BE GOOD TO YOURSELF.
I witnessed the other day a parting between two men. The elder, as he
took the younger by the hand, said, "Good-by, my boy; be good to
yourself;" and the younger responded, heartily, "Oh, there is no
danger but I'll be that." I wondered, as I saw the laughing face, so
full of the indications of the love of pleasure, if he really would be
good to himself, or if he would interpret it to mean to indulge
himself in all kinds of sensuous gratification. It is a great thing to
be truly good to one's self, and I would give the injunction with the
highest ideal. Be good to your real self with that true goodness that
sees the end from the beginning, that realizes the tendency of certain
forms of pleasure, and that claims the privilege of being master of
the senses, and not their slave.
"Well," you say, rather deprecatingly, "you can't expect young people
to act as staid and wise as you old folks. We want some fun." So you
do, and that is perfectly right. You should want fun and have fun. All
I ask is that you shall try to understand what real, true fun is.
I have seen young folks pull the chair from under some one "for fun,"
and the result was pain and perhaps permanent injury to the object of
the joke.
I have known young men to imagine they were having "fun" when they
went on a spree, to get "gloriously drunk," as they phrased it. You
can see no fun in this. You realize that it is a most serious tragedy,
with not an element of real fun in it, involving, as it does, the loss
of health, the risking of life, the possibility of crime, the
heart-break of friends, and perhaps even death. It is altogether a
wrong idea of fun.
I have known girls in the secrecy of their rooms to smoke cigarettes
"for fun," and in that I am sure that you see no amusement. It was a
lowering of the standard of womanhood; it was tampering with a poison;
it was something to be ashamed of, rather than something to call fun.
I have known young men and women to enter into flirtations "for fun."
I knew a girl whose chief delight seemed to be in getting young men in
love with her, only to cast them aside when tired of their adoration.
She called this fun, but it was cruelty. In olden times men amused
themselves by throwing Christians to wild beasts and watching them
while being torn to pieces. This was their idea of fun, and the
flirt's idea of amusement seems to be of the same order. She plays
with the man as the cat with the mouse, and experiences no pangs of
conscience when, torn and bleeding in heart, she tosses him aside for
a new victim.
There are other young people who would not enter into such serious
flirtations, and yet are unduly familiar with each other. They mean
nothing by their endearments and familiarities, and neither will
suffer any pangs when the pleasant intimacy is ended. Can we not call
this innocent fun? They have indulged in some unobserved
hand-pressures, or a few stolen kisses; but neither believed the other
to mean anything serious. It was only fun; what harm could there be in
that?
Many girls to-day are reasoning thus, and many of these may pass
through the experience without loss of reputation; they may
subsequently marry honorably, and become respected and beloved
mothers. But ask any of these girls, in her mature years, when her own
daughters are growing up around her, if she wants them to pass through
the same experiences. I once knew a beautiful young woman who thought
it was fun to have these familiar intimacies with young men, because,
as she said, she knew how far to go. I saw her in her maturity, with
daughters of her own, and heard her say that when she recalled her own
girlish escapades, even in the darkness of the night the blushes would
rush over her from head to foot, and in heartfelt agony she would say
to herself, "Oh, I wonder if my girls will ever do so?"
It was fun to her in her girlhood; it was shame to her in her mature
remembrance; it was agony when she saw it possible to her own
children.
True fun is fun in anticipation, fun in realization, fun in
retrospection, and fun in seeing it repeated by succeeding
generations. If it fails to be fun in any of these instances, it fails
to be genuine.
I like to see young people full of vivacity. I like to hear their
merry laughter, to witness their innocent pranks; but I do not like to
see them laughing at the sufferings of others, or amusing themselves
with dangers of any kind. Above all, I regret to see them playing with
the fire of physical passion.
Many a girl who to-day is lost to virtue had no idea that she was
starting on this downward road. She was only having a good time. She
was pretty, attractive, and admired. Young men flattered her with
words, and when they held her hand, or put their arm around her, she
took it as another compliment to her charms. She did not see that it
was only selfishness, only a desire to feel the thrills of physical
pleasure which this contact with her person aroused. She would have
felt humiliated had she recognized this fact, and it seems to me that
girls should understand the feelings that prompt young men to take
personal familiarities.
The young man might deny the fact to the girl, but he understands it
well enough as a fact, and he loses a measure of respect for her
because she is willing to permit his advances. The girl no doubt
imagines that these are sweet little secrets between herself and the
young man, when perhaps he is discussing her openly with his young men
friends. I have even heard such discussions on railway trains, carried
on in no very low tones, between young men, well dressed and with all
the outward appearances of gentlemen, and I have wondered how Jennie
and Sadie and Clara and Nellie, whose names I heard openly mentioned,
would have felt to have heard themselves described as "a nice, soft
little thing to hug," or "she knows how to kiss."
Do you imagine these young men would have thus spoken had they truly
respected the girls? They might say "They are nice girls," but would
they say, in their deeper consciousness, "They are true,
self-respecting, womanly girls, and I honor them?"
