GOLDEN HABITS
We often hear persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though it
were something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature," is a saying
that is included among the classic epigrams of men. That habits do
become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrow
and sometimes to its advantage and delight.
For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and
in that we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance
from wrong doing.
The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual
growth ought to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamental
principle of their construction should result in giving us very many
more good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based on
the supposition that while many of us are so constituted that it is
possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is
unlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the
questionable action become a fixed habit.
The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober
second thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permitted
ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we would
then and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that
the wrong should not occur again.
In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good
deed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same
kind. Wrong deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment of
thoughtlessness when one's conscience, one's higher and better self,
is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full and
proud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful
sense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done.
"Could the young," says Henry James, "but realize how soon they will
become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to
their conduct while in the plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, in
strict scientific literateness, wiped out." One of our latter day
philosophers tells us that "happiness is a matter of habit; and you
had better gather it fresh every day or you will never get it at all."
In speaking of the success he had achieved in life, Charles Dickens
said: "I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have
worked much harder and not succeeded half so well; but I never could
have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order,
and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one
object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon
its heels."
When we come to study carefully the full meaning of the word "habit"
we find it to be a very comprehensive term. In the sense in which it
is here employed the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency or
inclination toward an action or condition, which by repetition has
become easy, spontaneous or even
unconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusion
that one's habits are in fact one's manners, one's principles, one's
mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finally
brings one to a clear realization of the secret of
TRUE GENTILITY
One cannot from the world conceal
The current of his thought;
A word or action will reveal
The thing his brain hath wrought.
True goodness from within must come
And deeds, to be refined,
Their outer grace must borrow from
Politeness of the mind.
Our manners are ourselves. They constitute our personality and it is
by our personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasant
and agreeable we shall not lack for friends.
A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the
manners are perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing else
could do.
Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It
is the spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing." We are
told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man is
inscribed on his brain, for volition and thoughts have their
beginnings in the brain, whence they are conveyed to the bodily
members, wherein they terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mind
is in the brain, and from the brain in the body, according to the
order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and
thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure."
Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in the
making of character and personality we should leave nothing undone to
strengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all are
constantly being acted upon by suggestion we should invite to our
assistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplary
frame of mind.
In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers,
and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our
good resolves by reading good books and in framing for our own benefit
a code of rules for our better conduct.
It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable
quotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see them
with frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably serves
this purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind in
the early morning it tends to direct the course of our thinking
throughout the day. The following quotations are offered only as
suggestions. They can be added to indefinitely:
A man's own good breeding is the best security against other
people's ill manners.--Chesterfield.
Good breeding shows itself most when to an ordinary eye it appears
the least.--Addison.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we
converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred
in the company.--Swift.
Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do you make
the road of it.--Sterne.
Civility costs nothing and buys everything.--Lady Montague.
Evil communications corrupt good manners.--Bible.
No pleasure is comparable to standing on the vantage ground of
truth.--Lord Bacon.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble
thoughts.--Sidney.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with
salt.--New Testament.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.--Shakespeare.
Honest labor bears a lovely face.--Dekker.
The gods give nothing really beautiful without labor and
diligence.--Xenophon.
The key to pleasure is honest work. All dishes taste good with that
sauce.--H. R. Haweis.
Work is as necessary for peace of mind as for health of
body.--Lord Avebury.
Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the
world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the
duty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we ought to
be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the
most effectual contribution to the happiness of others."
Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those
about us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state
of mind into which they throw those about them are not good mannered.
While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in
the great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be
forever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which we
can regale them. Either extreme is more or less absurd and
unwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too
willingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the
Orient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this nature
as to almost arouse our mirth.
An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says: "There must really
have been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these people
who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that a
guest in the home might not be burdened with their sorrow. The habit
is in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning
streamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, black chargers, and funeral
hearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of
all beholders!"
In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching
of morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would
deem it strange if a master gave them an hour's instruction in the
correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters.
Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it
does in Japan where it is counted the most vital instruction of all.
