychologicalmoment. 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 anintelligent thought behind it. The seemingly mechanical, automaticexpressions of feeling and of interest in our affairs are sometimeseven harder to bear than an out and out attitude of indifference. Thething 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 akindly 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 weshould not fail to cultivate the habit of bestowing small oneswhenever we can. It is in giving the many little lifts along the waythat we shall be able to lighten many burdens. 

I do not know it to be a fact, but I have read it somewhere in thebooks 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 isever refreshed and able to go on performing the work nature hasassigned for it to do. 

And therein is a first-rate lesson for most persons, who if theycannot do something of considerable moment are disposed to do nothingat all. They forget that it is the brief three-minute rests thatenable the mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the topwhereas longer periods of inactivity might serve to stiffen his limbsand impede his progress. 

Wise are they who, like the human heart, sprinkle rest and kindnessand heart's-ease all through their daily tasks. They weave a brightthread of thankful happiness through the web and woof of life'spattern. They are never too busy to say a kind word or to do a gentledeed. They may be compelled to sigh betimes, but amid their sighs aresmiles that drive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in thetrail of every cloud. They gather flowers where others see nothing butweeds. They pluck little sprigs of rest where others find only thornsof distress. 

After the manner of the human heart, they make much of the littleopportunities presented to them. They rest that they may have strengthfor others. They gather sunshine with which to dispel the shadowsabout them. 

The grandest conception of life is to esteem it as an opportunity formaking others happy. He who is most true to his higher self is truestto the race. The lamp that shines brightest gives the most light toall about it. Thoreau says: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonlyto exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of life. "

He is, indeed, a correct observer and a careful student of humannature who tells us that the face is such an index of character thatthe very growth of the latter can be traced upon the former, and mostof the successive lines that carve the furrowed face of age out of thesmooth outline of childhood are engraved directly or indirectly bymind. There is no beautifier of the face like a beautiful spirit. 

So we see that if we have acquired the habit of wearing a pleasantface, or of smiling honestly and cheerfully, we have an accomplishmentthat is worth more than many others that are more pretentious and moresuperficial. If to this accomplishment we can add another--the abilityto speak a pleasant word to those whom we may meet--we are not tothink poorly of our equipment for life. 

There is a good, old-fashioned word in the dictionary, the study ofwhich, with its definition, is well worth our while. The word is"Complaisance, " and it is defined as "the disposition, action, orhabit of being agreeable, or conforming to the views, wishes, orconvenience 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 thetimid, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishesa society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages. 

Politeness has been defined as society's method of making things runsmoothly. True complaisance is a more intimate quality. It is animpulse to seek points of agreement with others. A spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, freshimpressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactive as long as thereis 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 ofwill that holds in check and harmonizes all the other traits ofcharacter and moulds them into a perfectly balanced disposition. 

Complaisance rounds off the sharp corners, chooses softer and gentlerwords and makes it easy and pleasant for all to dwell together inunity. And it never fails to contribute something to the enjoyment ofeveryone 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered in this section. ]

Only to the pure and the true does Nature resign herself and revealher secrets. --Goethe. 

Every man carries with him the world in which he must live, the stageand the scenery for his own play. --F. Marion Crawford. 

The best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more to more. --Sam WalterFoss. 

Notwithstanding a faculty be born with us, there are several methodsfor cultivating and improving it. --Addison. 

Every truth in the universe makes a close joint with every othertruth. --Melvin L. Severy. 

All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie, of which a manought to be ashamed. --John Stuart Blackie. 

When we cease to learn, we cease to be interesting. --John LancasterSpalding. 

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 notenable you to be glad, and glad, justly. --Ruskin. 

All things else are of the earth, but love is of the sky. --WilliamStanley 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 wherewiththey 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. Truthfulnessin work is as much demanded as truthfulness in speech. --Hugh Black. 

The flowering of civilization is in the finished man, the man ofsense, 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, butwhich of us can truthfully say that he has done as much for others asothers have done for him?--Patrick Flynn. 

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work, anddone his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give himno peace. --Emerson. 

Some people meet us like the mountain air and thrill our souls withfreshness 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 usand 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 ormisfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during athunderstorm. --R. L. Stevenson. 

The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves andblesses, and by which he is loved and blessed. --Carlyle. 

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desiresis like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. --Jonathan Swift. 

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. --LordChesterfield. 

Indulge not in vain regrets for the past, in vainer resolves for thefuture--act, act in the present. --F. W. Robertson. 

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in our power. --HughWhite. 

The man who cannot be practical and mix his religion with his businessis either in the wrong religion or in the wrong business. --PatrickFlynn. 

I don't think there is a pleasure in the world that can be comparedwith an honest joy in conquering a difficult task. --Margaret E. Sangster. 

Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty onevery person's face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal ofdistortion. --Ruskin. 

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it fromthemselves. --J. M. Barrie. 

Politeness is like an air cushion; there may be nothing in it, but iteases 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 happinesswithout action. --Disraeli. 

We would willingly have others perfect and yet we amend not our ownfaults. --Thomas à Kempis. 

The most manifold sign of wisdom is continued cheer. --Montaigne. 

There is only one cure for public distress--and that is publiceducation, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. --Ruskin. 

To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. --Wade. 

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CHAPTER III

THE JOY OF DOING

Half-way, half-hearted doings never amount to much. Battles are notwon with flags at half-mast. No, they are run up to the very tops oftheir standards and are waved as far toward the heavens as ispossible. 

If we lack enthusiasm we are almost as certain to fail of achieving anend as a locomotive engine that lacks steam is of climbing the grade. Even a listless, lackadaisical spirit may get on all right so long asthe path of life is all on a level or is down grade, but when it comesto hill-climbing and the real experiences of life that serve todevelop character, it is likely to give up the contest and surrenderthe prize it might win to other and more earnest competitors. 

"If you would get the best results, do your work with enthusiasm aswell as fidelity, " says Dr. Lyman Abbott. "Only he can who thinks hecan!" says Orison Swett Marden. "The world makes way only for thedetermined man who laughs at barriers which limit others, atstumbling-blocks over which others fall. The man who, as Emerson says, 'hitches his wagon to a star, ' is more likely to arrive at his goalthan the one who trails in the slimy path of the snail. "

Every girl knows that the girl friends whom she loves best are theones who are alive to the world about them and who feel an enthusiasmin the tasks and privileges that confront them. 

Enthusiasm is the breeze that fills the sails and sends the shipgliding over the happy waves. It is the joy of doing things and ofseeing that things are well done. It gives to work a thoroughness anda delicious zest and to play a whole-souled, health-giving delight. 

Only they who find joy in their work can live the larger and noblerlife; for without work, and work done joyously, life must remaindwarfed and undeveloped. "If you would have sunlight in your home, "writes Stopford Brooke, "see that you have work in it; that you workyourself, and set others to work. Nothing makes moroseness andheavy-heartedness in a house so fast as idleness. The very childrengloom and sulk if they are left with nothing to do. If all have theirwork, they have not only their own joy in creating thought, in makingthought into form, in driving on something to completion, but theyhave the joy of ministering to the movement of the whole house, whenthey feel that what they do is part of a living whole. That in itselfis 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 thedifference between life and death. "

We must play life's sweet keys if we would keep them in tune. CharlesKingsley says: "Thank God every morning when you get up that you havesomething to do that day which must be done whether you like it ornot. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed inyou temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle willnever know. "

All the introspective thinkers of the world have agreed that nothingelse is so hard to do as is "nothing. " It is unwholesome for one tohave more leisure than a mere breathing spell now and then for thepurpose of setting to work once more with renewed energy. 

They who work with their hearts as well as their hands do not growtired. A labor of love is a labor of growing delight. "The moment toilis 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 thepresent order; the idle rich live next door to ruin. " And Burton putsthe case even more strongly when he says: "He or she that is idle, bethey of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things in abundance and felicitythat heart can wish and desire, --all contentment--so long as he or sheor they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in mind orbody, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, withevery object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried awaywith 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 blessedprivilege of being employed in the kind of work where they can serveto the best advantage and do most for their fellowmen. Indeed, thepossession of riches places upon those who have them the moralnecessity and obligation of doing more and better things in the worldthan is expected of the ones less amply supplied with wealth. "Fromevery man according to his ability; to every man according to hisneeds. " The larger responsibilities are placed upon those to whom aregiven the larger means of achievement. 

So it is a mistake to fancy that the possession of great riches wouldrelieve us from doing all the tasks and duties for ourselves and forothers that are inevitably essential for the physical and spiritualhealth and happiness of all mankind. No matter in whatever walk oflife we may find ourselves, we must exercise our muscles or they willbecome weak and useless; we must stir and interest our hearts or theywill grow hard and unresponsive; we must use our minds or they willbecome dull and inactive; we must employ our consciences or they willgrow to be blind and unsafe guides that must lead us into darkdistress. 

But to be employed does not mean that we must necessarily work in thefields, or in the factory, or in the office. There are a thousand waysin which we may serve the world. The only requirement is that we shalldevote a portion of our time and energy to genuine service in behalfof our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our teachers, our friends, and all the world. And we must be grateful for the chance to serveothers and deem it an opportunity rather than an obligation. 

