own lives truly, faithfully, earnestly and the best we possibly can. It
is for us to find out how—not sit down or hamper our work with worrying
about the how.
There are two ways of walking through the world—plodding dejectedly along
with our eyes on the muddy road, seeing only the obstacles in our way and
feeling only the burdens on our backs; or holding our heads high, seeing
the beautiful broad sky above, smelling the scent of flowers, tasting the
delights of living and feeling the love of God. Which shall we choose?
A pleasant face carries joy and sheds sunshine. A worried, harassed
countenance may make a whole roomful miserable. Every happy thought
lends a pleasant line to the face, and there is no excuse for looking
otherwise. All girls are more or less pretty at twenty; but it has been
her own fault if the woman of fifty has not the best kind of beauty—that
indefinable sweetness of graciousness that reflects itself in every
feature of the face. Happiness is ours if we will but reach out for our
small share and make the most of it. But if we reject it, saying, “What
have we in common with thee?” we deserve to be miserable, and we are.
More than that, we are disagreeable to other people; and in this world
that is a thing we ought to consider.
Nothing that other people say or do can affect us much unless we let
it, and it is much easier not to be troubled by outside worries—and all
worries are outside our true lives—than to nurse trouble.
Did you ever try to help a person who will not be helped? To shed
sunshine into a soul that will not empty itself or be emptied of shadows?
Is there anything more discouraging? But after all, the best thing we
can do for our friends is to be good and fine and true. Nothing tells
like living. “The kingdom of heaven” is within. When we truly desire the
best, we lose the certainty that it is revealed only to us and to those
who agree with us.
God opens a great fountain of truth, that shows itself in many springs;
we hold our cups for its waters of life, and our cups are of many shapes,
molded by our own hands and decorated with our own thoughts; but they all
hold living water, and the shape or pattern of the cup signifies nothing.
If we keep this thought in mind, we shall not be overmuch disturbed that
we cannot rule our world. As time goes on we change our cups; we learn to
make them of larger mold and of more beautiful pattern, but however much
we may draw from the fountain, its flow does not diminish, and no one is
denied the water of life.
It is of no importance whether you or I see first the vision for which
the world waits. The important thing is that we do not insist that others
shall see it before their time. Emerson says: “God screens us evermore
from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden, that we cannot see things that
stare us in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened;
then we behold them, and the time that we saw them not is like a dream.”
We wait for the child. We are tenderly patient while he stumbles in
learning to walk, patient also when we find that he must develop his
character by his own experiences, and not by ours. Let us be patient with
each other and with the world.
Nobody can make us happy. It all depends upon ourselves; and by the same
token nobody can make us unhappy. What will you take from life’s menu? a
strengthening feast of joy and sweetness, or the blighting, unsatisfying
fare of bitterness and discouragement? It’s just for you to choose.
And always remember that your song may cheer some one behind you whose
courage is sinking low.
“Dear restless heart, be still, for peace is God’s own smile,
His love can every wrong and sorrow reconcile;
Just love and love and love and calmly wait awhile.
“Dear restless heart, be still; don’t fret and worry so;
God hath a thousand ways His love and help to show;
Just trust and trust and trust until His will you know.”
X
ON SOLITUDE
It is the custom to cry out against the lack of originality in woman;
and it is quite true that those who have achieved it have first known
the blessedness of solitude. It is the only way. It is difficult for the
average woman to realize it, but she either takes too much from or gives
too much to her friends. But the best and truest friendships are perhaps
those which cannot stand the crucial test of a perpetual companionship.
Just because one happens to know the power of giving out much, of feeling
intensely, of being for the time so very much to those for whom she
cares—precisely for this reason will she need at times to draw into
herself, to go away, to be alone, to rest.
Especially is this true if those friends have the sympathetic temperament
which takes its color partly from its surroundings. Your happiness,
then, becomes partly theirs; they share in your anxiety, your sorrow,
your depression—in everything, in fact, that belongs to you. In like
manner they compel you to feel with them; and the result, perhaps,
hardly recognized at the time, is to make you aware that you have been
interested most intensely, that you have given out without intending it,
something almost too intimate and too much your own to be so given.
Some of the bitterest lessons in life are learned through such
intimacies. Sometimes we refuse to recognize those friends who take all
and give nothing, until they have absorbed everything and we are left
like a dry sponge to realize their unfaithfulness. But it is through such
lessons that we come to know the chaff from the wheat and to realize
the need of an inner strength which shall enable us to stand upon our
own feet. Hence it is that even friends who know each other through and
through, and who are congenial down to the very lightest mood, ought
still to shun a life that will bring them into too close relationship and
prevent their individual development.
Women have been slow to realize this. For generations women have been
sheltered, protected and cared for until they have been contented to
dwell in a state of contented babyhood. Think for an instant of a boy,
surrounded from infancy with the influences that have enveloped girlhood.
