VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS
by
LAURA A. KNOTT
Principal of Bradford Academy
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1916
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Copyright, 1916, by Laura A. Knott
All Rights Reserved
Published March 1916
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TO
THE STUDENTS OF BRADFORD ACADEMY
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
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PREFACE
This volume contains a few of many talks which the author has
given on Sunday afternoons to the students of Bradford Academy.
At their request and for their convenience the volume is
published. While hundreds of addresses to young women of college
age have found their way into print, the books that deal with
the problems and needs of younger girls and that look at life
from their point of view are few. Though these talks were
inspired by the needs of a definite group, the author will be
glad if the book finds a wider audience.
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CONTENTS
I. NEW STARTS IN LIFE
II. SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS
III. THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS
IV. ENDURING HARDNESS
V. THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
VI. THE USES OF TROUBLE
VII. SCHOOL SPIRIT
VIII. MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS
IX. CONFLICTING LOYALTIES
X. THE VALUE OF DISCIPLINE
XI. THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE
XII. THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN
XIII. SOURCES OF HAPPINESS
XIV. AFTER GRADUATION
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VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS
I
NEW STARTS IN LIFE
Life is full of opportunities for new beginnings. Courage and hope go
out of a person only when he ceases to believe that for him there is one
more chance to retrieve the mistakes of the past. George Eliot says, "It
is never too late to be what you might have been." Such a conviction is
necessary if we would live lives of power. There is a sonnet by Senator
Ingalls in which Opportunity is represented as saying,--
"Soon or late
I knock, unbidden, once at every gate!
· · · · · · ·
... those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.
I answer not, and I return no more!"
One who saw life from a different point of view[1] replied by a poem on
the same subject in which Opportunity says,--
"They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win."
The latter view is surely the truer and more inspiring one.
To the person with the forward look and genuine enthusiasm there are
ever-recurring opportunities for a fresh beginning. Indeed, there ought
to be no one for whom each day does not commence the world anew. A
well-known woman, noted for the inspiring and cheer-bringing quality of
her life, used to say upon awakening each morning, "Another great, rich
day!" There is no reason why every one of us should not hail each
returning morning in this spirit.
New Year's Day is proverbially the time for "turning over a new leaf."
The thought of the clean, fresh pages of another year so soon to be
written upon has proved a stimulus and an inspiration in many a life;
and, in spite of all the broken resolutions, the world is on the whole
much better because of a certain fresh impulse to right living which
this day always brings.
Nature has her New Year in the lovely springtime, the time of budding
leaf and blossoming flower and nesting bird. Yet for us human beings the
real New Year's Day of work is neither the first of January nor the
twenty-first of March, but the early autumn. At that time activities of
all sorts that have been dormant throughout the summer take on renewed
life. The stores and shops have a new air of briskness and prosperity;
churches that have languished during the vacation season now settle down
to their wonted usefulness; benevolent organizations open up their
year's campaign; the great army of teachers and students return to their
work rested, freshened and recreated by the long vacation and ready for
new tasks. There is a feeling of joy and strength in the very air.
There is possible at this time, for every student and teacher, a very
real "new start in life." I myself never get over a strange sense of
exhilaration as I realize that another volume of the book of life has
closed and that I am just opening a new one. Never do I cease to be
strangely moved by the thought of the great opportunity that is mine,
the opportunity to retrieve the mistakes of the past. Never do I fail to
be grateful for the privilege of leaving behind me all the blunders and
failures of former years and of beginning life anew.
The student who goes back to the school where other years have been
spent finds much that is different. There are always some new studies,
and no two years ever see quite the same combination of teachers and
pupils. Here, then, are opportunities which may be fraught with
momentous consequences. Some fresh subject may awaken dormant powers,
some new teacher may call forth undreamed-of possibilities, some friend
not yet discovered may add new meaning to life.
But the greatest changes are likely to come to the student who, for the
first time, goes away from home to school or college. Such an event has
been the turning-point in the lives of thousands of men and women. From
that time date their most precious experiences. It was then that they
really began to live. Dull and spiritless, indeed, must be the student
who under such circumstances does not feel his soul stirred within him
with wonder and with expectation. I have always appreciated the feelings
of a young friend of mine, who was hardly able to close her eyes in
sleep the night before she went away to school, so filled was she with
joyful anticipation.