And above all, we must find delight in the work we are privileged todo. "Every one should enjoy life, " writes the ever glad and inspiringpen guided by the hand of Patrick Flynn: "Life was made to enjoy. Wemean life, itself. The very living and breathing. It is a divinepleasure to inhale a breath of fragrant air out here in the countrythese charming summer mornings. And what jewels can compare in coloror brilliancy with the pearly dewdrops that shine and glisten in theearly sun! And the sun, itself! The great, mysterious, miraculous sun!Its myriads of vibrations dancing in the warm air like golden fairiesand dazzling one's eyes with their wondrous beauty! Aye, and fillingone's soul with love and one's body with health. And in the eveningwhen the day's work is done there is above us that mysterious depth ofstar-spangled sky. We cannot fathom its mystery but like a stream ofgrace descending from heaven, we can feel the cool, refreshing dew onour upturned brow. Until at last we feel that we should like to takewing and actually fly up among those unknown worlds and come back withthe story to our readers. And even though we cannot grow the wings, wego up in fancy and seldom come back without some new tale. The messageis: 'Live life, love life, enjoy life, if you would overcome all fearof death. '"

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

 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 thatjoyousness and cheerfulness are only for the play hour and are not tobe made a part and factor of the time we must devote to toil. No viewcould be more faulty and regrettable. It is in our working hours thatwe should seek to be cheerful and sunshiny. All of our tasks should besweetened 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 shecarried the spirit of good cheer to her daily tasks and what came ofit:

"I started out to my work one morning, determined to try the power ofcheerful thinking (I had been moody long enough). I said to myself: 'Ihave often observed that a happy state of mind has a wonderful effectupon my physical make-up, so I will try its effect upon others, andsee if my right thinking can be brought to act upon them. ' You see, Iwas 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 carriagebecame more erect, my step lighter, and I had the sensation oftreading on air. Unconsciously, I was smiling, for I caught myself inthe act once or twice. I looked into the faces of the women I passedand there saw so much trouble and anxiety, discontent, even topeevishness, that my heart went out to them, and I wished I couldimpart to them a wee bit of the sunshine I felt pervading me. 

"Arriving at the office, I greeted the book-keeper with some passingremark, that for the life of me I could not have made under differentconditions, I am not naturally witty; it immediately put us on apleasant footing for the day; she had caught the reflection. Thepresident of the company I was employed by was a very busy man andmuch worried over his affairs, and at some remark that he made aboutmy work I would ordinarily have felt quite hurt (being too sensitiveby nature and education); but this day I had determined nothing shouldmar its brightness, so replied to him cheerfully. His brow cleared, and there was another pleasant footing established, and so throughoutthe day I went, allowing no cloud to spoil its beauty for me or othersabout me. At the kind home where I was staying the same course waspursued, and, where before I had felt estrangement and want ofsympathy, I found congeniality and warm friendship. People will meetyou half-way if you will take the trouble to go that far. 

"So, my sisters, if you think the world is not treating you kindlydon't delay a day, but say to yourselves: 'I am going to keep young inspite of my gray hairs; even if things do not always come my way I amgoing to live for others, and shed sunshine across the pathway of allI meet. ' You will find happiness springing up like flowers around you, will never want for friends or companionship, and above all the peaceof God will rest upon your soul. "

And all of this was brought about by a change in the attitude of themind and a determination to look upon the sunshiny, rather than thedark, side of life. We can all do as much. It is for us to say whetherwe will be happy and make others happy, or whether we shall bedistressed and thereby distress others. 

What sort of girl are you going to be? Are you going to make the worldglad or sorry that you are in it? Why don't you decide, as you readthese lines, as did Emory Belle when starting to her work thatmorning, that you will try to carry sunshine and not gloom into thelives of all you meet? Let us hope that there is no great reform inthis matter to be worked in your life; but that you have ever been ajoy-bringer and not a gloom-maker. 

Therefore let us look well to the attitude of mind and our habit oflooking at things. One of our careful students of human attributestells us--and the truth of which we all know--"that there is nothingsurer than that we go and grow in just that direction in which ourmind is most firmly fixed. Hoarding money absorbs the whole time andmind of the miser; how to scatter it is the chief thought of thespendthrift. Our daily actions, and their result on our lives, are theeffect 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 repeatto-morrow. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that we begin tothink 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 onthat which we desire to do. It is the mind that drags us either up ordown. Where that leads we follow. The power of direction is with us, but we cannot send our mind in one direction and then take theopposite road ourselves. Therefore, whether we are moving upward ordownward in the scale of life depends on whether we are thinking up orthinking down. This is a truth that every person's experience willprove to his own satisfaction. Thought impels action, action formshabit, and habit rules our lives. So that no matter what direction wemay wish to take, up or down, it is only necessary for us to fix ourmind in the desired direction. "

So let us pause and take an account of stock and ascertain whether weare thinking ourselves up or down, whether we are building truthfullyor 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 andsteadily than one who works unwillingly and unhappily. Good nature isa lubricant for all the wheels of life. It changes the leaden feet ofduty into the airy wings of opportunity, it not only brings happinessbut 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 dogood like a medicine is not an artificial stimulation of the tissues, to be followed by reaction and greater waste, as is the case with manydrugs; but the effect of cheerfulness is an actual life-givinginfluence through a normal channel the results of which reach everypart of the system. It brightens the eye, makes ruddy the countenance, brings elasticity to the step, and promotes all the inner forces bywhich life is sustained. The blood circulates more freely, the oxygencomes to its home in the tissues, health is promoted, and disease isbanished. "

When we note how generally the members of the medical professionascribe to cheerfulness the very highest of health-giving powers, weare led to think that the wise words quoted above possess a foundationof scientific fact. "Faith, hope and love, " says Charles G. Ames, "arepurifiers of the blood. They have a peptic quality. They open andenlarge all the channels of bodily vitality. As was learned long ago, 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. ' And the self-control whichkeeps reason on the throne and makes passion serve is the best of alldomestic physicians. "

So the girl who would go down the paths of sunshine will put joy andenthusiasm into her work and into her play. She will practice hermusic lesson, take up her studies at school, assist in performing thehousehold duties, and in doing the many tasks that come to her handsin a joyous, whole-hearted manner. 

In so doing she will make a pleasure of that which, with dullcomplaining, would be a drag and a distress. By this cheerful attitudeof mind she will be able to mold all things to her will and, betterstill, she will be able to mold her will to her highest ideal ofsplendid womanhood. For none can doubt that man is the architect ofhis own fortune, to a very great extent. He is even more than that, heis 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered 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 shouldwrangling discord still. --Nathan Haskell Dole. 

The Spartans did not inquire how many the enemy are, but where theyare. --Agis II. 

The man in whom others believe is a power, but if he believes inhimself 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, butthe only indignity that they should care for is the indignity of doingnothing. --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 inthem. --Ruskin. 

Use thy youth as the springtime, wherein thou oughtest to plant andsow all provisions for a long and happy life. --Walter Raleigh. 

To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them intogarlands. --Madame Swetchine. 

When a firm decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see howthe space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom. --JohnFoster. 

That person is blest who does his best and leaves the rest, so do notworry. --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 youwant, what you like, what respect people ought to pay to you, and whatpeople think of you. --Charles Kingsley. 

Aspiration carries one half the way to one's desire. --ElizabethGibson. 

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 LancasterSpalding. 

The tactful person looks out for opportunities to be helpful, withoutbeing 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 godsset upon everything worth having. --Lord Avebury. 

Our daily duties are a part of our religious life just as much as ourdevotions 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 bepreserved 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 tohim with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in goodorder. --F. Bacon. 

Bread of flour is good: but there is bread, sweet as honey, if wewould 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 ofwinter, and there is no condition where life is not. --Isabel Goodhue. 

Wishing will bring things in the degree that it incites you to goafter them. --Muriel Strode. 

It is impossible to estimate the power for good of a bright, gladshining face. Of all the lights you carry on your face Joy shinesfarthest out to sea. --Anonymous. 

No one in this world of ours ever became great by echoing the voice ofanother, 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 thingskeep ourselves loyal to truth. --Longfellow. 

There are some people whose smile, the sound of whose voice, whosevery presence, seems like a ray of sunshine, to turn everything theytouch into gold. --Lord Avebury. 

It is work which gives flavor to life. Mere existence without objectand without effort is a poor thing. Idleness leads to languor, andlanguor to disgust. --Amiel. 

How poor are they who have only money to give!--John LancasterSpalding. 

Fear begets fear. --A. E. Winship. 

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of aman and fix our attention on his infirmities!--Addison. 

There can be no true rest without work and the full delight of aholiday cannot be known except by the man who has earned it. --HughBlack. 

The more we do the more we can do; the more busy we are the moreleisure we have. --Hazlitt. 

Lost--a golden hour, set with sixty diamond minutes. There is noreward, for it is gone forever. --Beecher. 

Good company and good conversation are the sinews of virtue. --StephenAllen. 

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 theman who can't but tries. --Comtelburo. 

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude. --Sallust. 

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CHAPTER IV

SOME EVERY-DAY VIRTUES

I would rather be right than president!"

At first thought those words seem to be the declaration of anunusually upright and conscientious person. But let us study them alittle more deeply and closely. 

The desire to do right and to deserve the approbation of all goodpeople is very strong in every human breast. Not until a man has losthis moral sense of values would he trade his integrity and self-respectfor any other gift the world could offer. This being true, who amongus would care to be president if in order to occupy that exaltedposition he must be obviously in the wrong?

Thus we see that after all is said and done, the one great prize forwhich we all aspire is the love and good will of our friends and ofthe 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 remainpoor and friendless. 