Keep him done up in cotton wool throughout childhood and youth, taught
never to raise his voice for fear of being “unladylike,” never to assert
his rights, never to be himself and to accept without question the
decision and opinions of others on all topics outside the nursery. Repeat
this experience with successive generations of boys, and where would your
“superiority of man” be?
On the other hand, let your girls out into the sunlight and air, teach
them the free use of muscles and mind, and reprove them not if, in the
beginning, they are crude, and women will cease to be the complacent and
gregarious beings they have been; they will cease to worship the fetish
of Who is Who and What is What; they will cease to fear the awful and
unblinking eye of Society and be ready to seek and find themselves.
Women are needed in all good work more to-day than ever before. Let us
remember, then, the more we are in ourselves the more we can do for
others. There is nothing greater in life, nothing greater in Christianity
than this great principle of service and love for others. Kindliness,
helpfulness, service; these three were never more needed than now. The
great-hearted, sympathetic, charitable, brave, intelligent woman is
needed everywhere, in the home as much, yes, more than in public service.
It is hers to enlarge her own horizons and to lose her pettiness by
loyal, intelligent service. The narrow, self-centered mother cannot do
for her family what the mother does who possesses a trained and logical
mind. It is not only the value of the moral judgment which suffers from a
lack of privacy and individual freedom; it is the quality of the feminine
mind itself which degenerates by overcrowding.
The hearthstone is no less sacred because intelligence reigns there; the
touch of woman’s hand is no less tender because she studies Shakespeare
and proposes measures for the beautifying of her town and the alleviation
of the sufferings of its people; the press of baby fingers upon the
mother’s brow will ever be dearer than the plaudits of the multitude.
But we should not forget that we need to have our horizons broadened. We
need to accustom ourselves to larger views of life and of work. So long
as our lives are bounded by our towns, or even our own States—so long
are we neglecting our opportunities. Naturally, we are most interested
in the things around us, and our own particular kind of work seems to us
the greatest thing of the kind. But if we shut ourselves up in that, we
cannot grow. We must be interested to know what others are doing, and if
they are getting more out of life, or, more important yet, putting more
into life, than we.
We cannot do this by confining our interests and sympathies to the
territory which is actually bounded by the geographical horizon that
surrounds our home. We may not be able to actually _do_ much for ours,
but there is no limit to what we may be interested in. And the larger
our interests the larger are we. It is impossible for us to accustom
ourselves to large views of life and broad sympathies for the world’s
charities and remain narrow and petty ourselves.
Of course, it was a little Boston girl, sitting at the family dinner
table while her father and his friends carried on a serious discussion as
to the child of nowadays. They were lamenting the fact that the children
to-day seem so blasé, so little affected by things grave or gay. “Why,”
said the father, “my children read without a tear, books that used to
make me weep! It seems as if all emotion has gone out of them.” Whereupon
our little friend looked up and remarked, with overpowering dignity, “Oh,
papa, it is not that emotion has gone out, but self-control has come in.”
Wasn’t the child right? This is an age of self-control. It is supposed to
be the correct thing to hide our emotions, and, like most correct things,
it is often carried too far. How often we hear people wax eloquent, even
to tears, over the help they have received from some friend who is no
longer with them on earth—some quiet, unseen personality, whose power
over their lives they now fully realize. Are we not sometimes tempted
to wonder, in listening to such tributes, how often in their lifetime
they received such devotion, such recognition? Do we not catch ourselves
hoping that they used sometimes to put their arms about their mother and
say, “What a good mother you are to me!” But how sadly true it is that
the glowing tribute, the costly monument, the piled-up roses, are often
attempts to atone for lost opportunities.
He was a wise man who said, “Give me a little taffy now rather than a lot
of epitaphy later on.” Not “taffy,” but honest appreciation is due the
woman who goes patiently day after day about her business, not worrying
about the future, not getting easily discouraged, and knowing just how to
conserve herself for their best interests.
We might all be helped by adopting the following, which was put forth
some years ago as a “Business Man’s New Year Endeavor,” although I cannot
see why it will not do for an every-day endeavor for every woman:
“To be joyous in my work, moderate in my pleasures, chary in my
confidences, faithful in my friendships; to be energetic but not
excitable, enthusiastic but not fanatical; loyal to the truth, as I see
it, but ever open-minded to the newer light; to abhor gush as I would
profanity, and hate cant as I would a lie; to be careful in my promises,
punctual in my engagements, candid with myself and frank with others; to
discourage shams and rejoice in all that is beautiful and true; to do my
work and live my life so that neither shall require defence or apology;
to honor no one simply because rich or famous, and despise no one because
humble or poor; to be gentle and considerate toward the weak; respectful
yet self-respecting toward the great, courteous to all, obsequious to
none; to seek wisdom from great books and inspiration from good men; to
invigorate my mind with noble thoughts, as I do my body with sunshine
and fresh air; to prize all sweet human friendships and seek to make at
least one home happy; to have charity for the erring, sympathy for the
sorrowing, cheer for the despondent; to leave the world a little better
off because of me; and to leave it, when I must, bravely and cheerfully,
with faith in God and good will to all my fellow-men; this shall be my
endeavor during the coming year.”