In going away to school among strangers, perhaps the most coveted
opportunity you have is the privilege of taking only your best self with
you. When we live and work with the same people day after day and month
after month, they often get so used to us that they do not recognize the
springing-up of new desires within us and the putting-forth of new
effort, but remember only the faults and failings of the past. When we
go away among those who do not know us, however, our shortcomings will
never be discovered unless they manifest themselves anew. Have you made
mistakes in the past? Have you blundered and have you failed, not once,
but over and over again? Have you been selfish and inconsiderate of the
rights of others? Let no one guess from your conduct now that such has
ever been the case. Have you been indolent, wasting your time, and
placing too high a value upon things not worth while? Among strangers
these faults may be buried, never to come to life again. You will be
judged by what you are, not by what you have been.
It is well to cultivate the habit of mind which lets the dead past bury
its dead. This was St. Paul's attitude toward the things of the past.
"Forgetting the things which are behind, I press forward." There are, of
course, many memories of the past that one would never wish to forget,
memories of uplifting associations and of victories over weaknesses that
give courage and strength for the future. Along with these, however,
there are memories of mistakes and failures now irremediable but which,
though they cannot be effaced, can, in a measure, be atoned for by the
future. Constantly to look backward with pain and regret only paralyzes
one's energy. The fact that much is expected of you for the future
should put you on your mettle and call forth your highest powers.
Your duties and obligations to yourself and to others may, for the most
part, be placed in four classes. You have an intellectual life, a moral
and spiritual life, a social life, and a physical life. Your problem
will be to adjust to one another the various claims upon you from these
different sources. This is not an easy task. It is so difficult, that,
because of inability to make the adjustment, many make shipwreck of what
seemed to be a promising career. Indeed, he is a wise person who at any
age has his life so harmoniously balanced that none of these different
claims unduly crowd the others. Most of us are more or less one-sided.
The best that we can say is that we are working toward the goal of
perfect adjustment. Few reach it.
There are in so-called "society," for example, thousands of women who
have so emphasized one side of their nature, the social, that all other
sides are dwarfed. Life is one constant round of balls and dinners and
social gayeties. What ought to be the spice of life, or its dessert, has
become the main dish of the feast. So in school and college there are
always some who make social pleasures the main issue, forgetting all
higher claims.
We see the exaltation of the physical life in the absurdly exaggerated
emphasis placed upon athletics in many of the colleges for men. The
tacit insistence upon the supreme importance of these and kindred
interests is one of the reasons why scholarship in America is inferior
to that in some European countries. Though athletic interests do not
often encroach upon scholarly work in our schools and colleges for
women, the same cannot be said of other activities, such as dramatics
and the manifold phases of social life.
One who cares only for the things of the intellect may be a "clear, cold
logic engine," but he is not of much use as a human being. Sympathy and
spiritual vision are beyond his ken. The finer side of his nature
remains undeveloped. "He has become a machine," as Emerson declared, "a
thinker, not a man thinking." The student who is merely a grind is not
making the best of his opportunities. In losing all sides of student
life but one, he is not even becoming a scholar in any real sense.
It is even possible to place too much emphasis upon the moral and
spiritual side of life. This does not mean that one's own moral
standards can be too high, nor does it mean that there is anything else
which can weigh for a moment against character. It does mean, however,
that one has other obligations besides that of being good. Many a person
who has walked the path of duty unflinchingly has lived a narrow and
unlovely life.
It will be seen, then, that one of the most difficult lessons the young
student will have to learn will be how much time and how much emphasis
to give to each of these various provinces of student life.
There are people who regard the physical life as an end in itself and
who live only for it. Browning has the right view when he says,--
"To man, propose this test--
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?"
The physical life always should be subordinated to the mental and the
spiritual life, yet the body must command our respect because it is the
house in which the spirit dwells. "Know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you?" One of your first duties,
then, is to take care of your health and to make your body the
efficient, ready instrument of your will. You have no more important
duty, not only to self, but to others, than to obey the laws of health,
the most fundamental of which pertain to exercise, sleep, rest, and
food. It is astonishing how few people, especially how few women, there
are who do obey these simple laws, the importance of which ought to be
apparent to every one. Nature's disapproval of such disobedience is
shown promptly, and the penalty she inflicts is inexorable. If ever I
feel inclined to doubt the wisdom of any of Nature's ways--which I
really do not--it is when I see that girls, young, ignorant, and
inexperienced, have so important a matter as their health given into
their own keeping, though their bad judgment or wilfulness may have
consequences so dire! Be willing to deny yourself, to put forth effort,
to pay a very high price if need be, for a healthy body.