Step by step the Japanese child is led along the course of behavior,
learning how to stand up, sit down, bow, hang up its hat, and how to
think of its parents, brothers and sisters, and of its country. Later
on these lessons are repeated with illustrations from short stories,
and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives of
great men of all countries. Before the end of the course of
instruction is reached all manner of virtues and points of behavior
have been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially
in the case of girls) the proper way of advancing and retiring,
offering and accepting things, sleeping and eating, visiting,
congratulating and condoling, mourning and holding public meetings. So
the school course continues from year to year, the elementary school
course lasting four years and the secondary course four years more,
and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their
duty to ancestors, to other people's property, other people's honor,
other people's freedom, and, finally, to self-discipline, modesty,
dignity, dress, labor, the treatment of animals, and the due relations
of men and women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords"
of creation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior
rather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest
detail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment.
To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of
habit, some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men's behavior,"
said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured," and
he warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait or
point-device, but free for exercise or motion." However, it is better
to err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than to
be thought careless of our persons and our behavior.
Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners,
refinement, good breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the forms
of etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from
savagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one
who does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility.
It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the
breach of written or traditional laws, and choose our society, and
even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommon
occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position in
life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by a
graciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead
to success.
For some quite unwarranted reason society seems to have taken the
position that we have a right to expect more from our girls than from
our boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the view
held by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. The demand
that every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that
which says that every girl must be a gentle woman and a thorough lady.
Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers,
sisters, teachers, society and the world intend that she shall be good
and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of
all that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to
pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities
of person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely to
ask of the readers of these lines--
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
What are you going to do, girls,
With the years that are hurrying on?
Do you mean to begin life's purpose to win
In the freshness and strength of the dawn?
The builders who build in the morning,
At even may joyfully rest,
Their victories won, as they watch the glad sun
Sink down in the beautiful west.
What are you going to do, girls,
With time as it ceaselessly flows?
Are you molding a heart that will pleasures impart
As perfume exhales from the rose?
Let all that is purest and grandest
In duty's fair wreath be entwined;
There is no other grace can illumine the face
Like the charm of a beautiful mind.
A student of the subject of ethics must understand that the true
spirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals.
It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this assertion is
required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moral
teachings, so frequently touches upon the subject of manners. He
teaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openly
rebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seats
at the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues.
The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they
were, themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail
to teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have
left behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a
"Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay
on manners in which he reminds us that a stone must be of very high
value to do without a setting.
The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow and
superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one
wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise
one's self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is
unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield's good manners, fine as
they appear, do not bear the true stamp of genuineness. There is not
the living person back of them possessing heart and character. They
seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure in
the dressmaker's window. True manners mean more than mannerisms. They
cannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rules
to be observed on any and every occasion. They are rather a cultivated
method of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character that
knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to do
without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth.
It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in the
cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than we
otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom we
may meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are
placed. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty
to cultivate one's manners as it is to cultivate one's mind, and no
one can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the nicer
amenities of society than we are when we pay no heed to them.
Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom,
both upon mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principle
magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good
customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young
years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early
custom."
So we see that our true characters are but the expression of our
habits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that are
formed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly and
naturally throughout all the years.
It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "it
is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in
later life the manners and graces that escape us in youth.
Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the good
influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which
to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world
shall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teach
her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward others
whose early years are lived among less advantageous surroundings. For
if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify
her heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost.
Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable
for the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the
prize of gentility which they would obtain. And in this very struggle
against adverse circumstances will be engendered a strength and a
spirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy
equivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment.
It is experience that develops character, and character is the one
thing that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual
thing of supreme beauty.
The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring.
Golden habits that have been hammered out of our life experiences are
to be implicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point.
They have been shaped out of the very necessity of one's surroundings.
They are worth every effort that they have cost. The world will never
know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much of
its beauty it owes to that which we are all so prone to call
DRUDGERY
Dull drudgery, "gray angel of success;"
Enduring purpose, waiting long and long,
Headache or heartache, blent with sigh or song,
Forever delving mid the strife and stress:
Within the bleak confines of your duress
Are laid the firm foundations, deep and strong,
Whereon men build the right against the wrong,--
The toil-wrought monuments that lift and bless.
