272The Crown of Beauty
Theglory and the crown of physical perfection is beautiful hair. Venus would not charm us if she were bald, and neither poet, painter, nor sculptor would dare to give us a “subject” which should lack this, the charm of all other charms. Neither is it a modern fancy. Homer, when he would praise Helen, calls her “the beautiful-haired Helen,” and Petronius, in his famous picture of Circe, makes much of “trailing locks.”
The loveliness of long hair in woman seems never to have been disputed, and it had also a very wide acceptance as a mark of masculine strength and beauty. St. Paul, it is true, says that it is a shame to a man to have long hair, but his opinion is not to be taken without reservation, for both the273traditions of poetry and painting give to the Saviour, and also to the Beloved Disciple, long locks of curling brown hair. The Greek warriors and most of the Asiatic nations prided themselves on their long hair, and the Romans gave a great significance to it by making it the badge of a freeman. Cæsar, too, distinctly says that he always compelled the men of a province which he had conquered to shave off their hair in token of submission.
The Saxon and Danish rulers of England were equally famous for their long yellow locks, and the fashion continued with little or no intermission until the dynasty of the Tudor kings. They affected, for some reason or other, short hair; and “King Hal” is undoubtedly indebted for his “bluff look” to the short, thick crop which he wore. The fashion even extended to the women of that age, and their pictured faces, with their hair all hidden away under acoif, have a most hard, stiff, and unlovely appearance. Under the Stuarts, long, flowing hair again became fashionable with the Royalist party, who made their “love locks” the sign and274emblem of their loyalty. On the contrary, the Puritans made short hair almost a tenet of faith and a part of their creed. Within the last ten years hair has been again the sign of political feeling, for, during the Civil War, the Southern women in favor of the Confederacy wore one long curl behind the left ear, while those in favor of the Union wore one behind each ear.
During the last century men have gradually cut their hair shorter and shorter. They pretend, of course, fashion dictates the order; but a woman may be allowed to doubt whether necessity did not first dictate to fashion. Certainly ladies prefer in men hair that is moderately long, thick, and curling, to the penitentiary style of last year. And suppose they could have long hair, but cut it for their own comfort, the act says very little for their gallantry. I have no need to point to the chignons, braids, and artifices which women use to lengthen their hair in order to please men, who decline to return the compliment, even to a degree that would be vastly becoming to them.
After the length of hair, color is the point275of most interest. In reality there are but two colors, black and red. Brown, golden, yellow, etc., are intermediate, the difference in shade being determined by the sulphur and oxygen or carbon which prevails. In black hair, carbon exceeds; in golden hair, sulphur and oxygen. It has been insisted that climate determines the color of hair; that fair-haired people are found north of parallel 48°; brown hair between 48° and 45°; which would include Northern France, Switzerland, Bohemia, Austria, and touch Georgia and Circassia, Canada, and the northern part of Maine; and that below that line come the black-haired races of Spain, Naples, Turkey, etc., etc. But this is easily disproved. Take, for instance, the parallel 50° and follow it round the world. Upon it may be found the curly, golden-haired European; the black, straight hair of the Mongolian and American Indian, and again, in Canada, it will give us the fair-haired Saxon girl. So, then, it is race, and not climate, which determines the color. I am inclined to think, too, that temperament has something to do with it, since we find276black-haired Celts, golden-haired Venetians, and fair and black-haired Jews.
The ancient civilized nations passionately admired red hair. Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Turks, and Spaniards have given it to their warriors and beauties. Somehow among the Anglo-Saxon race it has a bad reputation. Both in novels and plays it is common to give the rascal of the plot “villanous red hair;” and in the English school of painters, the traitor Judas is generally distinguished by it. In the East, black is the favorite color, and the Persians abhor a red-haired woman. Light brown or golden hair is the universal favorite. The Greeks gave it to Apollo, Venus, and Minerva. The Romans had such a passion for it that, in the days of the Empire, light hair brought from Germany (to make wigs for Roman ladies) sold for its weight in gold. The Germans themselves, not content with the beautiful hair Nature had given them, made a soap of goat’s tallow and beechwood ashes to brighten the color. Homer loved “blondes,” and Milton and Shakespeare are full of golden-haired beauties, while the277pages of the novelist and the galleries of painters, ancient and modern, show the same preference.
