THE VALUE OF SUNSHINE
Do people like you?
Are your girl playmates and classmates fond of your society? Are they
eager to work with you, play with you, go strolling or sit by the fire
with you?
This one fact we must know; if we are not liked it must be because we
are not the possessors of that fine quality known as "likableness."
And if those who have had an opportunity to know us and our traits of
character do not love and admire us, it is we and not they who are
responsible for their state of mind. For as sure as the warm sunshine
attracts the flowers, and the fragrant flowers call the attention of
the bee to their store of honey, so a fine likable character is
certain to gain and to hold the admiration of good friends and true.
The face full of sunshine, the heart full of hope, the lips that are
speaking pleasant words of good cheer and joyous faith in the world,
will attract friends about them as certainly as the magnetic pole
attracts the needle.
The girl who goes among the people with smiles to offer will find very
many ready to receive her gracious gifts, but if she carries with her
sighs and frowns, instead, she will learn that the world wants none of
them.
We all love to hear pleasant things. The one who tells us that he
thinks it is going to set in for a long rainy spell of weather is of
less worth to us than the one who says he thinks that the clouds are
going to clear away and that we shall have a beautiful day to-morrow.
The grandsire who tells his young friends that they ought to be glad
that the grandest, brightest and best era in the world's history is
just before them, does much more to inspire them than does the one who
tells them that the best days of the world were "the good old days of
long ago," and that the golden age will never return again. Brooke
Herford tells us: "There are some people who ride all through the
journey of life with their backs to the horse's head.
They are always looking into the past. All the worth of things is
there. They are forever talking about the good old times, and how
different things were when they were young. There is no romance in the
world now, and no heroism. The very winters and summers are nothing to
what they used to be; in fact, life is altogether on a small,
commonplace scale. Now that is a miserable sort of thing; it brings a
sort of paralyzing chill over the life, and petrifies the natural
spring of joy that should ever be leaping up to meet the fresh new
mercies that the days keep bringing."
Know then, my young friends, that the best time that ever was is the
present time, if you will but use it aright. It is full of romance, of
heroism, of splendid opportunity, of all that goes to constitute
experience and to develop character. There never was a time when there
were more good things to be done, or when greater rewards awaited the
doers of them. The summers are just as long and bright and golden; the
roses blossom just as numerously and as sweetly; human hearts are just
as warm and kindly, as they have been at any time in the world's
history. Emerson says: "One of the illusions is that the present hour
is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every
day is the best day in the whole year."
So then as far as the time and the hour are concerned, there is
nothing in our surroundings to make us morose or gloomy or dispirited
or indifferent regarding the influence we are exerting upon those
around us. There is no obvious reason why we should not be joyous and
happy at the prospect before us. We should have not only grace enough
for our own personal needs, but plenty of it to spare for those not so
gladly born as ourselves.
And rich beyond computation is the one who has joyousness to spare.
Better than gold, better than food and raiment and all material
things, betimes, is a ray of sunshine from the heart, an uplift of
saving humor from a merry tongue. "I have often felt, myself," says
Benson, "that the time has come to raise another figure to the
hierarchy of Christian graces. Faith, Hope and Charity were sufficient
in a more elementary and barbarous age, but, now that the world has
broadened somewhat, I think an addition to the trio is demanded. A man
may be faithful, hopeful, and charitable, and yet leave much to be
desired. He may be useful, no doubt, with that equipment, but he may
also be both tiresome and even absurd. The fourth quality that I
should like to see raised to the highest rank among the Christian
graces is the Grace of Humor."
Splendidly blest is that household that is so fortunate as to possess
at least one member gifted with the grace of good humor. One such
person in a home is enough if there cannot be more. Just when all the
others are seriously confronting what seems to be a most sad and
serious condition of affairs how just one word of illuminating good
humor can change the whole point of view and send the foreboding
proposition glimmering into nothingness. "Do you know, my dear," says
Mrs. Holden, "that there is absolutely nothing that will help you to
bear the ills of life so well as a good laugh? Laugh all you can and
the small imps in blue who love to preempt their quarters in a human
heart will scatter away like owls before the music of flutes.