He is the richest who deserves the most friends. Wealth is a matter ofthe heart and not of the pocket. A thousand slaves piling up wealthfor their master cannot make him rich. It is not that which others dofor us that makes us possessors of great wealth, but that which we dofor others. All true riches are self made. Only when the hand and theheart are put into one's work does it yield a lasting worth. In thefinal true analysis the picture forever belongs to the painter whopaints it; the poem to the poet who writes it; the loaf of bread tothe toiler who earns it. Wealth may acquire these things but it cannotown them. 

Therefore the true value of character is something that each mustachieve for himself. It cannot be bought; it cannot be bequeathed tous; it must be earned by each individual who would possess it. Henceit is that these great riches may be acquired by all who desire topossess 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 intopossession of them? "Whoever you are--wise or foolish, rich or poor, "says Rebecca Harding Davis, "God sent you into His world, as He sentevery other human being, to help the men and women in it, to make themhappier and better. If you do not do that, no matter what your powersmay be, you are mere lumber, a worthless bit of world's furniture. AStradivarius, if it hangs dusty and dumb upon the wall, is not of asmuch real value as a kitchen poker which is used. "

So we learn that it is the fine practical spirit, content and willingto do the humble things which are possible of achievement that isdoing most to lift the world to a higher and better plane. "Have younever met humble men and women, " asks Gannett, "who read little, whoknew little, yet who had a certain fascination as of fineness lurkingabout them? Know them, and you are likely to find them persons whohave put so much thought and honesty and conscientious trying intotheir common work--it may be sweeping rooms, or planing boards, orpainting walls--have put their ideals so long, so constantly, solovingly into that common work of theirs, that finally these qualitieshave 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 roughbark clings. "

If we are wisely introspective, we must reach the conclusion thathumble though we may be, we are after all, a component part of thegreat expression of being, and that we are well worth while. Then ifwe are worth while, it follows that all we do is worth while, for eachof us is, in the end, the sum of all the things he has done. Once wehave this idea that everything stands for something more than the merething itself--that it is correlated in its influences with all theother things that we and all others are doing, we shall invest all ourtasks, little and big, with more of purpose and importance. Emersonsays:

"There is no end to the sufficiency of character. It can afford towait; it can do without what it calls success; it cannot but succeed. To a well-principled man existence is victory. He defends himselfagainst failure in his main design by making every inch of the road toit pleasant. There is no trifle and no obscurity to him: he feels theimmensity of the chain whose last link he holds in his hand, and isled by it. "

Perhaps no other every-day virtue counts for so much in the generalwelfare of the world as the adapting of one's self to, and the makingthe most of, one's immediate surroundings. It is in the hundreds oflittle, unrecorded deeds of kindness and goodness that we lay thefoundations of character. And because these humble lives, that mean somuch to the other humble lives with which they come into touch, arenever specifically named and shouted by the multitudinous tongues oftype, that many fail to see in them the elements of true and nobleachievement with which they are crowned. "The most inspiring tales, "it has been truly said, "are those that have not been written; themost heroic deeds are those that have not been told; the world'sgreatest successes have been won in the quiet of men's hearts, thenoblest heroes are the countless thousands who have struggled andtriumphed, rising on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higherthings. "

Since it is these humbler every-day virtues that one is called uponoftenest to exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent that the one whopossesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestlyhas the greatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration ofothers. It is of a girl possessing this fine adaptability to theworld's workaday surroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture:"Shall I tell the kind of girl that I especially adore? Well, first ofall, let us take the working girl. She is not a 'lady' in theacceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of thislatter day's hybrid democracy. She is just a blithe, cheery, sweet-tempered young woman. She may have a father rich enough to supporther 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. Sheis never frowsy or untidy or lazy. She is never rude or slangy orbold. And yet she is always full of fun and ready for frolic. She doesnot depend upon a servant to do what she can do for herself. She isconsiderate toward all who serve her. She is reverent to the old andthoughtful of the feeble. She never criticises when criticism canwound, and she is ready with a helpful, loving word for every one. Sometimes she has no father, or her parents are too poor to supporther. Then she goes out and earns her living by whatever her hands findto do. She clerks in a store, or she counts out change at a cashier'sdesk, or she teaches school, or she clicks a typewriter, or rather atelegrapher's key, but always and everywhere she is modest and willingand 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 asa dove in the air differs from a stuffed bird in a showcase. She isquick to apologize when she knows she is in the wrong, yet no youngqueen ever carried a higher head than she can upon justifiableoccasions. She is not always imagining herself looked down uponbecause she is poor. She knows full well that out of her own heart andmouth proceed the only witnesses that can absolve or condemn her. Ifshe is quick to be courteous, unselfish, gentle and retiring in speechand manner in public places, she is true gold, even though her dressbe faded and her hat a little out of style. You cannot mistake anysuch girl any more than you can mistake the sunshine that follows therain or the lark that springs from the hawthorne hedge. All thingsthat are blooming and sweet attend her! The earth is better for herpassing through it and heaven will be fairer for her habitationtherein. "

How fortunate it is for us who would practice these little every-dayvirtues that we do not have to wait for some noted person at someremote time to tell the world that we are striving in our own humbleway to be kind and thoughtful. There is some one within the sound ofour voice and within the reach of our hand who will be glad to testifyto our goodness. 

Kindness is never shown in vain. 

The gift blesses the giver, even though the one receiving the gift isungrateful. Consciously or unconsciously we exert an influence uponall who come within the zone of our being. Surely those who know usbest ought to be the ones to appreciate us the most intelligently. Ifwe are lovable, will they not love us? If we love them, will it notserve to make them lovable? Let us not keep the nice little attentionsand the carefully selected words for the stranger and the passer-by, but have as much regard for the ones of our own intimate familycircle. We should be happy to do most for them who do most for us. Oneof our students of human happiness says to us: "Get into the way ofidealizing what you have; let the picturesqueness of your ownimagination play round the village where you do live, instead of theone where you wish to live; weave a romance round the brother you havegot, instead of round the Prince Perfect of a husband whom you havenot got. " And Marcus Aurelius says: "Think not so much of what thouhast not, as of what thou hast; but of the things which thou hast, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have beensought if thou had'st them not. "

Culture, itself, is but a composite expression of our simple, every-dayvirtues. It must be measured by its outward manifestation ofregard for the pleasure, happiness and advancement of others. Literaryculture will open up the windows of the soul that the light of virtuefrom within may shine forth and dispel the darkness of vice with whichit comes in contact. "Unless one's knowledge of good books--hisliterary scholarship--has so taken hold upon him as to make himexemplary, in a large measure, he cannot be said to be cultured, " saysone of our students of higher ethics. "His learning should cultivate achoice and beautiful address, a cheerful and loving countenance, amagnificent and spirited carriage, a refinement of manner, anagreeable presence. "

The extent to which we may feel a sense of peaceful satisfaction atthe end of a day, depends upon how we have lived that day. We soonlearn 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 muchpleasure we had in it, but how much service we gave in it; not howfull it was of success, but how full it was of sacrifice; not howhappy we were, but how helpful we were; not how ambition wasgratified, but how love was served. Life is judged by love; and loveis known by her fruits. "

The every-day virtues include very many fine little traits that serveunconsciously to make our paths smoother, our skies bluer and all oflife more glad and golden. They constitute a habit of doing the rightthing at all times and so quietly and unostentatiously that no one ismade to feel any sense of obligation. One who possesses these virtuesdoes not wait for stated times and occasions to bestow evidences oflove and good will upon others, but like a flower in bloom spreads thefine perfume of friendship upon all who come within the charmedpresence. Intuitively and unconsciously does the owner of thesevirtues follow the precept set forth by the philosopher: "I shall passthrough this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or 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 wayagain. " And in expressing the same sentiment Amiel says: "Do not waitto be just or pitiful or demonstrative towards those we love untilthey or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death. Lifeis short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts ofthose who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh! be swift tolove, make haste to be kind!" We should not wait till some sadexperience 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 anddesired than patience. This priceless quality of mind puts itspossessor into friendly relations with whatever the surroundingconditions may chance to be. There is no irritation, no clash ofinterests, no lack of organization for performing to the best of one'sability the duties of the moment, as they present themselves forconsideration. Nothing is so conducive to success as to be able, calmly and patiently, to do to the best of one's ability the tasksthat present themselves. "Success in life, " says one of our studentsof the world's problems, "depends far more upon the decision ofcharacter than upon the possession of what is called genius. The manwho is perpetually hesitating as to which of two things he will do, will do neither. " On the other hand the man who hastily andimpatiently disposes of the problems that confront him also impairshis chances for making the best of life. 

Have you ever experienced the sorry realization of how one petulant orpeevish member of a household can destroy the happiness of a breakfastor dinner hour? What would otherwise have been a pleasant comingtogether of kindly congenial spirits is made painful and unprofitablebecause some one lacked the patience and forbearance to withstand andto surmount some little trial or irritation that should have beenpromptly dismissed from the mind and the heart, or better still, whichnever should have been permitted to enter. As has been truly observed, membership in the family involves the recognition that the normal lifeof the individual is to be found only in a perfect union with othermembers; in regard for their rights; in deference to their wishes; andin devotion to that common interest in which each member shares. Eachmember must live for the sake of the whole family. "Children owe totheir parents obedience, and such service as they are able to render, "says Dr. DeWitt Hyde. "Parents, on the other hand, owe to childrensupport, training, and an education sufficient to give them a fairstart in life. Brothers and sisters owe to each other mutualhelpfulness 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. Howperfectly is its whole purpose set forth in Channing's "Symphony, " inwhich he so beautifully makes known his heart's desire: "To livecontent with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury; andrefinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, andwealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, actfrankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with openheart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurrynever. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, growup through the common. This is to be my symphony. "

It is this rare sense of poise, this patient regard for our ownhappiness and that of others, that enables some sweet spirits to comeas 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 workpleasantly and agreeably he has not mastered the most important partof his lesson. "Blessed is the man who finds joy in his work. " He willsucceed where the complaining, discontented person will be almost sureto fail. So, let us cultivate this one of the chiefest of our every-dayvirtues. It will enable us to give to every moment the properregard for its value and of the possibilities it offers forachievement. It will teach us that during every day, every hour, everymoment, there is time for politeness, for kindness, for gentleness, for the display of strength and tenderness and high purpose, and forthe exercise of that degree of patience that does so much to make lifebig 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, BostonJULIA WARD HOWE]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered in this section. ]

Each, whatever his estate, in his own unconscious breast bears thetalisman of fate. --John Townsend Trowbridge. 