Lavater insists greatly on the color of hair as an index to the disposition. “Chestnut hair,” he says, “indicates love of change and great vivacity; black hair, passion, strength, ambition, and energy; fair hair, mildness, tenderness, and judgment.”
Fashion has dressed the hair in many absurd and also in many beautiful forms; but through all changes, curls, floating free and natural, have had a majority of admirers. Some one says that “of all the revolvers aimed at men’s hearts, curls are the most deadly,” and from the persistent instinct of women in retaining them, I am inclined to indorse this statement. The Armenians and some other Asiatics twist the hair into the form of a mitre; the Parthians and Persians leave it long and floating; the Scythians and Goths wear it short, thick, and bristling; the Arabians and kindred people often cut it on the crown. In the South of Europe, “to be in the hair” is a common expression for unmarried girls, because they wear their278hair long and flowing, while matrons put it up in a coil at the back of the head.
Until the ninth century in England, Nature pretty much led the fashions in hair-dressing; then plaits turned up on each side of the cheek were introduced; and in the eleventh century the hair all disappeared under the head-dress of that time. Early in the sixteenth century ladies began to “turn up” the hair. Queen Margaret of Navarre frizzed and turned back her abundant locks just as the women of our own day do. The custom, too, that is now prevalent of braiding the hair in two long locks and tying them at the ends with ribbons was a favorite style in the early part of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century women used powder to such an extent as almost to destroy the color of the hair, and during the past hundred years every possible arrangement and non-arrangement has had a temporary favor.
I have nothing to say about the customs of the present day. If there is any property in which a woman has undisputed right, it is279surely in her own hair; and if she chooses to wear it in an unbecoming or inartistic style, it is certainly no one’s business that I can perceive. Assuredly not the men’s, since I have already shown that they, either through inability or selfishness, decline to wear the thick, flowing locks with which Nature crowns manly strength and beauty, and which are all women’s admiration.
The majority of women have a natural taste in this matter, and very few are so silly as to sacrifice their beauty to fashion. Two or three rules are fundamental in all arrangements of the hair: one is that a superabundance at the back of the head always imparts an animal expression; another, that it is peculiarly ugly to sweep the whole forehead bare. The Greeks, supreme authorities on all subjects of beauty and taste, were never guilty of such an atrocity. In all their exquisite statues the hair is set low. A third is that “bands” are the most trying of allcoiffures, and never ought to be adopted except by faces of classic beauty. To add them to a round, merry face with a nose retroussé is as absurd as to put a280Doric frieze on an irregular building. A general and positive one is that all hair is spoiled, both in quality and color, by oiling, for it takes from it that elasticity and lightness which is its chief charm and characteristic; the last (which I have no hope ladies will heed just at present) is, never to hide the natural form of the head.
281Waste of Vitality
Ifwe come to reflect upon it, in middle age we find that the one great cause of departure from the ideal in real life is our liability to take cold. Almost all our pleasures are bound up with this probability, for when we have taken cold we are far too stupid either to give or enjoy pleasure. And there is no philosophy connected with colds. Serious illnesses are full of instruction and resignation, but who thinks of being resigned to a cold, or of making a profitable use of it?
“Chilly” is a word that of late years has come to be a frequent and pitiably significant one on the lips of the middle-aged. They have a terror of the frost and snow which they once enjoyed so keenly, and they really suffer much more than they will allow themselves to confess.
The most invigorating and inspiriting of all climates is 64°, but if the glass fall to28250°, chilly people are miserable; they feel draughts everywhere, especially on the face, and very likely the first symptoms of a neuralgic attack. At 40°—which must have been the in-door winter temperature of our forefathers—they become irritable and shivery, and lose all energy. If the temperature fall below 30°, they “take cold,” and exhibit all the mental inertia and many of the physical symptoms of influenza, which nevertheless has not attacked them.
Let us at once admit a truth: the young and robust despise the chilly for their chilliness, for there is such a thing as physical pride, and a very unpleasant thing it is in families. These physical Pharisees are always recommending the “roughing” and “hardening” process, and they would gladly revive for the poor invalid the cold-water torture of the past.