There are few of the minor difficulties and annoyances that will not
dissipate at the charge of the nonsense brigade. If the clothes line
breaks, if the cat tips over the milk and the dog elopes with the
roast, if the children fall into the mud simultaneously with the
advent of clean aprons, if the new girl quits in the middle of
housecleaning, and though you search the earth with candles you find
none to take her place, if the neighbor you have trusted goes back on
you and decides to keep chickens, if the chariot wheels of the
uninvited guest draw near when you are out of provender, and the
gaping of your empty purse is like the unfilled mouth of a young
robin, take courage if you have enough sunshine in your heart, to keep
the laugh on your lips. Before good nature, half the cares of daily
living will fly away like midges before the wind. Try it."
What a world of inspiration and cheerfulness in the motto written by
Edward Everett Hale for the Lend-A-Hand Society: "Look up, and not
down; look forward, and not back; look out, and not in; and lend a
hand." It is the lifting of the burden from another's tired shoulder
that does most to lighten the load resting on our own.
No one who truly is conscious of the value of sunshine upon his own
nature and upon the spirits of those with whom he comes into contact
will ever, for one minute, permit himself to be taken possession of by
THE "BLUES"
"Blues" are the sorry calms that come
To make our spirits mope,
And steal the breeze of promise from
The shining sails of hope.
Margaret E. Sangster, who is the kind and gracious foster mother to
all the girls of her time and generation, says that "being in bondage
to the blues is precisely like being lost in a London fog. The latter
is thick and black and obliterates familiar landmarks. A man may be
within a few doors of his home, yet grope hopelessly through the murk
to find the well-worn threshold. A person under the tyranny of the
blues is temporarily unable to adjust life to its usual limitations.
He or she cannot see an inch beyond the dreadful present. Everything
looks dark and forbidding, and despair with an iron clutch pins its
victim down. People think, loosely, that trials that may be weighed
and measured and felt and handled are the worst trials to which flesh
is heir. But they are mistaken. Hearts are elastic, and real sorrows
seldom crush them. Souls have in them a wonderful capacity for
recovering after knockdown blows. It is the intangible, the thing that
one dreads vaguely, that catches one in the dark, that suggests and
intimates a peril that is spiritual rather than mortal; it is the
burden that carries dismay and terror to the imagination."
A single member of a household who is given to having "the blues"
often darkens a home that would otherwise be bright and sunny. Such an
unfortunate person should bear in mind that when a servant is employed
the whole household expects her to be kind, tidy, industrious, moral,
gentle, and, above all, good natured in her attitude toward all.
Surely the daughter of a household cannot wish to feel that she holds
her position by accident of birth, and that if her family were not
compelled to keep her they would not.
Charles Dickens says: "It is not possible to know how far the
influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flows out
into the world." A bright, cheerful, sunshiny daughter in a home can
never know how great is her influence for making the little household
world holier and happier for all whose life interests are centered
therein. Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "The day is dark only when the
mind is dark; all weathers are pleasant when the heart is at rest."
Bliss Carman observes that "happiness, perhaps, comes by the grace of
Heaven, but the wearing of a happy countenance, the preserving of a
happy mien, is a duty, not a blessing." This thought that it is one's
duty to be happy is set forth still more forcibly by Lilian Whiting:
"No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about
ill-bred."
The girl with sunshine in her thoughts and sunshine in her eyes will
find sunshine everywhere. Wherever she may go her gracious presence
will light the way and make her every path more smooth and beautiful.