The desire for social intercourse is natural and right, and the person
who shuns the society of others is abnormal; yet social intercourse
probably offers, in one form or another, most of the dangers which beset
both young women and young men while in school or college. Those who
fail ignominiously and are obliged to withdraw, fail, not so often
because of lack of ability or insufficient preparation as because they
are swept off their feet by the multitude of their new engagements and
social activities. The mind is full of a thousand other things and study
is deferred until a more convenient season, which never comes. In the
college, where comparatively little supervision over students is
exercised, this has disastrous consequences, though in the school, with
its closer supervision, the student is often saved from himself. It
seems hardly necessary to say that your friends and your pleasures must
not monopolize your whole life. With the sensible student, work comes
first and pleasure afterward. One of the greatest temptations, when you
are surrounded by pleasant friends, is to fritter time away. Hours,
days, months pass by and leave very little that makes life permanently
richer and stronger. Sometimes, indeed, the personality seems almost to
disappear, merged in that of others. I have known girls who were
miserable if they were left alone for half an hour. The reason is that
they have no resources within themselves. They are parasites and derive
their sustenance entirely from others. Such a life is not providing
itself with the intellectual and spiritual resources which we all need
to have at our command, and which should be gained in youth or they are
not likely to be gained at all. Be friendly, be sociable, give your love
freely, but preserve your own individuality and independence.
In no way do we reveal ourselves more surely than in our choice of
companions. Be slow in choosing your nearest and dearest friends. Many a
girl has been very unhappy because she rushed impetuously into a
friendship from which she afterward had to extricate herself at the cost
of great suffering both to herself and to her friend. Take plenty of
time in selecting those who are to be your life friends, and remember
that here, as everywhere, "All is not gold that glitters."
The intellectual life above all else distinguishes man from the brute
creation. Schools and colleges exist chiefly for the purpose of
developing the intellectual life of the young, though one sometimes
meets students who would admit the truth of that statement very
reluctantly if at all. A well-disciplined and well-furnished mind is one
of the chief satisfactions of life. Changing fortune cannot take from us
our mental treasure. Its value never diminishes, but increases, and
never seems greater than when other things upon which we relied have
been snatched from us. If we place reliance upon money, it may take to
itself wings and fly away. We cannot be sure of keeping health. Our
friends may be taken from us. Is it not the part of wisdom, in looking
forward and preparing for what one hopes may be a successful and happy
future, to ask what are the "durable satisfactions" of life? These
should not be sacrificed for ephemeral pleasures.
The ability to focus a well-trained intelligence upon any problem in
hand is one for which we should be willing to pay a high price.
Intellectual capacity and a cultivated mind are not acquired without
effort, and cannot be secured by merely sitting through lectures or
recitations. The student who has a true sense of values will plan her
life in so systematic and orderly a way that her use of time will be
determined by something more than present inclination. You must remember
that in order to have _this_, you must give up _that_. One of the
hardest things for the inexperienced to learn is that some very good
things have to be sacrificed in order that we may not miss better
things. All through life this is so, and there is no advantage in
deferring the time when it must be learned. To your daily work, then,
give your best self, realizing that if you fail in that, you will derive
but little comfort from the fact that you have had some success in other
things. Mental concentration and correct methods of work should be the
first lessons learned, and they should be learned with thoroughness.
Lastly, we have a moral and spiritual nature. One might have superb
intellectual powers and brilliant social gifts, yet if he lacked
character, these would bring him neither content nor success in any
large sense. Character is the foundation upon which all success worthy
the name must rest. If the foundation be insecure, it matters little how
fine the superstructure. When the writer of old said, "With all thy
getting, get wisdom," he meant something more than knowledge. Wisdom
means insight into life and into human nature. Still more, it implies
some comprehension of "the ways of God with men," that is, of the
profound laws which underlie the government of the moral and spiritual
universe. The greatest struggle of all, to the student, should be the
struggle for the ideal life. In moral and spiritual stature, are you
small? Then it is your sacred duty to become large. Where will there
ever be a better opportunity than under the ideal conditions that
surround you, with stimulating lessons, inspiring teachers,
understanding and appreciative friends and leisure to use all of these
for the attainment of personal power?
Remember that character is not something that will take care of itself.
You do not really expect to acquire knowledge for which you do not work.
You admit that if you would have intellectual capacity you must study
and train the mind. Yet it is hard for you to comprehend that you have
anything to do with the development of your own character. Do not
believe that honor, courage, generosity and courtesy come by chance.
There is this to be said, however, about the development of character.
It is, to use Woodrow Wilson's phrase, "a by-product." As he says, it
comes whether you will or not as a consequence of a life devoted to
duty. You do not deliberately say, "I will improve my character." What
you do say is, "I will do the duty that plainly lies before me. I will
not shirk it. I will not defer it." In this way, and perhaps only in
this way, does character grow.
