Are you “too proud to work?”
Are you one of those girls who come from a family who have tried to
maintain their local social identity by imitating the practices of
people with means? Have you led yourself to believe that you will be
classed as one of the common herd if you engage in a commercial
endeavor? Are you blindly applying 18th-century customs to a period when
commercial aggressiveness is a mark of distinction? Are you wasting your
life away trying to make yourself and others believe that you possess an
artistic temperament, when in reality you are nothing but an ordinary
person with a twisted viewpoint, trying to be someone or something which
you are not.
You, too, have two roads open to you.
The first one is to continue staying at home depriving yourself of the
luxuries and happiness in life, and be regarded as an aristocrat by two
or three dozen people who don’t know the difference between an
aristocrat and a hippopotamus; and even if they did, it wouldn’t make
any difference. Of course, if you continue on this road, you have this
advantage: You can get all your relations together once or twice each
year and go back over your family tree and praise each ancestor,
relating in detail his super-qualities, etc., which should make all of
those assembled very happy and proud. You will also have the advantage
of being able to entertain new acquaintances (very much to their
disgust) with the story of how your ancestors maneuvered from the time
they were gallant knights of King Arthur’s Round Table to the day they
stepped off the Mayflower at Plymouth. (If you happen to have any sense
of humor, of course you will confine these stories solely to your
relations when they congregate for the purpose of rehearsing these
folklore epics.)
You will also have the advantage of retaining that state of mind which
keeps you believing that your mentality is away above par and that
people will somehow, sometime, understand and appreciate your worth to
the world.
There are many other advantages (?) which the whole world is willing you
claim if you follow your present road.
The other road open to you is to stop trying to keep up an outward
appearance at the cost of depriving yourself of happiness. Stop trying
to be a big frog in a little puddle. Open your eyes and look about you.
Try to realize what an insignificant speck on the horizon you really
are. Try to realize that there are millions of people in the world who
have every quality, plus, which you think is exclusive with your family,
and remember that the only ones of these millions that the world
respects are the aggressive ones who “give” constructive effort to their
respective communities. Remember the world does not respect a person who
only “takes” what nature furnishes. There is no place in America for
these idlers. The day of inheriting a position that commands respect is
past. You will have to prove your worth or you will be eliminated by one
of the “common herd” who really “delivers the goods.” That familiar law
“the survival of the fittest” always has and always will be the
regulator.
There must be times in your life when you have flashes of realization,
when you must see the fallacy of your ideas. You must realize the
wonderful experience and pleasure which you are missing. You are going
through life blindly. You will pass out of this world without knowing
the real world you have lived in, for the world of your life is a myth
and like all myths the truth will be revealed to you.
Our plan will not only bring you prosperity and plenty, but will
actually pave the way for you to accomplish the higher ideals which you
are dreaming about. Bury your pride. Stop living for the benefit of your
friends or to keep up a family tradition which is rendering every
generation of your family weaker and poorer. Pretty soon the people who
now respect you will charge your whole family as being lazy and
worthless to the community.