When a woman learns to turn her back upon the common, the regular, the
accepted, and prove for herself the blessedness of solitude, she learns
to find her mental balance.
“The love or hatred of solitude,” says Schopenhauer, “does not depend
on the good or evil disposition of the heart, but on the natural wealth
or poverty of the mind.” Let us go farther and say it depends also upon
the amount of mental discipline and the habit of standing upon one’s
own intellectual feet. We need to love the silence of the stars and the
blackness of midnight. We need the courage to face ourselves in the
blessedness of solitude. What the crowd gives is only an average, a
commonplace goodness; let us be strong enough to seek acquaintanceship
with the highest by the only legitimate path, which is marked “Solitude,”
and be thankful if it be not hedged about by thorns and thick darkness.
To the woman who would be individual, who wants to be an inspiration
and a beneficence, there is but one message: Be not afraid of yourself;
get acquainted with the deeps of your own nature; face the shortcomings
of your own spirit. Go into the open country alone if you can; if not,
take a little time out of every twenty-four hours to think. Just as
the observance of the Sabbath is a wise thing from a physiological
standpoint, so are self-communion and its breathing spaces a blessing to
the individual.
As I have said before and say often, it rests with the woman herself
whether she will be like a rose tree, full of brightness and fragrance,
a help, a comfort and an inspiration; or whether she will degenerate
into a mere replica of other women who wear good clothes, do and say the
conventional, commonplace thing and are as uninteresting as a sunset
without a flush of color. Are we “building ourselves fairy palaces
proof against all adversity?” Are we learning the continuous habit of
serious consecutive thought and clearing our minds from the loose-fibred
accumulations of generations?
If girls could be left to themselves as boys are, and allowed to know
from childhood the blessed privilege of unconscious self-companionship,
and the solitary communion of earth and air and sky, would not the other
side of their natures be developed? Would not they learn to form their
own opinions, and hold independent ideas, just as naturally as boys? To
those occasional seasons when a woman seems to have lost her hold on life
is owing some of the most helpful work ever given to the world. Take the
case of Helen Hunt. What poet has ever given us more real heart-lifting
words, more soulful encouragement and inspiration than she? And yet,
not until after grief and bereavement had swept in a perfect storm over
her life and left her prostrate, not till after she had for months
blankly faced the problem of a seemingly blasted life, did she begin to
realize the object of her existence—the message of help for the world
which must come through bitter pain and trial. Not until after she knew
the blessedness of solitude, and had wrestled alone with her angel of
renunciation did she see the lesson of life and experience the strength
that comes after drinking the cup of disenchantment.
There is no such thing as standing face to face with our inmost selves,
of divesting ourselves of all pretense and sham while in the company
of others, even the most intimate friend. “We do not speak our deepest
feelings—our inmost thoughts have no revealings.” A certain sensitiveness
debars us, even when we would do so, from showing either our best or our
worst qualities. We even keep them veiled from ourselves, except when
some exigency of sorrow or surprise reveals them momentarily, or we face
ourselves alone in the blackness of night. It is then that real thought
begins, that independence of intellect is generated, that the power of
concentrated, serious mentality begins. A prominent woman writer, in an
account of her travels in Scotland, tells of a half-hour in which she
was left behind in a rough climb, by her companions. “To see the falls
was of small account,” says she. “But just once in a lifetime to have
a few blessed moments all to one’s self in those sweet, wild Highland
solitudes, would not that be worth the having?” That half-hour was
worth more than a whole week of castle-seeing in company with a crowd
of tourists. A good digestion is as necessary to a hearty dinner as the
viands composing it. And there are plenty of thoughtful women who can
say with truth, “I should die if I could not sometimes be alone.” We may
love our friends never so well, but there are times when we must face
ourselves and “take account of stock” intellectually and morally.
There is a delight beyond expression in the realization of mental and
spiritual individuality. To know and to feel that one is an independent,
thinking being with the divine right to judge for herself, and the
capability for sustained mental work, is an inheritance which woman is
now coming into with deep and holy joy.
The world needs strong women more than ever before; it needs them as the
established rule, not as the exception. What have you and I to do about
it? Let us have less “gabble” and more real gain; less noise and flurry
and more of the benefits of heart-stillness.
Be still; the crown of life is silentness.
Give thou a quiet hour to each long day.
Too much of time we spend in profitless
And foolish talk—too little do we say.