"But what is a girl to do?" asks one. "If she is prudish she won't get
any attention. She has to allow a certain innocent freedom, or young
men won't go with her."
Do you really believe that, dear girl? Let me tell you what young men
have said to me. Said one, "O, we have to be familiar with the girls.
They all expect it, and would be offended if we were just friendly and
manifested no familiarities." Do you suppose girls ever thought of the
possibility of the young men saying that? When they are pleading for
permission to be familiar they do sometimes say, "Why, all the girls
allow it," but they also add, "so there can be no harm;" while among
themselves they are laughing at the credulity of the girls, or
accusing them of making it necessary for the young men to take
"innocent" liberties in order to have the good will of the girls.
A young man may assure you most emphatically that he respects you none
the less, although you allow him to hold your hand or kiss you at
parting, but he knows it is not true, and he will admit it to others
rather than to the girl herself. Truthful young men say, "Of course,
we have the most respect for the girls who keep us at a distance."
"But they won't pay us attention," say the girls. "Is that so?" I
asked of a young man. "Are you more earnest in pursuit of the girl who
courts approaches, or the girl who holds you at bay?" "Why!" responded
he, with emphasis, "the girls ought to know that a boy wants most that
which is hardest to get; but we are actually obliged to treat the
girls with familiarity or they won't go with us." And this young man
seemed really surprised when I assured him that girls supposed they
were obliged to accept caresses in order to have the attention of
young men. Then this same young man spoke of something that I know to
be too often true. He said, "It is strange, if the girls don't want
these things, that they act as they do, for they actually invite
familiarity. In fact, many times I would have been glad to be
respectfully friendly, but the girls did not seem satisfied, and by
many little ways and manners they indicated that they were ready to be
caressed. I think they mean to be good girls, but they put an awful
lot of temptation in a fellow's way."
No doubt these girls did not realize what they were doing, but I
believe every young woman should have so clear an understanding of
human nature as to know that she is playing with a dangerous fire when
she allows caresses and unbecoming familiarity. She ought to know
that, while she may hold herself above criminal deeds, if she permits
fondlings and caresses she may be directly responsible for arousing a
passion in the young man that may lead him to go out from her presence
and seek the company of dissolute women, and thus lose his honor and
purity because a girl who called herself virtuous tempted him. Is she
in truth more honorable than the outcast woman? She has allowed
familiarities in the matter of embraces and kisses, and she may not
know what thoughts have been inspired in the mind of the young man by
her unguarded conduct. She may feel indignant at the suggestion,
because she has meant no harm, but in reality she should blush that
her own familiar conduct has given him a tacit right to think of her
with even greater freedom.
Girls have a wonderful responsibility in regard even to the moral
conduct of young men, and the self-respecting girl will guard herself
not only from the contamination of touch, but from an undue freedom of
thought.
Do you say she cannot govern the thoughts of men? I reply, she can to
a great extent. By a dress that exposes her person to public gaze, or
even more seductively hides it under a film of suggestive lace, she
has given a direction to the thoughts of those who look at her. She
has declared that their eyes may touch her, that their thoughts may be
occupied with an inventory of her physical charms. She has openly
announced that she is willing to be appraised by eyes of men as a
beautiful animal. What wonder if their thoughts go further than her
public declaration, and that they may freely surmise the charms that
still remain hidden?
When a girl, by putting herself into graceful attitudes in tempting
nearness to a young man, casts coquettish glances, she has done that
which will give a turn to the thought which may prove provocative of
deeds.
"I am afraid of that girl," said a young man who desired to live
purely. "May be she does not mean it, but her poses and glances make
it almost impossible for me to keep my hands off of her. I am obliged
to leave her for fear that I shall kiss her when she looks so
mischievously alluring."
The girl, perhaps, would have been flattered by the kiss and indignant
at further liberties, yet would have felt no compunctions had her
victim been inflamed by a passion that he lacked the power to control,
prompting him to seek some other girl to be his prey.
You think men should have self-control. So they should. We will not
lessen the blame of the young man, but the girl who puts the
temptation in his way, even if she did not herself yield to it, is not
guiltless.
The conduct of a pure woman should be the safeguard and not the
destruction of a man, and she can be his protector, even as he is
hers. I heard an eminent woman say that woman was man's moral
protector, and man woman's physical protector, and I said that is only
half true. Man is also woman's moral protector, and woman is also
man's physical protector. She is acknowledged to be his physical
tempter. If she knows her power she can, by her wise, modest, womanly
demeanor, make it impossible for him to feel an impure impulse in her
presence. Ruskin says:
"You cannot think that the buckling on of the knight's armor by his
lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of
an eternal truth--that the soul's armor is never well set to the heart
unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it
loosely that the honor of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely
lines--I would they were learned by all youthful ladies of England--
"'Ah wasteful woman! she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing he cannot choose but pay--
How has she cheapen'd Paradise!
How given for nought her priceless gift,
How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine!'"