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one goodreason 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. --BenjaminFranklin. 

A sinful heart makes a feeble hand. --Walter Scott. 

Look within, for you have a lasting foundation of happiness at homethat will always bubble up if you will but dig for it. --MarcusAurelius 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 thedistant turrets in the land of his desire. --Muriel Strode. 

You can buy a lot of happiness with a mighty small salary, butfashionable happiness always costs just a little more than you'remaking. --George Horace Lorimer. 

A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the onlyedged tool that grows keener with constant use. --Washington Irving. 

Where there is one man who squints with his eyes, there are a dozenwho 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. Weshall come all right in the end, never fear. --Dickens. 

Happiness is the feeling we experience when we are too busy to bemiserable. --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 donewithout hope. --Keller. 

The activity and soundness of a man's actions will be determined bythe 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 othersjudge 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 donot burn until brought to a focus. --Alexander G. Bell. 

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation, forit is better to be alone than in bad company. --George Washington. 

The public school playground transposes many a boy from a publicliability to a public asset. --A. E. Winship. 

Real coolness and self-possession are the indispensable accompanimentsof a great mind. --Dickens. 

One of the crying needs of society is the revival of gentleness and ofa refined considerateness in judging others. --Newell D. Hillis. 

In this world inclination to do things is of more importance than themere 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. --PubliusSyrus. 

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 adistance, 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 ofhappiness. --Smiles. 

The man who has begun to live more seriously within, begins to livemore 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 oftruth. --Whately. 

Mightier than all the world, the clasp of one small hand upon theheart. --John Townsend Trowbridge. 

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination. --Napoleon. 

Character must stand behind and back up everything--the sermon, thepoem, the picture, the play. None of them is worth a straw withoutit. --J. G. Holland. 

The question every morning is not how to do the gainful thing, but howto do the just thing. --John Ruskin. 

Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself, loses hismisery. --Matthew Arnold. 

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it bewrong, leave it undone. --Gilpin. 

What we need most is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealizethe real. --F. H. Hedge. 

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CHAPTER V

THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE

Do people like you?

Are your girl playmates and classmates fond of your society? Are theyeager to work with you, play with you, go strolling or sit by the firewith you?

This one fact we must know; if we are not liked it must be because weare not the possessors of that fine quality known as "likableness. "And if those who have had an opportunity to know us and our traits ofcharacter do not love and admire us, it is we and not they who areresponsible for their state of mind. For as sure as the warm sunshineattracts the flowers, and the fragrant flowers call the attention ofthe bee to their store of honey, so a fine likable character iscertain 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 arespeaking pleasant words of good cheer and joyous faith in the world, will attract friends about them as certainly as the magnetic poleattracts the needle. 

The girl who goes among the people with smiles to offer will find verymany ready to receive her gracious gifts, but if she carries with hersighs and frowns, instead, she will learn that the world wants none ofthem. 

We all love to hear pleasant things. The one who tells us that hethinks it is going to set in for a long rainy spell of weather is ofless worth to us than the one who says he thinks that the clouds aregoing 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 gladthat the grandest, brightest and best era in the world's history isjust before them, does much more to inspire them than does the one whotells them that the best days of the world were "the good old days oflong ago, " and that the golden age will never return again. BrookeHerford tells us: "There are some people who ride all through thejourney of life with their backs to the horse's head. 

They are always looking into the past. All the worth of things isthere. They are forever talking about the good old times, and howdifferent things were when they were young. There is no romance in theworld now, and no heroism. The very winters and summers are nothing towhat they used to be; in fact, life is altogether on a small, commonplace scale. Now that is a miserable sort of thing; it brings asort of paralyzing chill over the life, and petrifies the naturalspring of joy that should ever be leaping up to meet the fresh newmercies that the days keep bringing. "

Know then, my young friends, that the best time that ever was is thepresent time, if you will but use it aright. It is full of romance, ofheroism, of splendid opportunity, of all that goes to constituteexperience and to develop character. There never was a time when therewere more good things to be done, or when greater rewards awaited thedoers of them. The summers are just as long and bright and golden; theroses blossom just as numerously and as sweetly; human hearts are justas warm and kindly, as they have been at any time in the world'shistory. Emerson says: "One of the illusions is that the present houris not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that everyday is the best day in the whole year. "

So then as far as the time and the hour are concerned, there isnothing in our surroundings to make us morose or gloomy or dispiritedor indifferent regarding the influence we are exerting upon thosearound us. There is no obvious reason why we should not be joyous andhappy at the prospect before us. We should have not only grace enoughfor our own personal needs, but plenty of it to spare for those not sogladly born as ourselves. 

And rich beyond computation is the one who has joyousness to spare. Better than gold, better than food and raiment and all materialthings, betimes, is a ray of sunshine from the heart, an uplift ofsaving humor from a merry tongue. "I have often felt, myself, " saysBenson, "that the time has come to raise another figure to thehierarchy of Christian graces. Faith, Hope and Charity were sufficientin a more elementary and barbarous age, but, now that the world hasbroadened somewhat, I think an addition to the trio is demanded. A manmay be faithful, hopeful, and charitable, and yet leave much to bedesired. He may be useful, no doubt, with that equipment, but he mayalso be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourth quality that Ishould like to see raised to the highest rank among the Christiangraces is the Grace of Humor. "

Splendidly blest is that household that is so fortunate as to possessat least one member gifted with the grace of good humor. One suchperson in a home is enough if there cannot be more. Just when all theothers are seriously confronting what seems to be a most sad andserious condition of affairs how just one word of illuminating goodhumor can change the whole point of view and send the forebodingproposition glimmering into nothingness. "Do you know, my dear, " saysMrs. Holden, "that there is absolutely nothing that will help you tobear the ills of life so well as a good laugh? Laugh all you can andthe small imps in blue who love to preempt their quarters in a humanheart will scatter away like owls before the music of flutes. 

There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will notdissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes linebreaks, if the cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with theroast, if the children fall into the mud simultaneously with theadvent of clean aprons, if the new girl quits in the middle ofhousecleaning, and though you search the earth with candles you findnone to take her place, if the neighbor you have trusted goes back onyou and decides to keep chickens, if the chariot wheels of theuninvited guest draw near when you are out of provender, and thegaping of your empty purse is like the unfilled mouth of a youngrobin, take courage if you have enough sunshine in your heart, to keepthe laugh on your lips. Before good nature, half the cares of dailyliving will fly away like midges before the wind. Try it. "

What a world of inspiration and cheerfulness in the motto written byEdward Everett Hale for the Lend-A-Hand Society: "Look up, and notdown; look forward, and not back; look out, and not in; and lend ahand. " It is the lifting of the burden from another's tired shoulderthat does most to lighten the load resting on our own. 

No one who truly is conscious of the value of sunshine upon his ownnature and upon the spirits of those with whom he comes into contactwill 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 toall the girls of her time and generation, says that "being in bondageto the blues is precisely like being lost in a London fog. The latteris thick and black and obliterates familiar landmarks. A man may bewithin a few doors of his home, yet grope hopelessly through the murkto find the well-worn threshold. A person under the tyranny of theblues is temporarily unable to adjust life to its usual limitations. He or she cannot see an inch beyond the dreadful present. Everythinglooks dark and forbidding, and despair with an iron clutch pins itsvictim down. People think, loosely, that trials that may be weighedand measured and felt and handled are the worst trials to which fleshis heir. But they are mistaken. Hearts are elastic, and real sorrowsseldom crush them. Souls have in them a wonderful capacity forrecovering after knockdown blows. It is the intangible, the thing thatone dreads vaguely, that catches one in the dark, that suggests andintimates a peril that is spiritual rather than mortal; it is theburden 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 anunfortunate person should bear in mind that when a servant is employedthe 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 holdsher position by accident of birth, and that if her family were notcompelled to keep her they would not. 

Charles Dickens says: "It is not possible to know how far theinfluence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flows outinto the world. " A bright, cheerful, sunshiny daughter in a home cannever know how great is her influence for making the little householdworld holier and happier for all whose life interests are centeredtherein. Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "The day is dark only when themind is dark; all weathers are pleasant when the heart is at rest. "Bliss Carman observes that "happiness, perhaps, comes by the grace ofHeaven, but the wearing of a happy countenance, the preserving of ahappy mien, is a duty, not a blessing. " This thought that it is one'sduty 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 aboutill-bred. "

The girl with sunshine in her thoughts and sunshine in her eyes willfind sunshine everywhere. Wherever she may go her gracious presencewill light the way and make her every path more smooth and beautiful. In the home, in the school, amid whatever conditions surround her, shewill shine with the glow of a rose in bloom. She will see the good andthe beautiful in the persons whom she meets; while all the charms ofnature, as portrayed in field and forest, will be to her a never-endingsource of interest and enjoyment. Above all, she will warmlycherish life and look upon it as being crowded with pricelessopportunities for obtaining happiness for herself and for others. Shewill be filled with the same exhuberant spirit of joy in the mere factof her being that Mrs. Holden so happily sets forth: "I love thisworld. I never walk out in the morning when all its radiant colors arenewly washed with dew, or at splendid noon, when, like an untiredracer, 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 overmountain and valley and sea, or in the majestic pomp of night whenstars swarm together like bees, and the moon clears its way throughthe golden fields as a sickle through the ripened wheat, that I do nothug myself for very joy that I am yet alive. What matter if I am poorand unsheltered and costumeless?