If thou wouldst gather words that shall avail,
Learning a wisdom worthy to express,
Leave for a while thy chat and empty tale—
Study the golden speech of silentness.
XI
ON WOMEN’S CLUBS
It has been the fashion, and is still with a certain class of people, to
disparage the woman’s club. They say the club is a place where gossip and
backbiting flourish, and the virtues of love and charity and tolerance
are chiefly conspicuous by their absence. I have even known a brilliant
lecturer, who depends for her audiences on these same women’s clubs, to
refuse to lend a hand in any active work, saying she “did not believe in
women’s clubs, because the members are selfish, self-seeking and trivial;
because the club women are all envious and uncharitable.”
Now, isn’t this sweeping accusation rather unjust? When we look about
and see what women have accomplished for their own sex since the
clubs were established; when we look about and see what the clubs
are really doing to-day for their communities; when we count up the
libraries, the improved sanitary conditions of towns and cities, the
increased educational advantages; when we realize the increased average
intelligence of the average woman who belongs to current events classes
and literary clubs; when, in short, we note the broadening of character
in the average individual club woman, is this a fair statement?
To be sure, there are narrow-minded, envious women in clubs. Alas! we
all know them. One such woman is enough to injure seriously the work of
a small club; half a dozen of her can give a large club a bad name—a
reputation for backbiting and all uncharitableness. Half a dozen such
women can keep a club in a chronic quarrelsome state, and by spreading
evil reports outside can destroy all its usefulness in a community. But
in the most notorious of such affairs the trouble is caused by a mere
handful of narrow-minded women, while nine-tenths of the membership
sit sadly by in shamed silence. Shall they be condemned because of the
quarrelsome few?
But in the vast majority of clubs the spirit of petty rivalry and
self-seeking which is sometimes noticeable in individual cases is
fast disappearing, or has never materialized. There is such a great
and splendid work for the women’s clubs to do that the earnest, noble,
unselfish woman becomes absorbed in something beyond self-seeking. She
ceases to care whether her name stands first on the list of committees,
or, indeed, whether it is there at all. She ceases to mind if she is left
off the list of after-dinner speakers at the annual banquet. She ceases
to suffer an envious pang because her enemy is asked to write the club
poem, for the simple reason that she has ceased to be conscious of an
enemy.
She has ceased to feel the slights which may have grieved her in the
past, because she has ceased to “wear a chip on her shoulder.” She has
come to rejoice and be glad in any good thing that may befall any good
woman because she has grown broad-minded enough to recognize that honor
and glory falling to one woman mean honor and glory for the cause of
all women; that in these days the advancement of woman and the glory of
womanhood comes to all and for all and through all of us. For such is
the real sisterhood of woman. The club movement was never more serious,
perhaps never so earnest as it is to-day. It may be because women are
finding how much better it is to do than to talk, to be than to vainly
imagine. As one bright woman said: “It doesn’t always mean that a woman
is growing because she talks a great deal.”
The ordinary club woman who is a busy wife and mother seeks her club as a
rest and a change from the activities of home; the friendships she forms
there make an added interest to her life and help to get her out of the
treadmill of her daily existence. The ordinary wife and mother has plenty
to do in her own family, to be sure, but she can do that plenty ten times
as well for the change that is afforded by an hour or two at the club
each week; for there she is transported to a different environment, sees
through another pair of eyes and comes in contact with another set of
minds. She goes home rested, refreshed and stimulated through her club
friendships. She has not belittled herself with club gossip, but she has
enlarged her sympathies and taken a fresh outlook on life.
If this is true of the woman who has her days crowded full with home
ties and home interests, how much more is it true of the woman who has
no home ties; and unfortunately we have hundreds, yes, thousands of such
women in this country. In the club memberships there are not only many
unmarried women, but there are widows who have been bereft of their
families, and a goodly proportion of comfortable matrons whose children
have grown up and left home, either to establish nests of their own or to
go into business for themselves. The club has been the salvation of all
these women and has prevented their growing old before their time. “There
are no old women nowadays,” says some one, and it is largely because we
have women’s clubs, where women keep young without thinking about it.
There is nothing that develops a woman better, or that broadens her
character more than a club life. Give her something to think about,
something to take away with her when she comes into the club; she will
soon be willing to do her share of the work, and then she will begin to
grow. Many a fine president of to-day can recall the time when she was
afraid of her own voice, when she accepted her first bit of committee
work with fear and trembling. And she knows that the years between have
been years of growth and helpfulness and work for others. For, after
all, that is the true secret of the good club woman—helpfulness to
others. She who goes on to committees and works her way through the lower
offices and up to the president’s chair simply from personal ambition and
self-seeking pride, is not the good club woman, nor the really successful
one. For in these modern days personal ambition is more plainly discerned
than it used to be, and the woman who climbs into the presidential chair
merely for personal glorification is not destined to sit there long.