There is no royal road to high character any more than there is to
learning. Indeed, there is no royal road to anything worth while. "What
wouldst thou?" says the old proverb; "Pay for it and take it." Character
is formed from within, by the efforts and strivings and aspirations of
the individual. The will is made strong by choosing the right, not by
having the right thrust upon it.
Who can tell what momentous changes are to be wrought in your life by
going away to school? The windows of your soul will be opened in a
hundred new directions. You will learn, or you ought to learn, what
things are most worth while. There is so much more in life than you ever
dreamed there was, so much more of interest and beauty and abiding
charm! This means that even if you do your best there will be time for
you to master only a little of that knowledge which attracts its
devotees and forever beckons them on. Life is too short either to know
or to do but a fraction of all that every earnest person longs to know
and to do. Until we reach this view of things we can have no sense of
the true value of time. As soon as we do reach it, as soon as we grasp
something of the real worth of life, we cannot waste time, for time is
the stuff of which life is made.
-----
Footnote 1:
Walter Malone.
II
SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS
"Send a boy to college," says Emerson, "and his fellows educate him";
and Edward Everett Hale has said that the best part of the education one
gets at college is that which his fellow students give him. I have
always felt sorry for those unfortunate children whose solitary
education is obtained with tutors or governesses rather than in schools
with other boys and girls. While not disparaging the influence of the
teacher, which I well know from personal experience may be a
transforming and vitalizing power in a young life, I yet believe it to
be true that the standards of most young people and their ways of
looking at life are determined chiefly by the companions and intimate
associates of their own age.
During certain periods of development, at any rate, the youth is shaped
by the opinions and ideals of the world of his own contemporaries,
rather than, as we teachers and parents sometimes fondly imagine, by the
ideals imposed upon him from our world. We who have passed beyond that
stage can recall how truly we lived and moved and had our being in that
world, with its standards which now, perhaps, seem to us somewhat
unreal. In matters of dress, speech, and deportment how much less we
cared for the opinion of our elders than for the approval of our group
or "set" of friends! This period of life may be soon outgrown, but while
it lasts there are tremendous forces at work upon the young life, and
their potency for good or evil is often underestimated.
Chief among these forces for good is a good friendship. The real meaning
of unselfishness has many a time been learned first through a strong
friendship. Love is essentially self-forgetful. Only he who has learned
to love has learned to live. Nothing more surely calls out the best in
one and compels one to do his best than an ennobling friendship. Such
friendships, then, should be encouraged and young people should have
abundant opportunity for forming them. One of the many advantages a fine
school offers over even the best private instruction is the rich
opportunity for congenial friendships. Like attracts like, and the
finest spirits in the school will be your friends if you have that
within you which draws them and can hold them. What you are to be during
all the remainder of your life will be determined largely by the friends
chosen now, for they will help to give your nature its bent, from which
it is not likely to depart. Afterward, looking back, you will not be
able to comprehend how life could have been lived at all if you had
never met certain persons who have become a part of your very existence.
It is not only in youth that friendship is one of the chief blessings of
life. It has been regarded by the choicest spirits of every age as among
the best gifts of the gods to men. Open any book of "familiar
quotations" and you may read the tributes that have been paid to
friendship by the great poets, from Bible times to the present. It has
generally been believed, however, that youth is the time when the most
transforming and most enduring friendships are made. This is, doubtless,
because later in life we are likely to become engrossed with our own
affairs, the cares of life press upon us, character becomes fixed, and
the outgoing of self demanded in a true friendship becomes increasingly
difficult. Yet, though youth is the ideal time for the formation of
lasting friendships, the great lack, at this period of life, is a true
sense of values. We do not enjoy our friendships to their full because
we do not realize their worth.
Youth is wasteful of many things, but perhaps of nothing more than of
friendship. Too many people wake up later in life to find that what has
been so thoughtlessly thrown away never can be regained. The privilege
of having a friend and the privilege of being a friend are among the
greatest blessings this world affords. To discover in middle life that
the friends of one's youth have, one by one, fallen away, because one
made no effort to keep them, will be a sad awakening.
We all have our own conception of friendship, based upon our own
experiences; thus to no two persons does the term mean exactly the same.
To some the content of the word grows richer and deeper as life goes on,
while with others the reverse is true. The cynic believes there is no
such thing as true friendship, yet the cynic once was young and probably
not a stranger to the transforming power of friendship. What we are to
believe about friendship, then, depends upon our own character and upon
the kind of life we live.