Thank God, I am yet alive! People who tire of this world before theyare seventy and pretend that they are ready to leave it, are eithercrazy or stuck as full of bodily ailments as a cushion is of pins. Thehappy, the warm-blooded, the sunny-natured and the loving cling tolife as petals cling to the calyx of a budding rose. By and by, whenthe rose is over-ripe, or when the frosts come and the November windsare trumpeting through all the leafless spaces of the woods, will betime to die. It is no time now, while there is a dark space left onearth that love can brighten, while there is a human lot to bealleviated by a smile, or a burden to be lifted with a sympathizingtear. "

We all understand that it is not so difficult for us to be bright andsmiling and gracious toward everyone when there is naught to disturbthe serenity of our thoughts, and when nothing happens to interferewith the fulfillment of our wishes. But when things go "at sixes andsevens, " when our dearest purposes are thwarted, when some one isabout to gain the place or prize which we covet, when we are forced tostay within doors when we very much prefer to go in the fields; thenit requires more of character, more of strength, more of the truespirit of sacrifice to wear a smiling face and to maintain a cheerfulheart. But instead of fleeing from the petty trials that cross ourpaths we should welcome them as opportunities for testing andstrengthening our good purposes. Newcomb tells us: "Disappointmentshould always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as adiscouragement. " To the sunshiny, philosophical person, trials anddifficulties 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 mostessential element in the achievement of the highest and fullestsuccess. The optimist sees open paths leading to pleasant andprosperous fields of endeavor where the pessimist can see no way outof the hopeless surroundings amid which he has been thrust by anunkind fate. The disposition to seize upon the opportunities lyingclose at hand and to believe that the here and now is full of sunshineand golden possibilities has carried many a one to success, whereothers, lacking the illumination born of good cheer and a hope wellgrounded in a broad and beautiful faith, have sat complainingly by theway 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 thelater years of her life in looking back upon her career. But sheadded, with a simplicity as rare as it is pleasing: "I did not quitetake this in, myself, until I came to mingle with the best girls ofour college, and to become aware how rich their mines are and howlittle they have been worked. " At sixteen she left school, and ateighteen accepted the position of librarian of the Nantucket publiclibrary. Her duties were light and she had ample opportunity, surrounded as she was by books, to read and study, while leisure wasalso left her to pursue by practical observation the science in whichshe afterward became known. Those who dwell upon the smaller islands, among which must be classed Nantucket, her island home, learn almostof necessity to study the sea and the sky. The Mitchell familypossessed an excellent telescope. From childhood Maria had beenaccustomed to the use of this instrument, searching out with its aid, the distant sails upon the horizon by day, and viewing the stars bynight. Her father possessed a marked taste for astronomy, and carriedon an independent series of observations. He taught his daughter allhe knew, and what was more to her advancement, she applied herself tothe study and made as much independent advancement as was possible forher to do. It was this cheerful willingness to make the most of herimmediate surroundings that proved to be the secret of her world-widefame in after years when her name was included with those of the otherprominent astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening ofOctober First, 1847, she made the discovery which first brought hername before the public. She was gazing through her glass with herusual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "anunknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees. " Atfirst she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting, scarcely daring to think that she had really made a discovery, sheobtained its right ascension and declination. She then told herfather, who gave the news to the other astronomers and to the world, and her claim to the discovery was duly accepted and ever after stoodto her lasting credit. But had she not been interested in her work andcompetent to seize upon and to make the most of the opportunity thatpresented itself, she would not have been able to make herself thefirst of all the beings of our earth to observe and record thisstrange 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 itprepare for the best that is to come. It is because of the"preparedness" achieved by labor that men and women are able to seizeupon and make the most of the "lucky chance" that may bring themhappiness and success. 

While Thomas A. Edison was yet a youth, the desire to make himself ofworth to the world and to be able to do something that would make hima living while he was still fitting himself for better things, hespent the leisure which most boys would spend in idleness orpurposeless pastime in learning the telegrapher's code. Later on thisknowledge gave him work which enabled him to gain experience as atelegraph operator, which in turn led to his invention of thequadruplex telegraph. But the invention was temporarily a failure, although later on a great success. Sorely reduced in circumstances, hewas 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 standingbeside the apparatus when it gave a terrific rip-roar and suddenlystopped. In a few minutes hundreds of messenger boys blocked up thedoorway and yelled for some one to fix the tickers in the office. Theman in charge of the place was completely upset; so I stepped up tohim and said: 'I think I know what's the matter. ' I removed a loosecontact spring that had fallen between the wheels; the machine wenton. The result? I was appointed to take charge of the service at threehundred dollars a month. When I heard what the salary was I almostfainted. " It had been his hopeful, cheerful, expectant attitude towardthe future that had ever prompted him to fit himself so well that whenthe opportunity offered itself he was able to show that he possessedthe 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered 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 aphilosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence. --Byron. 

To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, isthe highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire ahuman 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 andplaudits 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 aboutmiddle 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'sburden is added to the burden of to-day that the burden is more than aman 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 forbetter 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 timesupon the anvil. --Boileau. 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control--these three alone leadlife to sovereign power. --Tennyson. 

It is curious to what an extent our happiness or unhappiness dependsupon the manner in which we view things. --E. C. Burke. 

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than theylove truth. --Joubert. 

Truth is tough; it will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, youmay kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round andfull 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 livesonly when they are passed or in visions of a possible future. What wemost 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 aroundthe 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 andnot a disposition of circumstances. --Lecky. 

If you would know the political and moral condition of a people, askas to the condition of its women. --Aime Martin. 

Delicacy in woman is strength. --Lichtenberg. 

Who has not experienced how, on nearer acquaintance, plainness becomesbeautified, and beauty loses its charm, according to the quality ofthe heart and mind. --Fredrika Bremer. 

Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, --an excellent thing inwoman. --Shakespeare. 

Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces ofmanners. --Marguerite de Valois. 

To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without ispower. --George MacDonald. 

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he canafford to let alone. --Thoreau. 

In truth, how could I feel this gladness now had I not known thebitterness of woe. --Alicia K. Van Buren. 

Of all the joys we can bring into our own lives there is none sojoyous as that which comes to us as the result of caring for othersand brightening sad lives. --E. C. Burke. 

Human improvement is from within outward. --Froude. 

Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are famouspreservers 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 itdepends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or misery fromit. --Smiles. 

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while everypessimist would keep the world at a standstill. --Helen Keller. 

He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake hisbusiness 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 isimpossible. --Marcus Aurelius. 

Labor is discovered to be the grand conquerer, enriching and buildingup nations more surely than the proudest battles. --William ElleryChanning. 

It is easier to leave the wrong thing unsaid than to unsay it. --GeorgeHorace Lorimer. 

Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source ofhuman welfare. --Tolstoi. 

If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you musttoil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure comes through toil, and not byself-indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life isa happy one. --Ruskin. 

One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being yourrights, you may give them up. --George MacDonald. 

Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important insome 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 arefound only in the depths of thought. --Victor Hugo. 

I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth ofliterature 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, makingthem our own. --La Rochefoucauld. 

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CHAPTER VI

A MERRY HEART

Who among us can presume to estimate the value of a merry heart? Whata perpetual blessing it is to its possessor and to all who must comeinto close relationship with the owner of it!

There is nothing more pleasantly "catching" than happiness. The happyperson serves to make all about him or her the more happy. What thebright, inspiring sunshine adds to the beauty of the fields, a happydisposition adds to the charm of all the incidents and experiences ofone's daily life. 

Do not you, whose eyes are perusing these lines, love to associatewith a friend possessing a cheerful disposition? And do you notintuitively refrain from meeting with the unfortunate one whose looksand words are heavy with complainings or whose eyes fail to see thebeauty of the world lying all about? And if we are given to wisethinking we must reach the conclusion that as we regard theseattributes in others, so others must regard them in us. 

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

But a smile that is only skin deep is not a true smile, but only asuperficial grin. A true smile comes all the way from the heart. Itbears its message of good will and friendliness. It is a mutesalutation of "good luck and happy days to you!" and it makes whoeverreceives it better and stronger for the hour. 

The genuine smile is closely related to, and is a part of, thatlaughter which beams and sparkles in the eye and makes the little, cheerful, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easilydistinguished from the lines that are the outward sign of an unhappyspirit within. 