The coral reefs; the bee's o'erflowing cells;
The Pyramids; all things that shall endure;
The books on books wherein all wisdom dwells,
Are wrought with plodding patience, slow and sure.
Yours the time-tempered fashioning that spells
Of chaos, order, perfect and secure.
[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT]
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[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are
gathered in this section.]
I think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that there
is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made.--Dickens.
Every noble work is at first impossible.--Carlyle.
Truth is a strong thing, let man's life be true.--Browning.
Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous--a spirit
all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.
--Carlyle.
Pass no day idly; youth does not return.--Chinese Proverb.
If, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a
lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the
angels must give.--George MacDonald.
Nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good manners for its
foundation.--Bulwer Lytton.
The common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voices
and blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a music
and its path a light.--H. W. Mabie.
The truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with
many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about
them.--Oliver Wendell Holmes.
It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count
always your highest moments your truest moments.--Phillips Brooks.
We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence
to do good to others with them.--Joseph Cook.
Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things
more worth while than comradeship.--Margaret E. Sangster.
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, and so make life,
death, and the vast forever, one grand, sweet song.--Charles Kingsley.
And to get peace, if you do _want_ it, make for yourself nests of
pleasant thoughts.--Ruskin.
When one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose
that he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy--the
joy of self-sacrifice.--Lyman Abbott.
Morality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous
action, with the best intention founded on principle.--A. E. Winship.
To have a friend is to have one of the sweetest gifts that life can
bring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education of soul
from day to day.--Anna Robertson Brown.
When it comes to doing a thing in this world, I don't ask myself
whether I like it or not, but, what's the best way to get it done.
--Ellen Glasgow.
Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you
shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to
understand it, and you shall hear it.--Ruskin.
There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character. Even the
plainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods.--Newell
Dwight Hillis.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our
prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.--Thoreau.
A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and
treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.--Milton.
Happiness is the natural flower of duty.--Phillips Brooks.
By wisdom wealth is won; but riches purchased wisdom yet for none.
--Bayard Taylor.
It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much.
--George Eliot.
To be a strong hand in the dark to another in the time of need, to be
a cup of strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know
the glory of life.--Hugh Black.
It is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and noble, but
the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to do them.
--R. L. Stevenson.
Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it
hath forsaken thee.--Walter Raleigh.
It is easy to condemn; it is better to pity.--Abbott.
If you don't scale the mountain, you can't view the plain.--Chinese
Proverb.
For him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, life may
lead through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert.--Anonymous.
Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are means the happier to
arise.--William Shakespeare.
Be resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspire
to be.--Thoreau.
If people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of
Heaven would not be far off.--George MacDonald.
The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angel.
--Dickens.
If every day we can feel, if only for a moment, the realization of
being our best selves, you may be sure that we are succeeding.--Bliss
Carman.
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's
stone.--Benjamin Franklin.
He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose
blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into
living peace.--Ruskin.
The fine art of living, indeed, is to draw from each person his best.
--Lilian Whiting.
Reflect upon your present blessings--of which every man has many--not
on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.--Dickens.
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and
life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs--is more
elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.--Thoreau.
Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds.--Congreve.
The microscope gives us a world, a universe, a single drop of
dew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnest
meditation.--Madame Swetchine.
Better is it to have a small portion of good sense, with humility and
a slender understanding, than great treasures of science, with vain
self-complacency.--Thomas a Kempis.
There is one road to peace and that is truth.--Shelley.
He hath from his childhood conversed with books and bookmen; and
always being where the frankincense of the temple was offered, there
must be some perfume remaining about him.--Thomas Fuller.
Everything great is not always good, but all good things are great.
--Demosthenes.
The turmoil of the world will always die, if we set our faces to climb
heavenward.--Hawthorne.
If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or
woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.--George MacDonald.
Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people but to get
ahead of ourselves.--Maltbie D. Babcock.
The narrow kingdom of to-day is better worth ruling over than the
widest past or future.--Edith Wharton.
There's always a bloom on the world if one looks.--Abby M. Roach.
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.--George Eliot.
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