It takes ideal people to form an ideal friendship; therefore there are
not many such friendships. Erring human beings that we are, we carry our
frailties into every relation of life. "I am of opinion," says Cicero,
"that except among the virtuous, friendship cannot exist." Have you a
real friend? While it is true that the friendship between you may not be
an ideal one, it is also true that through it you and your friend are
both having a rare opportunity to grow toward your ideal and in this way
to make your friendship perfect. Would you rid yourself of egregious
faults? There are two instead of one to grapple with each fault. Would
you march on to the attainment of more splendid virtues? There are two
instead of one to struggle and to win the victory.
How to make friends perhaps no one can tell you, since friends are born,
not made. We choose our pleasures, our books, our occupations, but we do
not choose our friends. We only discover them. The formation of a
friendship is an unconscious process and must be so. There can be
nothing deliberate and premeditated about it. Why is it that one sees
the best in you and another the worst? Why does one understand before
you speak while another cannot understand even after you explain? If we
could answer these questions we should be able to reduce friendship to a
mathematical formula, which no one wishes to do. The mystery of it is
one of its charms. One can only say as did Montaigne about his friend,
"If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him I can
only answer, because it was he, because it was I." Some people attract
us by a certain intuition of character. If the intuition be true and if
there be adaptability and community of interests, a foundation exists
for a close and enduring friendship.
The basis for friendship is personality. You have nothing to give your
friend but yourself. You should, therefore, make heavy demands upon
yourself. Can you offer your friend anything less than a constantly
enriching life? Good intentions are not enough; there must be
performance. You have probably asked yourself many times whether you
deserve this high friendship. Perhaps you do not. Then resolve that you
sometime will deserve it. You are interesting to your friend now. What
can you do that you may be more so to-morrow?
Those who lack the power of making friends--and there are unfortunately
many such--have one of two failings, or both. Often they are not
sincere. The insincere person cannot be a true friend and may not have a
true friend. We demand that our friends shall "ring true." A much more
common fault than insincerity is selfishness. One may be not positively
and actively selfish but self-centered. The self-centered person does
not know how to enter sympathetically into the feelings of others. Such
persons should earnestly strive to share the joys and sorrows of those
about them and to make the experiences of others their own. Sometimes we
say of a person, "He has a genius for making friends." Such persons have
in an eminent degree the capacity for carrying close to their hearts the
interests of others. Remember that unless you really care about the
concerns and the welfare of others, there is no possible way to make
them believe you do.
It is worth while to cultivate the art of making friends, or, rather, it
is worth while to put forth every effort to make one's self worthy of
having friends. He who said that a friend "doubles our joys and halves
our sorrows" might have expressed it even more strongly. The author of
the Book of Ecclesiastes understood this when he wrote, "Two are better
than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they
fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when
he falleth; for he hath not another to help him."
You owe your friend, first of all, integrity of character and sincerity
in all your dealings. With your friend you can be yourself, your real
self. Any pretense, any deceit, any concealment of vital things will
create a barrier that nothing can ever break down. You may or you may
not admit your friend to the inmost recesses of your heart, but so far
as you do admit her, there must be straightforward honesty. Integrity
includes not only our dealings with our friends, it affects all our
relations with others. The oft-quoted couplet from Lovelace expresses a
truth which it behooves every one to take to heart who would be or would
have a friend:--
"I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honour more."
No real friendship can exist without loyalty on both sides. It is the
place of a friend to look after the interests of her friend as if they
were her own. Much inspiration may be gained from studying the great
friendships of history, such as that of David and Jonathan, of Ruth and
Naomi, or of Tennyson and Hallam. Does your friendship in comparison
with any one of these seem insignificant, even puerile? Then use the
greatest friendship of which you know as a touchstone by which to test
your own. For a real friend to speak an unkind word about an absent
friend is unthinkable. To envy her, or to desire precedence over her in
any way, is proof that your love for her is not real, but only assumed.
How far should loyalty go? We all remember the answer of Christ when
asked, "How often should I forgive my brother, until seven times?" His
answer, until "seventy times seven," means, as we all know, that there
should be no limit to one's forgiveness. In the same way, there should
be no limit to your loyalty to your friend. It should be bounded only by
her need and your power.
Of course, there should be community of interests and mutual trust and
self-revelation. You have friends whom you admit only to the outer
citadel of your heart. Some are "good company" and you love to share
your pleasures with them, but in your serious moments you turn away from
them. Others share your work, or some special interest in your life. But
with your real friend you share the deepest things of your existence.
She understands you in your highest moments, she respects your ideals
and shares them, she comprehends the fundamental purpose of your life.
Only friends who can share each other's best selves know the highest
friendship.
I have said that there must be mutual self-revelation. Never make the
mistake of urging the confidence of your friend. Do not force any doors.
If you have not the key that unlocks her heart, try to find it by making
yourself worthy. Self-giving must be voluntary or it is in vain. We
elicit from others only that which we have the power to make our own.