Many centuries ago that wise and admirable philosopher, Epictetus, discovered that "happiness is not in strength, or wealth, or power; orall three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest ofevery ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power ofcontentment 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--AnneGilchrist--says: "I used to think it was great to disregard happiness, to press to a high goal, careless, disdainful of it. But now I seethere is nothing so great as to be capable of happiness, --to pluck itout of each moment, and, whatever happens, to find that one can rideas gay and buoyant on the angry, menacing, tumultuous waves of life ason those that glide and glitter under a clear sky; that it is notdefeat 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 thatit is a duty as well as a delight. Sydney Smith has very wiselyobserved that "mankind is always happier for having been happy; sothat if you make them happy now, you may make them happy twenty yearshence by the memory of it. "

True happiness has about it no suggestion of selfishness. Thegenuinely happy person is the one who would have all the world to behappy. "Is there any happiness in the world like the happiness of adisposition made happy by the happiness of others?" asks Faber. "Thereis no joy to be compared with it. The luxuries which wealth can buy, the rewards which ambition can obtain, the pleasures of art andscenery, the abounding sense of health and the exquisite enjoyment ofmental 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 begetsmore happiness not only in ourselves but in others about us. It has init an uplift and a strength that enables us to build the strongerto-day against the distress that would beset us to-morrow. 

"Health and happiness" are terms that are so often closely linked inour speech and in our literature. One is almost a synonym for theother. Perhaps the true significance existing between the two would bemore correctly stated were we to reverse the form in which they areusually set forth and say "happiness and health" instead. Allobservers of human nature and its many complex attributes areconvinced that happiness is the fountain spring of health. 

One of our keenest students of life tells us that "small annoyancesare the seeds of disease. We cannot afford to entertain them. They arethe bacteria, --the germs that make serious disturbance in the system, and prepare the way for all derangements. They furnish the mentalconditions which are manifested later in the blood, the tissues, andthe organs, under various pathological names. Good thoughts are theonly germicide. We must kill our resentment and regret, impatience andanxiety. Health will inevitably follow. Every thought that holds us ineven the slightest degree to either anticipation or regret hinders, tosome 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. Thedisposition to look at everything through kind and beautiful eyesmakes all the world more kind and beautiful. If we are gloomy withinthe whole world appears likewise. Perhaps the two ways of looking atthings 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 weregoing to the well. 

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

"Dear me! how strange to look on it that way!" said the other bucket;"now I enjoy the thought that however empty we come, we always go awayfull. Only look at it in that light and you will always be as cheerfulas 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 wemake for others it would seem as though the joy of our lives dwellswithin our own keeping. "The universe, " says Zimmerman, "pays everyman in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; ifyou frown, you will be frowned at; if you sing, you will be invitedinto gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers;if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, youwill be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into yourlap the treasures of the earth. "

All of this being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunitiesfor making others happy if we, ourselves, would get the most andhighest enjoyment from life. "There are gates that swing within yourlife and mine, " writes "Amber, " that good woman of sainted memory, "letting in rare opportunities from day to day, that tarry but amoment and are gone, like travelers bound for points remote. There isthe opportunity to resist the temptation to do a mean thing! Improveit, for it is in a hurry, like the man whose ticket is bought andwhose time is up. It won't be back this way, either, for opportunitiesfor good are not like tourists who travel on return tickets. There isthe opportunity to say a pleasant word to the ones within the sound ofyour voice. All of the priceless opportunities travel by lightningexpress and have no time to idle around the waiting-room. If weimprove them at all it must be when the gate swings to let themthrough. "

It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are tofind 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, alienatedfrom my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those withwhom 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 ofyourself and your own belongings, and what is the matter with you, instead of trying to realize, what is the fact--that you are a memberof a great human society, and that your true interests are one withthose of the world which will go on much the same however it fare withyou. 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 findhappiness and to see to it that others find it as well. And let us notwait to find happiness in one great offering, but let us discover itwhenever and wherever we can. Let us carefully study our surroundingsto see if it is not hiding all about us. "Very few things, " saysLecky, "contribute so much to the happiness of life as a constantrealization of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between anaturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one ofthe marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much tocultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot whichconverts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment. "

Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivatethe gracious habit of being grateful for joys that come to us and toseek to appreciate the worth of the beneficent gifts that are everbeing showered upon us. We are so apt to fall into the habit ofaccepting blessings as a matter of course and of failing to discovertheir wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have everthoughtfully dwelt upon the priceless attributes of the air that isever and always floating about us. In order that we may have a truerappreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read thesewords by Lord Avebury:

"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathesthe skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of itspresence, and yet so strong that it wafts the odors of flowers andfruit into our rooms, carries our ships over the seas, the purity ofsea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It is the vehicle ofsound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweet musicof nature; it is the great reservoir of the rain which waters theearth, it softens the heat of day and the cold of night, covers usoverhead with a glorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning andevening skies with fire. It is so exquisitely soft and pure, so gentleand yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovableand fascinating of all Nature Spirits. "

It is only when we open our eyes to the beauty of the wonders about usthat we see how much there is to contribute to our happiness if wewill but open our hearts and let it come in. What a perpetualexaltation nature will afford us when we have cultivated the finehabit of looking upon it with the welcoming eyes through which RichardJefferies beholds it: "The whole time in the open air, " he tells us, "resting at mid-day under the elms with the ripple of heat flowingthrough the shadow; at midnight between the ripe corn and thehawthorne hedge or the white camomile and the poppy pale in theduskiness, with face upturned to the thoughtful heaven. Consider theglory of it, the life above this life to be obtained from constantpresence with the sunlight and the stars. "

So let us cultivate the fine habit of finding joy and of shouting itto our friends and neighbors. Life seems bright to us when we arereally glad of anything and we let gladness have voice to expressitself. George MacDonald says "a poet is a man who is glad ofsomething and tries to make other people glad of it, too. " In thepossession of this kindly spirit, at least, we must all strive to bepoets. 

Emerson tells us that "there is one topic positively forbidden to allwell-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If youhave not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, orthunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring sereneand pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans. "

The fine tonic effect of a bright, happy face smiling across thebreakfast table is known to all the world. Better a feast of cornbread and a cheerful countenance than fruit cake and a sourtemperament. 

So I feel very sure that you, my dear young lady, for whom these linesare written, are never going to appear at the breakfast table withaught other than a bright cheery face and a pleasant word for allabout you. Some one has said that the first hour of the day is thecritical one. Happy is the person who can wake with a song, or who canat least hold back the fears and the grumbles until a thought ofgladness has established itself as the keynote of the day. 

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not, " says Shakespeare. While as arule it is deemed wrong to assume to possess any virtue that we do notpossess, we may and no doubt should, at times, appear to be happy eventhough we may feel more like indulging in lamentations. To come to thebreakfast table enumerating a list of real or imaginary ailments is amost ill-advised thing to do. We should endeavor to forget ourtroubles and above all we should be slow to give voice to them so thatthereby they will be multiplied in the minds of others. It has beentruly said that most people who are unhappy are really miserable andbring their misery to others because they allow the failures anddiscomforts to speak the first word in their souls. For misery isvoluble and the little discomforts will turn us into their continualmouthpieces if we will give them a chance. But the truly thoughtfuland considerate person will have none of them. Instead of displayingthe flag of distress and surrender, the wiser method is to pull ourcourage 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 indeedeven happiness is largely a habit. "As he thinketh in his heart, so ishe. " If he thinks trouble, he is very likely to find it. If he thinkssickness, he is likely to be ill. If he thinks unkind things, he isquite sure to put them into the deeds of his daily life. The thoughtis the architect's plans which the hands are likely to set about tobuild. To the one who thinks the weather is bad, it is sure to bedisagreeable. To the one who seeks to find something pleasant aboutit, it is certain to offer some happy phases. 

We must all answer "yes" to this question asked by one of our finewriters on our social amenities: "Don't you get awfully tired ofpeople who are always croaking? A frog in a big, damp, malarial pondis expected to make all the fuss he can in protest of hissurroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown, and born that he may beeducated for the court of a king! Placed in an emerald world with ahither side of opaline shadow, and a fine dust of diamonds to set itsparkling when winter days are flying; with ten million singing birdsto 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 tolove and make happy, and the hand of God to uphold it on its rushingway among the countless worlds that crowd its path; what right has manto find fault with such a world? When the woodtick shall gain ahearing, as he complains that the grand old century oak is unfit toshelter him, or the bluebird be harkened to when he murmurs that thehorizon is off color, and does not match his wings, then, I think, itwill be time for man to find fault with the appointments of themagnificent sphere in which he lives. "

Therefore let it be determined between us, right here and now, thatcome what may, we shall each of us endeavor to keep a merry heart anda pleasant face. As we love to see a happy expression on the faces ofour parents, brothers, sisters and friends, so must they enjoy seeinga pleasant look overspreading our features. And with this good andkindly resolve in our minds it will never be difficult for us todecide whether we shall give to the good world about us the gladnessor 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered 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 BarrettBrowning. 

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 ofthought. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stufflife is made of. --Benjamin Franklin. 

Be yourself, but make yourself in everything as delightful as youcan. --Margaret E. Sangster. 

The tissue of the life to be we weave with colors all our own, and inthe field of destiny we reap as we have sown. --Whittier. 

What must of necessity be done you can always find out beyond questionhow to do. --Ruskin. 

The doctrine of love, purity, and right living has, step by step, wonits way into the hearts of mankind, and has filled the future withhope and promise. --William McKinley. 

Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let ushonor 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 everytime 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 theoutcome of unselfish kindness. --Margaret E. Sangster. 

Reading and study are in no sense education, unless they maycontribute to this end of making us feel kindly towards allcreatures. --Ruskin. 

An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, ifproperly employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity, to go fartoward mastering a science. --Samuel Smiles. 

To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what onedoes, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit fornoble career. --E. P. Tenney. 

He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, buthe who loses spirit loses all. --S. A. Nelson. 