In the home, in the school, amid whatever conditions surround her, she
will shine with the glow of a rose in bloom. She will see the good and
the beautiful in the persons whom she meets; while all the charms of
nature, as portrayed in field and forest, will be to her a never-ending
source of interest and enjoyment. Above all, she will warmly
cherish life and look upon it as being crowded with priceless
opportunities for obtaining happiness for herself and for others. She
will be filled with the same exhuberant spirit of joy in the mere fact
of her being that Mrs. Holden so happily sets forth: "I love this
world. I never walk out in the morning when all its radiant colors are
newly washed with dew, or at splendid noon, when, like an untired
racer, the sun has flashed around his mid-day course, or at evening,
when a fringe of a shadow, like the lash of a weary eye, droops over
mountain and valley and sea, or in the majestic pomp of night when
stars swarm together like bees, and the moon clears its way through
the golden fields as a sickle through the ripened wheat, that I do not
hug myself for very joy that I am yet alive. What matter if I am poor
and unsheltered and costumeless?
Thank God, I am yet alive! People who tire of this world before they
are seventy and pretend that they are ready to leave it, are either
crazy or stuck as full of bodily ailments as a cushion is of pins. The
happy, the warm-blooded, the sunny-natured and the loving cling to
life as petals cling to the calyx of a budding rose. By and by, when
the rose is over-ripe, or when the frosts come and the November winds
are trumpeting through all the leafless spaces of the woods, will be
time to die. It is no time now, while there is a dark space left on
earth that love can brighten, while there is a human lot to be
alleviated by a smile, or a burden to be lifted with a sympathizing
tear."
We all understand that it is not so difficult for us to be bright and
smiling and gracious toward everyone when there is naught to disturb
the serenity of our thoughts, and when nothing happens to interfere
with the fulfillment of our wishes. But when things go "at sixes and
sevens," when our dearest purposes are thwarted, when some one is
about to gain the place or prize which we covet, when we are forced to
stay within doors when we very much prefer to go in the fields; then
it requires more of character, more of strength, more of the true
spirit of sacrifice to wear a smiling face and to maintain a cheerful
heart. But instead of fleeing from the petty trials that cross our
paths we should welcome them as opportunities for testing and
strengthening our good purposes. Newcomb tells us: "Disappointment
should always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as a
discouragement." To the sunshiny, philosophical person, trials and
difficulties but serve to help him to develop into
THE PRIZE WINNER
Oh, the man who wins the prize
Is the one who bravely tries,
As he works his way amid the toil and stress,
Through the college of Hard Knocks,
So to hew his stumbling-blocks,
They will serve as stepping-stones toward success.
Sunshine has ever been deemed by the close students of life as a most
essential element in the achievement of the highest and fullest
success. The optimist sees open paths leading to pleasant and
prosperous fields of endeavor where the pessimist can see no way out
of the hopeless surroundings amid which he has been thrust by an
unkind fate. The disposition to seize upon the opportunities lying
close at hand and to believe that the here and now is full of sunshine
and golden possibilities has carried many a one to success, where
others, lacking the illumination born of good cheer and a hope well
grounded in a broad and beautiful faith, have sat complainingly by the
way and permitted the golden chances to go by unobserved.