Mutual trust would forever banish all petty jealousy. Your friend is not
accountable to you for all her doings, and for you to act as if she were
will only estrange her from you. Life is too rich in opportunity for her
to be limited by any one relationship. If your friend's life is to
expand, her claims upon others and theirs upon her must be recognized.
If your friendship is a worthy one, you are constantly gaining in
patience, in courtesy, and in self-control, for love is the greatest of
all teachers. Do you promptly check each impatient word that springs to
your lips? Do you show the friend who so easily overlooks your faults
the same fine courtesy that you show to the stranger who would not
overlook them? What a strange idea we sometimes have that love gives us
the privilege of rudeness! Your friend may love you in spite of an
occasional fit of ill-temper, but no one ever loved another better for
it. To be exacting, domineering, or selfish may not drive your friend
completely away from you, but it will not strengthen the tie that binds
your hearts together.
There should be a certain equality between friends. I do not mean that
love is not able easily to bridge over many kinds of inequalities, as
that of a difference in station in life or in age, or even in education.
I mean that a friendship is harmful when one of the friends is a
parasite, receiving everything and contributing nothing. Self-respect
demands that each shall give as well as receive.
In his essay on "Friendship," Emerson says no truer word than this:
"Your friend is he who makes you do what you can." One must not be a
fault-finder or a thorn in the flesh of one's friends, yet friendship
has no more sacred duty than to point out faults by showing the better
way. "He who truly loves is irreconcilable to faults in one whom he
loves; they blur the vision which always lies in his soul."
On the other hand, it is especially the office of a friend to recognize
the excellencies of his friend. "Your friend is he who tells you of your
virtues and who insists upon them most when you are most inclined to
doubt their existence." Who of us is not at times sorely in need of this
kindly office of a friend? In our moments of discouragement, when faith
in self is at a low ebb, the true friend comes to us and by his faith in
us restores the balance of life. And what a comfort then is that belief
in us and in our powers and possibilities! Friends who do not perform
this office, each for the other, as often as the opportunity arises,
have missed much of the blessedness of true friendship!
Those who love know that love is not blind. Love has the truest sight.
If you want to know what a person really is, do not ask one who hates
him, but one who loves him. Yet love may blind itself. To shut your eyes
to the faults of your friend is not the way to lessen those faults. To
stand between her and the penalty which her deeds have justly brought
upon her is to deprive her of one of the most important means of growth.
If your affection is of a poor and narrow sort, you will constantly urge
your friend to consult her own pleasure and interests in preference to
those of others, in this way stifling in her every altruistic impulse.
Acting and reacting upon each other in this way you will find that
generous feeling and disinterested affection in both of you will
constantly diminish. Any two people who love each other should cherish,
each in the other, the spirit of self-forgetful service.
A friendship, like everything else in life, is known by its fruits. "Men
do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs from thistles." The fruits of a
worthy friendship are higher and ever higher ideals of life and duty. If
your friendship has made you less sensitive to other obligations and
less responsive to the call of duty, beware of it! If your love for one
has lessened your affection for your other friends, it is not a good
friendship. Friendship should expand the heart, not contract it.
Everything savoring of narrowness and exclusiveness is a hindrance. You
must love your friend so much that you love the whole world better
because of her. You must respect and reverence her so truly that all
human nature is dignified and ennobled through her.
"All things through thee take nobler form
And look beyond the earth;
The mill-round of our fate appears
A sun-path in thy worth."
What is the place of the emotional element in friendship? Not the chief
place, it may be confidently asserted. In the richest and most enduring
friendships, other things are of more importance. Not that there is an
absence of emotion--far from it. The danger, however, of
over-emphasizing emotion is that the friendship may descend to mere
sentimentality. What is more important than emotion in friendship, do
you ask? The unity of spirit that gradually takes place in a fine
friendship; the feeling that each is perfectly understood by the other;
and the knowledge that each can depend upon the other's loyalty in any
and every emergency of life.
It usually takes years to learn how to _be_ a true friend and often some
hard experiences are necessary to teach us to appreciate our friends.
Sometimes we look back upon the wasted years, and, thinking how rich and
happy they might have been, we cry out, "If I had only known!" And
sometimes, alas! our friends have to be taken from us ere we learn their
worth. Then, as we sit alone with our thoughts, with what a heartache do
we remember our every failure to measure up to the stature of the
perfect friend!