If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but ifnot, 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 isstrength 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 beagreeable. --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, butnever 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 sensewhich 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 beas 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 longor 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 mightshow 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 livingbut a means to the higher end of adding to the sum total of humangoodness and human happiness. --Frances E. Willard. 

Attempt the end, and never stand in doubt; nothing's so hard butsearch will find it out. --Richard Lovelace. 

There is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is tolove this life and live it as bravely and cheerfully and faithfully aswe 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 butby degrees?--Shakespeare. 

Duty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed, may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. --WilliamMcKinley. 

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 itserviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and lovedagain. --Ruskin. 

Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the best flower ofcivilization. --Emerson. 

It is so easy to perceive other people's little absurdities, and sodifficult to discover our own. --Ellen Thornycroft Fowler. 

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CHAPTER VII

GOLDEN HABITS

We often hear persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though itwere something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature, " is a sayingthat is included among the classic epigrams of men. That habits dobecome very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrowand sometimes to its advantage and delight. 

For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits andin that we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverancefrom wrong doing. 

The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradualgrowth ought to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamentalprinciple of their construction should result in giving us very manymore good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based onthe supposition that while many of us are so constituted that it ispossible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it isunlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make thequestionable action become a fixed habit. 

The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sobersecond thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permittedourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we wouldthen and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination thatthe wrong should not occur again. 

In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every gooddeed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the samekind. Wrong deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment ofthoughtlessness when one's conscience, one's higher and better self, is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full andproud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a gratefulsense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done. 

"Could the young, " says Henry James, "but realize how soon they willbecome mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed totheir conduct while in the plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, instrict scientific literateness, wiped out. " One of our latter dayphilosophers tells us that "happiness is a matter of habit; and youhad 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 Dickenssaid: "I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men haveworked much harder and not succeeded half so well; but I never couldhave done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on oneobject at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come uponits 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 itis here employed the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency orinclination toward an action or condition, which by repetition hasbecome easy, spontaneous or even

unconscious. " From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusionthat one's habits are in fact one's manners, one's principles, one'smode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finallybrings 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 isby our personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasantand agreeable we shall not lack for friends. 

A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if themanners are perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing elsecould do. 

Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "Itis the spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing. " We aretold by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man isinscribed on his brain, for volition and thoughts have theirbeginnings in the brain, whence they are conveyed to the bodilymembers, wherein they terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mindis in the brain, and from the brain in the body, according to theorder of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, andthus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure. "

Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in themaking of character and personality we should leave nothing undone tostrengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all areconstantly being acted upon by suggestion we should invite to ourassistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplaryframe of mind. 

In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce ourgood resolves by reading good books and in framing for our own benefita code of rules for our better conduct. 

It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitablequotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see themwith frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably servesthis purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind inthe early morning it tends to direct the course of our thinkingthroughout the day. The following quotations are offered only assuggestions. 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 theworld would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on theduty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we ought tobe as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is themost effectual contribution to the happiness of others. "

Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making thoseabout us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the stateof mind into which they throw those about them are not good mannered. While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize inthe great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to beforever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which wecan regale them. Either extreme is more or less absurd andunwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite toowillingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of theOrient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this natureas to almost arouse our mirth. 

An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says: "There must reallyhave been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these peoplewho in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that aguest in the home might not be burdened with their sorrow. The habitis in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourningstreamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, black chargers, and funeralhearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts ofall beholders!"

In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teachingof morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys woulddeem it strange if a master gave them an hour's instruction in thecorrect manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters. Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as itdoes 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 tothink of its parents, brothers and sisters, and of its country. Lateron these lessons are repeated with illustrations from short stories, and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives ofgreat men of all countries. Before the end of the course ofinstruction is reached all manner of virtues and points of behaviorhave been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especiallyin 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. Sothe school course continues from year to year, the elementary schoolcourse lasting four years and the secondary course four years more, and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, theirduty 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 relationsof 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, behaviorrather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniestdetail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment. 

To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness ofhabit, some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men's behavior, "said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured, " andhe warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait orpoint-device, but free for exercise or motion. " However, it is betterto err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than tobe 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 formsof etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization fromsavagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the onewho does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility. 

It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by thebreach of written or traditional laws, and choose our society, andeven our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommonoccurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position inlife, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by agraciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that leadto success. 

For some quite unwarranted reason society seems to have taken theposition that we have a right to expect more from our girls than fromour boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the viewheld by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. The demandthat every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is thatwhich 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 goodand gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short ofall that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life topursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualitiesof person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely toask 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 truespirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals. It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this assertion isrequired than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moralteachings, so frequently touches upon the subject of manners. Heteaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openlyrebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seatsat the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues. 

The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although theywere, themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not failto teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle haveleft behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a"Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essayon manners in which he reminds us that a stone must be of very highvalue to do without a setting. 

The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow andsuperficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes onewish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raiseone's self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It isunnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield's good manners, fine asthey appear, do not bear the true stamp of genuineness. There is notthe living person back of them possessing heart and character. Theyseem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure inthe dressmaker's window. True manners mean more than mannerisms. Theycannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rulesto be observed on any and every occasion. They are rather a cultivatedmethod of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character thatknows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to dowithout reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth. 

It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in thecultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than weotherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom wemay meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we areplaced. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral dutyto cultivate one's manners as it is to cultivate one's mind, and noone can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the niceramenities 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 principlemagistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain goodcustoms. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in youngyears; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an earlycustom. "

So we see that our true characters are but the expression of ourhabits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that areformed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly andnaturally throughout all the years. 

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

Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the goodinfluences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from whichto select all that she may need to build the fine character the worldshall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teachher, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward otherswhose early years are lived among less advantageous surroundings. Forif her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modifyher heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost. 

Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorablefor the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for theprize of gentility which they would obtain. And in this very struggleagainst adverse circumstances will be engendered a strength and aspirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthyequivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment. 

It is experience that develops character, and character is the onething that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individualthing 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 areto 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 neverknow how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much ofits 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]

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered in this section. ]

I think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that thereis 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 spiritall 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 alovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as theangels must give. --George MacDonald. 

Nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good manners for itsfoundation. --Bulwer Lytton. 

The common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voicesand blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a musicand its path a light. --H. W. Mabie. 

The truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, withmany facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world aboutthem. --Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Countalways your highest moments your truest moments. --Phillips Brooks. 

We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commenceto do good to others with them. --Joseph Cook. 

Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few thingsmore 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 ofpleasant thoughts. --Ruskin. 

When one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purposethat he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy--thejoy of self-sacrifice. --Lyman Abbott. 

Morality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuousaction, with the best intention founded on principle. --A. E. Winship. 

To have a friend is to have one of the sweetest gifts that life canbring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education of soulfrom day to day. --Anna Robertson Brown. 

When it comes to doing a thing in this world, I don't ask myselfwhether 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 youshall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn tounderstand it, and you shall hear it. --Ruskin. 

There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character. Even theplainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods. --NewellDwight Hillis. 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So ourprospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. --Thoreau. 

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed andtreasured 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 bea cup of strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to knowthe glory of life. --Hugh Black. 

It is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and noble, butthe 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 ithath 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. --ChineseProverb. 

For him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, life maylead through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert. --Anonymous. 

Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are means the happier toarise. --William Shakespeare. 

Be resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspireto be. --Thoreau. 

If people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom ofHeaven 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 ofbeing our best selves, you may be sure that we are succeeding. --BlissCarman. 

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher'sstone. --Benjamin Franklin. 

He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whoseblood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering intoliving 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--noton your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. --Dickens. 

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, andlife emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--is moreelastic, 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 ofdew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnestmeditation. --Madame Swetchine. 

Better is it to have a small portion of good sense, with humility anda slender understanding, than great treasures of science, with vainself-complacency. --Thomas à Kempis. 

There is one road to peace and that is truth. --Shelley. 

He hath from his childhood conversed with books and bookmen; andalways being where the frankincense of the temple was offered, theremust 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 climbheavenward. --Hawthorne. 

If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man orwoman, 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 getahead of ourselves. --Maltbie D. Babcock. 

The narrow kingdom of to-day is better worth ruling over than thewidest 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. 

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CHAPTER VIII

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

"Nothing succeeds like success. "

Perhaps the true meaning of this old French proverb is that once wehave a measure of success we are the more likely to achieve still morevictories. The discovery that our strength, perseverance anddetermination have been capable of bending circumstances to our willand bringing to fulfillment the end for which we have wished andworked, gives us renewed courage and inspiration for the undertakingof new and larger duties. 

We learn to do by doing. Achievement leads to still greaterachievement. Orison Swett Marden, one of the world's wisest ofobservers and deepest of philosophers, says, "The world makes way forthe determined man. " And so it does for the determined woman, or thedetermined girl or boy. 

Regarding this thing called "Success, " too many of us are apt to thinkthat it means some one, isolated, remarkable achievement, that comesat the end of a long period of striving in some particular field ofendeavor. This is not entirely true. Every great success is made ofvery many lesser successes that have preceded it. Just as the cap-stoneat the top of the tallest building is held in its lofty positionby every stone beneath it even down to the ones deep in the earth atthe very foundation of the structure, which are indeed perhaps themost important of all. 

So the thing which the world is pleased to call "Success" is built upby a thousand little successes on which it must finally rest. Thebuilding of a life success begins with the earliest dawn of being andmust be carried on with as much care as a mason would give to thelaying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. Themason 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 putsfaulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be asuccess. The work at every stage must be a success or the completedstructure must be a failure. 