"Born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinary persistency,"
said Professor Maria Mitchell, the distinguished astronomer, in the
later years of her life in looking back upon her career. But she
added, with a simplicity as rare as it is pleasing: "I did not quite
take this in, myself, until I came to mingle with the best girls of
our college, and to become aware how rich their mines are and how
little they have been worked." At sixteen she left school, and at
eighteen accepted the position of librarian of the Nantucket public
library. Her duties were light and she had ample opportunity,
surrounded as she was by books, to read and study, while leisure was
also left her to pursue by practical observation the science in which
she afterward became known. Those who dwell upon the smaller islands,
among which must be classed Nantucket, her island home, learn almost
of necessity to study the sea and the sky. The Mitchell family
possessed an excellent telescope. From childhood Maria had been
accustomed to the use of this instrument, searching out with its aid,
the distant sails upon the horizon by day, and viewing the stars by
night. Her father possessed a marked taste for astronomy, and carried
on an independent series of observations. He taught his daughter all
he knew, and what was more to her advancement, she applied herself to
the study and made as much independent advancement as was possible for
her to do. It was this cheerful willingness to make the most of her
immediate surroundings that proved to be the secret of her world-wide
fame in after years when her name was included with those of the other
prominent astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening of
October First, 1847, she made the discovery which first brought her
name before the public. She was gazing through her glass with her
usual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "an
unknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees." At
first she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting,
scarcely daring to think that she had really made a discovery, she
obtained its right ascension and declination. She then told her
father, who gave the news to the other astronomers and to the world,
and her claim to the discovery was duly accepted and ever after stood
to her lasting credit. But had she not been interested in her work and
competent to seize upon and to make the most of the opportunity that
presented itself, she would not have been able to make herself the
first of all the beings of our earth to observe and record this
strange visitant to our starry realms above us.
It is the faith which the sunshiny spirit has in the "worth whileness"
of life and its possibilities that makes him or her who possesses it
prepare for the best that is to come. It is because of the
"preparedness" achieved by labor that men and women are able to seize
upon and make the most of the "lucky chance" that may bring them
happiness and success.
While Thomas A. Edison was yet a youth, the desire to make himself of
worth to the world and to be able to do something that would make him
a living while he was still fitting himself for better things, he
spent the leisure which most boys would spend in idleness or
purposeless pastime in learning the telegrapher's code. Later on this
knowledge gave him work which enabled him to gain experience as a
telegraph operator, which in turn led to his invention of the
quadruplex telegraph. But the invention was temporarily a failure,
although later on a great success. Sorely reduced in circumstances, he
was one day tramping the streets of New York without a cent.
"I happened one day," he says, "into the office of a 'gold ticker'
company which had about five hundred subscribers. I was standing
beside the apparatus when it gave a terrific rip-roar and suddenly
stopped. In a few minutes hundreds of messenger boys blocked up the
doorway and yelled for some one to fix the tickers in the office. The
man in charge of the place was completely upset; so I stepped up to
him and said: 'I think I know what's the matter.' I removed a loose
contact spring that had fallen between the wheels; the machine went
on. The result? I was appointed to take charge of the service at three
hundred dollars a month. When I heard what the salary was I almost
fainted." It had been his hopeful, cheerful, expectant attitude toward
the future that had ever prompted him to fit himself so well that when
the opportunity offered itself he was able to show that he possessed
the grasp of things that made him
THE CONQUEROR
There's a day, there's an hour, a moment of time
When Fate shall be willing to try us;
This one test of our worth and our purpose sublime,
It will not, it cannot deny us.
'Tis our right to demand one true crisis, else how
Shall we prove by our valor undaunted
That we merit the wreath Fortune lays on the brow
Of the man who is there when he's wanted?
And whene'er Opportunity knocks at his door
The wise one's glad greeting is, "Ready!"
He has garnered, of knowledge, an adequate store,
His purpose is seasoned and steady.
With soul and with spirit, with hand and with heart,
And with strength that he never has vaunted,
He is fashioned and fitted to compass his part,
Is the man who is there when he's wanted.
The world is a stage and our lives are a play
And the role that is given us in it
May be grand or obscure, yet there comes the great day
When we speak its best lines for a minute.
And the dream that through all of life's trials and tears,
The soul, like soft music, has haunted,
Comes true, and the world gives its smiles and its cheers
To the man who is there when he's wanted.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are
gathered in this section.]
Kind words are worth much and they cost little.--Proverb.
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Always laugh when you can; it is a cheap medicine. Merriment is a
philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence.
--Byron.
To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is
the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a
human being.--Lord Avebury.
Happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of all health.
--Amiel.
Not in the clamour of the crowded streets, not in the shouts and
plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat.
--Longfellow.