If you would be a true friend and if you would appreciate your friends
now, without waiting for costly lessons, ask yourself some searching
questions. Do you care more about what you can get out of your
friendship or about what you can put into it? Do you think more about
being served or about serving? Do you wonder whether your friend loves
you enough or whether you cannot love her more? Do you never imagine
yourself slighted or neglected or misunderstood? If you can answer these
questions as they ought to be answered, you are on the way to a perfect
friendship. Phillips Brooks, who was famous for his friendships, wrote,
"Surely there is no more beautiful sight to see in all this world than
the growth of two friends' natures, who, as they grow old together, are
always fathoming with newer needs deeper depths of each other's life and
opening richer views of one another's helpfulness."
Does friendship cost anything? Yes. All the best things in the world
cost something and only they can have them who are willing to pay the
price. In its highest and most enduring form friendship belongs, as I
have said, only to the highest and finest natures. So much does it cost
that no others will--perhaps no others can--pay the price. What is the
price? That is the point--one never knows the cost in advance. Whatever
the price, however, the true friend is ready to pay it. No sacrifice is
too great to make for a real friend.
Yet, sad to say, many a friendship makes shipwreck even though no
heroic, sublimely self-sacrificing deeds were demanded of either of the
parties to it. The things that would have kept it alive were so little,
so easy, but they were too much! After your school days are over and you
and your friend have gone your separate ways, it will take time to write
those weekly letters. Will your friendship be worth enough to you to pay
that price? And by and by, when new interests have come into your life,
it will be even less easy to perform those offices of friendship which
must not be neglected if friends are to continue to have any share in
each other's lives. To keep up the pretty customs of old--to send the
birthday gift, the Christmas remembrance, the occasional message of warm
and unchanging love--all these things take time in such a busy world!
And so "the little rift within the lute" appears, which, ever widening,
will slowly silence all. It is not a cheerful story, but it is the
history of many a friendship which had believed itself eternal. Some of
our early friendships we outgrow, and it is best that we should. It is
part of "putting away childish things." But if we realized what we were
doing, it is inconceivable that we should ever depart so far from the
dreams of our youth as to let any true friendship go.
Unless you are very watchful and loving, then, the old friends will, one
by one, drop out of your life and make no sign. I beg that you will see
to it that there is at least a handful of them left. They should be the
real ones, who genuinely loved you and always will. "Grapple them to thy
soul with hoops of steel." Never let them go. Let no changing tides of
fortune sweep them from you. Be very patient with them as you expect
them to be with you. Make allowances for the innumerable appearances of
neglect, saying to yourself that they are only appearances. Friends who
bear and forbear with each other in this way will find that the
friendship grows deeper and stronger with each succeeding year.
If you really want to be such a friend as I have described, I can think
of nothing that will help you more than to read over often the
thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, that
matchless chapter on _love_, and to try to make your affection as near
as possible like that which he describes. Nowhere else, in the Bible or
out of it, have we so clear, so true, so moving a description of love.
Just to read it over brings a glow to the heart and a kindlier feeling
toward the whole human race. Let the love that you give to your friends
be the love that suffereth long and is kind; that envieth not, that
seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked; that beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; above all,
that _never faileth_.
III
THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS
You may not think living with others is an art, but it is one of the
finest and most difficult of arts. By learning it early in life we save
ourselves many unpleasant experiences. If we are difficult to live with,
our punishment is severe and inexorable. No one will live with us who
can escape from us. We all know people who, upon entering a room, bring
with them a cloud. On the other hand, we also know those whose coming
always brings sunshine. Some one said of a young friend of mine of
unusually radiant personality, "When she went down the corridor it
seemed as if a light had passed by." A Boston daily paper once had this
item: "Yesterday was dark and rainy, but Phillips Brooks passed down
Newspaper Row and the sun shone." It goes without saying that these
persons were good to live with.
One may be honest, sincere, generous, and, in the main, kind, and yet be
difficult to live with because of the absence of the so-called lesser
virtues. We must have the elemental virtues as foundations of character,
but they are not enough. As a Bible writer puts it, it is "the little
foxes that spoil the vineyards." The "little foxes" are the little
faults which arise within us almost unnoticed, and which grow upon us
with added years. Some of these faults cause people to want to avoid us
and seek the company of those who are pleasanter to have about. To want
to be liked is a laudable desire when one does not sacrifice anything
higher for it. To aim to be a person whose presence brings gladness to
others is not only your right, but your duty. There is a cheap
popularity which those who seek it are willing to purchase at any cost.
That is not what I am talking about. I will name some of the little
faults which often spoil an otherwise admirable character.
_Unnecessary criticism of others._ I say _unnecessary_ criticism. All
honor and praise to the one who can speak the word of admonishment or
reproof when it ought to be spoken and in the right spirit and the right
manner; who can give warning or suggestion at the proper time and place
and in a tactful way. We all need more friends who are not afraid to
tell us of our faults with the high motive of aiding us to overcome
them; who will even run the risk of losing our friendship in order that
they may help us to be true to our best selves. But how much of the
fault-finding in the world does any good or is intended to do any good?