So it is in life. If our moments are not successful, the hours cannever be so, and the days and years can but enlarge upon and emphasizetheir failure. "Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is a worldmade new, " says Susan Coolidge. There is a chance for attainingsuccess every hour and day of our lives. 

Success is not alone for the great men of the world who find newcontinents, 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 thetime. 

Were you prepared in your studies at school to-day? If you were, thatwas 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 awilling hand, done all you could to make life pleasanter and happierfor those about you? If so, that is a fine moral success. And if youwill multiply the achievements of to-day by the days that are in theyears before you, you can see the result that you have a reason toexpect, as your life's work. 

Success means doing all that we can do as well as we can do it. It maybe work or it may be play. It may be something of seemingly littleaccount or it may be something of importance, but unless we do itwell, 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 thefuture. " And Ruskin still further emphasizes this thought in thewords: "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 ofthese short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done forothers. "

We begin to achieve success when we do the things that are necessaryfor such achievement. Huxley expressed the whole secret of the matterwhen he said: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education isthe ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when itought to be done, as it ought to be done, whether you like to do it ornot. "

A good life, which is but another name for success, does not come byaccident. Fortune may seem to favor it but it is the disposition toseize upon the opportunities that present themselves that make somelives seem more blest with "good chances" than others. 

Self cultivation is the secret of most all attainments in the realm ofhuman endeavor. As a matter of fact, all that others can do for us isas nothing to that which we may do for ourselves. Persons who dothings usually have to work for results, or they have at some time hadto work to acquire the habits that later on make it seem so easy forthem to do fine things. "We think, " says J. C. Van Dyke, "because thecompleted work looks easy or reads easy, that it must have been doneeasily. But the geniuses of the world have all put upon record theirconviction that there is more virtue in perspiration than ininspiration. The great poets, whether in print or in paint, have spenttheir weeks and months--yes, years--composing, adjusting, putting inand taking out. They have known what it is to 'lick things intoshape, ' to labor and be baffled, to despair and to hope anew. "

With the dawning of every morning, life comes bringing to us a new andwonderful day to employ it as we will. Shall it be a fine, gratifyingsuccess, or shall it be a failure? Shall it be part success and partfailure? There can be no doubt about it being a matter that is verylargely 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 climbingupward. We should put our faults under our feet, and make them stepson which to lift ourselves daily a little higher.... We never in thisworld get to a point where we may regard ourselves as having reachedlife'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 towardthat end. "The first great rule is, we must do something--that lifemust have a purpose and an aim--that work should be not merelyoccasional and spasmodic, but steady and continuous, " says Lecky. "Pleasure is a jewel which will retain its luster only when it is in asetting of work, and a vacant life is one of the worst of pains, though the islands of leisure that stud a crowded, well-occupied lifemay be among the things to which we look back with the greatestdelight. "

There can be no interest where there is no purpose. How tiresome itwould very soon become if we were compelled to make idle, uselessmarks upon paper, without any design whatsoever. But to be able todraw pictures is a delight that no one can forego. "The most pitiablelife is the aimless life, " says Jenkin Lloyd Jones. "Heaven help theman or woman, the boy or girl, who is not interested in anythingoutside of his or her own immediate comfort and that related thereto, who eats bread to make strength for no special cause, who pursuesscience, reads poetry, studies books, for no earthly or heavenlypurpose than mere enjoyment or acquisition; who goes on accumulatingwealth, piling up money, with no definite or absorbing purpose toapply it to anything in particular. "

Perhaps we expect to-day, more than men have at any other time in theworld's history, that girls as well as boys, must look forward todoing something definite in life. It is not deemed sufficient foranyone simply "to be. " The whole world is now living the verb "to do. "The grace, strength, beauty and worth of womanhood is being enhancedwith the constantly enlarging sphere of women's work. The primitive, almost heathen, notion that the feminine sex constituted a handicap inthe achieving of great success in a great majority of the fields ofhuman endeavor is rapidly fading away. It can no longer stand in thelight of the brilliant achievements women are making everywhere. Indeed, men are becoming well convinced that their presumed supremacyin many of the world's spheres of work is being successfullychallenged at every point. So general is this experience becoming thatthe present status of things might well be set forth somewhat afterthe 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 itsabsurdity. 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 andmen. That the door of opportunity is henceforth to be open to all isan assurance that the work is to be more grandly and beautifully donethan ever before. What women may do in the years to come iswonderfully set forth by what women have done in the past. All historyis filled with the splendid achievements of the women of the world. Agirl of to-day will find no reading more helpful and inspiring thanthe lives of such noble women as Martha Washington, Queen Victoria, Sally Bush--Abraham Lincoln's good step-mother--Elizabeth BarrettBrowning, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miss Louisa Alcott, LauraBridgman, Charlotte Cushman, Maria Mitchell, Lady Franklin, Mrs. JuliaWard 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. Everyprudent girl will, of course, talk over the prospect of her futureyears with her parents, her brothers and sisters, her teachers, orwith mature and responsible friends. So very, very much depends onlaying the right foundations. But there are many qualities that mustconstitute parts of every enduring foundation. 

Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, good behavior, modesty, gentility, enlightenment, all of these and more are essentialto success and for the highest achievement of the true purpose ofliving. 

It has been well said that it is the repetition of little acts whichconstitutes not only the sum of human character, but which determinesthe character of nations; and where men or nations have broken down, it will almost invariably be found that neglect of little things wasthe rock on which they were wrecked. 

Every human being has duties to be performed, and, therefore, has needof cultivating the capacity for doing them--whether the sphere ofaction be the management of a household, the conduct of a trade or aprofession, or the government of a nation. 

The one fixed truth in the matter of character-building is the factthat steady attention to the little matters of detail lies at the veryfoundation of human progress. 

The splendid trees that lift their branches heavenward depend fortheir sustenance on the tiny thread-like roots that come into veryclose relations with the soil and can thus take in the nourishmentneeded for the making of growth. This, the larger roots have not thecapacity for doing. So in the growth of the human intellect and humancharacter, it is the little actions, day by day, that really do thepermanent building. With patient purpose to do successfully the manylittle tasks that confront us we can later on achieve the largersuccess awaiting us. 

The world's history is full of the triumphs of those who have had tostruggle from beginning to end for recognition. Carey, the greatmissionary, began life as a shoemaker; the chemist Vanquelin was theson 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 thefuture greatness, and step by step, day by day, they persevered untilthey won the full measure of success. 

The great and good women of the world have won their distinction inthe same manner. They cultivated the sterling qualities that made forsuccess. They acquired the manners that attracted toward them help andstrength of others interested in good causes and those struggling toadvance them. 

And the girl who is reading these lines, can, if she will, make herlife a happy success. She may be praised by the world or it may be bythe small circle of friends with whom she comes in contact. Her namemay never be written in history but it may be fondly spoken byparents, sisters, brothers, schoolmates, friends. In a thousandgracious ways she can make the hours, days and years good and goldenfor her own precious self and for all who know her. She must bethoughtful and intelligently alert to the opportunities lying allabout her ready to be fashioned into shining deeds. She must know thatshe is a precious craft on the sea of life and that she must not bepermitted to drift from the harbor of youth and of home without a lifepilot. And this pilot should be her own conscience, hedged about withthe learning, the good breeding, the fine character that she herself, under proper guidance, must cultivate through the impressionable yearsof childhood and maidenhood. If she so wills it, beauty and grace andtrue worth are all hers. And let her greet and go forth in thefreshness of each golden day, as indeed, she must greet life, itself, with 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. 

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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter aregathered in this section. ]

He who works for sweetness and light works to make reason and the willof God prevail. --Matthew Arnold. 

Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admirationfor all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrichand beautify our life. --Phillips Brooks. 

Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with afaint 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 isthe important thing, and the world outside takes all its grace, colorand value from that. --Lowell. 

In character, in manner, in style, in all things the supremeexcellence 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 liketo. 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 abeautiful face. --Margaret E. Sangster. 

There is a marvelous power in a well-defined individuality. --JoeMitchell Chapple. 

Resolution always gives us courage. --A. E. Winship. 

Of all fruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that hasgone 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 progressand 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 thosewho 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 wehave 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 thewithout. --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 andpitiable. --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. --WendellPhillips. 

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hopeyour 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 thatwhich 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 godown. --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 tremendousdifficulties. --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 hewill 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 enthronein your heart--this you will build your life by, this you willbecome. --James Allen. 

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By MARGARET E. SANGSTER

HAPPY SCHOOL DAYS

A Book for Girls

In this book, Mrs. Sangster, the popular friend of all girls, writesto them charmingly and sympathetically of the things nearest to theirhearts. 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 aromance. --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 isat her best. It is a book of great worth, and whoever extends itsusefulness by increasing its readers is a public benefactor. --Journal of Education, Boston. 

Handsome cover. Cloth, 12mo. $1. 00

FORBES & COMPANYPUBLISHERS--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 pleasetheir 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. --ChicagoRecord-Herald. 

Its message is earnest and thrilling. Full of inspiration andencouragement. --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 anyage up to eighty. --Denver Republican. 

It is the talk of a big brother to a younger one on a tramp offtogether. A mine of condensed inspiration. --Boston Advertiser. 

The book is beautifully made. It is handsomely bound and illustratedand has some novel typographical features. --Boston Globe. 

Illustrated. Attractive Cover. Cloth, 8vo. $1. 00

FORBES & COMPANYPUBLISHERS--CHICAGO