A man should always keep learning something--"always," as Arnold said,
"keep the stream running"--whereas most people let it stagnate about
middle life.--Anonymous.
A smile passes current in every country as a mark of distinction.
--Joe Mitchell Chapple.
The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
--Tennyson.
No man ever sunk under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow's
burden is added to the burden of to-day that the burden is more than a
man can bear.--George MacDonald.
Though sorrow must come, where is the advantage of rushing to meet it?
It will be time enough to grieve when it comes; meanwhile, hope for
better things.--Seneca.
All my old opinions were only stages on the way to the one I now hold,
as itself is only a stage on the way to something else.--R. L. Stevenson.
Hasten slowly, and, without losing heart, put your work twenty times
upon the anvil.--Boileau.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control--these three alone lead
life to sovereign power.--Tennyson.
It is curious to what an extent our happiness or unhappiness depends
upon the manner in which we view things.--E. C. Burke.
Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they
love truth.--Joubert.
Truth is tough; it will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you
may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and
full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.--Emerson.
The aids to noble life are all within.--Matthew Arnold.
Nothing is difficult; it is only we who are indolent.--B. R. Haydon.
It is a serious thing that we should see the full beauty of our lives
only when they are passed or in visions of a possible future. What we
most need is to see and feel the beauty and joy of to-day.--Maurice D.
Conway.
Let us enjoy the scenery of the present moment. The landscape around
the bend will still be there when our life-train arrives.--Horatio W.
Dresser.
If we cannot get what we like let us try to like what we can get.
--Spanish Proverb.
Men continually forget that happiness is a condition of the mind and
not a disposition of circumstances.--Lecky.
If you would know the political and moral condition of a people, ask
as to the condition of its women.--Aime Martin.
Delicacy in woman is strength.--Lichtenberg.
Who has not experienced how, on nearer acquaintance, plainness becomes
beautified, and beauty loses its charm, according to the quality of
the heart and mind.--Fredrika Bremer.
Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low,--an excellent thing in
woman.--Shakespeare.
Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces of
manners.--Marguerite de Valois.
To have what we want is riches, but to be able to do without is
power.--George MacDonald.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can
afford to let alone.--Thoreau.
In truth, how could I feel this gladness now had I not known the
bitterness of woe.--Alicia K. Van Buren.
Of all the joys we can bring into our own lives there is none so
joyous as that which comes to us as the result of caring for others
and brightening sad lives.--E. C. Burke.
Human improvement is from within outward.--Froude.
Cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are famous
preservers of good looks.--Dickens.
The law of true living is toil.--J. R. Miller.
We may make the best of life, or we may make the worst of it, and it
depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or misery from
it.--Smiles.
Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every
pessimist would keep the world at a standstill.--Helen Keller.
He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his
business at night.--Benjamin Franklin.
It is great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible,
but to try instead to escape from other people's faults, which is
impossible.--Marcus Aurelius.
Labor is discovered to be the grand conquerer, enriching and building
up nations more surely than the proudest battles.--William Ellery
Channing.
It is easier to leave the wrong thing unsaid than to unsay it.--George
Horace Lorimer.
Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of
human welfare.--Tolstoi.
If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must
toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure comes through toil, and not by
self-indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is
a happy one.--Ruskin.
One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your
rights, you may give them up.--George MacDonald.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in
some respects, whether he chooses to be or not.--Hawthorne.
Expediency is man's wisdom. Doing right is God's.--George Meredith.
Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are
found only in the depths of thought.--Victor Hugo.
I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth of
literature when I can get strong soup.--George Eliot.
A thousand words leave not the same deep print as does a single deed.
--Ibsen.
Woman--the crown of creation.--Herder.
Harmony is the essence of power as well as beauty.--A. E. Winship.
Be faithful to thyself, and fear no other witness but thy fear.
--Shelley.
To give heartfelt praise to noble actions is, in some measure, making
them our own.--La Rochefoucauld.
------------------------------------------------------------------------