Is it not true that much of it merely gives vent to irritability on the
part of the fault-finder? The next time you are tempted to find fault,
ask yourself two questions: First, will it do any good? Next, am I doing
it in the right spirit? Unless these two questions can be answered in
the affirmative, then silence is golden. Moreover, criticism should,
whenever possible, be tempered with praise. We can take much from one
who recognizes the good in us and who knows that our virtues far
outweigh our failings.
Another of the little foxes is _fretfulness_, _grumbling_, _nagging_,
call it what you will. We all recognize it when we come in contact with
it and probably we have been shocked at times to discover it in
ourselves. This fault grows rapidly in the atmosphere of loving
tolerance. It never would have an opportunity to develop in us if we
were not surrounded by those who love us, make excuses for us, and put
up with us. Strangers would not submit to it and we should not think of
asking them to do so. It is a subtle danger, that creeps on us so
stealthily that often we are not aware of its approach. It may come at
first from some disordered physical state. The happy, healthy child does
not whine, the ailing child usually does; too often this is the
beginning of an irritability that pursues its victim through life.
We Americans are a nervous, excitable people, partly, perhaps, because
of climatic conditions. A stimulating climate fosters a tendency to
disorders of the nervous system. We should, therefore, be on our guard
against this type of sin that doth so easily beset us. Our physical
condition is usually more within our control than we are willing to
admit. The girl who keeps late hours, takes little exercise, and eats
injudiciously is morally responsible for her irritable condition, for
the remedy is in her own hands. Can you not remember some time when you
retired at night feeling ill-used and unappreciated, filled with the
thought that life was full of trials and crosses and that your lot was
particularly unhappy--only to wake up the next morning in a glorious
world where your condition in life seemed a very fortunate one? It is
not necessary to adduce arguments to prove that one of your first duties
is to keep yourself every day and every hour of your life in the best
possible physical condition. You can conquer only by making it a matter
of conscience. Alternating work and rest, sufficient recreation and
amusement, and always some change after prolonged labor are necessary to
keep one in good physical condition. As a result, you find yourself in
possession of a serenity and a self-control which forbid irritability.
Have you a quick, hot _temper_? You cannot live amicably with others
until you have learned to control it. A display of temper is the flash
of lightning, the burst of flame. It is all over in an instant, yet, in
a fit of temper what may one not say or do? He is "beside himself," we
say--that is, he is no longer himself, but some one else outside of
himself. Have you ever, in a burst of temper, wounded those you love
best in all the world? Have you said or done things that you feared had
lost you the respect of some one whose good opinion was of priceless
value to you? Have you given utterance to words that you would give
years of your life to recall? If so, worse, almost, than anything else,
is the fact that you have lost your own self-respect. What is more
undignified, more ridiculous than one who has lost control of himself
and is saying and doing things to-day of which he will bitterly repent
to-morrow? Remember that nothing can more easily cost you the respect of
others than a display of temper. Thereafter you are marked as one who
lacks balance, dignity, power.
"If wishing could bring them back,
If wishing could bring them back--
The wrathful words that flew away
To mar the joy of another's day--
If wishing could bring them back!"
But wishing cannot bring them back, as we all know to our cost. The only
thing to do is to learn our lesson and in the future to keep the mastery
of self. "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a
city."
If you have a quick temper, do not bemoan the fact, but be thankful. It
probably means that you have spirit, enthusiasm, power to do things, the
achieving will. Do not ask to change places with the sluggish person who
lacks the capacity to feel keenly and to dare greatly. Rather, learn to
control your temper instead of letting it control you. We do not admire
a person who cannot get angry.
In reading the biography of a great man recently, I found these words:
"He had the power of a great wrath." Is it not true that all people who
have accomplished large things have had this power? George Washington
was seldom angry, yet, when his righteous indignation was roused, it was
like a consuming fire. We all remember the story of Abraham Lincoln,
who, when only a young man, seeing some slaves auctioned off in the New
Orleans slave market, declared, "If I ever get a chance to hit that
thing I will hit it hard!" And he did hit it hard. St. Paul says, "Be ye
angry and sin not." Christ himself more than once showed the power of a
great indignation, as witness the occasion when he drove the
money-changers out of the temple with a whip of cords. There are wrongs
being done that should cause your blood to boil with indignation, and
you will be not less but more capable of feeling and expressing your
wrath at wrong-doing if you control yourself when small things cross
you.