Without being conscious of it, they are cruel. Chilly people are not made better by the unsympathetic remarks of those of quicker blood. There is no good in assuring them that the cold is healthy and seasonable. They feel keenly the half-joking283imputation of “cosseting,” though perhaps they are too inert and miserable to defend themselves.
Strong walking exercise is the remedy always proposed. Many cannot take it. Others make a laudable effort to follow the prescription, and perhaps during it feel a glow of warmth to which in the house—though the house is thoroughly warmed—they are strangers. But half an hour after their return home the tide of life has receded again, and they are as chilly and nervous as before.
Nevertheless, they have passed through an experience which, if they would consider it, indicates their relief, if not their cure. While out-of-doors they thought it necessary to cover their feet with warm hosiery and thick boots, the head with a bonnet and veil, their hands with gloves and a fur muff, their body with some fur or wadded garment half an inch thick. In short, when they went out they imitated Nature, and protected themselves as she does animals.
But just as soon as they return home284they uncover their head and hands, replace the warm, heavy clothing of the feet with some of a more elegant but far colder quality, and take off altogether the thick warm garments worn out-of-doors. A bear that should follow the same course when it went home to its snug subterranean den would naturally enough die of some pulmonary disease. Nations which are subjected to long and severe winters have learned the more natural and excellent way. The Laplander keeps on his fur, the Russian his wadded garment, the Tartar his sheep-skin, the Shetlander goes about in his house in his wadmal. It is only in our high state of civilization that men and women divest themselves of half their clothing with the thermometer below zero, and then run to the fire to warm their freezing hands and feet.
If warm clothing protects us out of the house, it will do the same in the house; and it is no more “coddling,” and much more sensible and satisfactory than cowering over a grate. Under the head-dress a silk skullcap is a most effective protection against285draughts, and would prevent many an attack of neuralgia. A silk or wash-leather vest will keep the body at a more equable temperature than the best fire. A shawl to most middle-aged ladies is a graceful toilet adjunct even in the house, and it is capable of retaining as well as of imparting much warmth. When very chilly after removal of outside wraps, or from any other cause, try a wadded dressing-gown over the usual clothing. In five minutes the added comfort will be recognized.
The secret is, then, to keep the body at its proper temperature in the house by the adoption of sufficient warm clothing, instead of trusting to artificially heated atmosphere. No one will be more liable to take cold out of the house because she has been warm in the house. There is no more sense in shivering in-doors in order to prepare the body to endure the out-door climate than there would be in sleeping with too few blankets for fear of increasing the sense of cold when out of bed.
A stuffy room, with air constantly heated to 75°, is the most efficacious invention286ever devised for ruining health. But it is equally true thathabitual warmthis the very best preserver of constitutional strength in middle and old age; and undoubtedly this is best maintained by a temperature of 68° and plenty of clothing.
A very important aid to warmth is a proper diet. Many women who suffer continually from a sense of chill, below the tide of healthy life, have yet constantly at hand an abundance of nourishing food. But they eat one day at one hour, the next at another; they don’t care what they eat, and take anything a flippant-minded cook chooses to send them; they wait for some one when themselves hungry, out of mere domestic courtesy; and when their husbands are from home they take tea and biscuits because it is not worth while giving servants the trouble of cooking for them alone. In all these and many similar ways vitality is continually lost, and with every loss of vitality there is a corresponding access of slow, chilly, shivering inertia.
It is a great mistake that women are taught from childhood that it is meritorious287in their sex to conceal their own wants, and to postpone their own convenience to that of fathers, brothers, husbands, and even servants. For in the end they break down, and are left in a state of ill health in which all the wheels of life run slow. The trouble, in a sentence, is that womenhave no wives—no one to remind them when they are in a draught, or come in with wet feet, no one to get them a warm drink when chilly, and ward off the little ills (which soon become great ones) by loving, thoughtful, constant care and attention.
All women know how hard it is to live the usual life of work and amusement in a physical condition of far below the requisite strength. Nothing induces this condition like chronic chill. In it no vitality can be gained, and very much may be continually lost. Therefore every plan should be tried which promises to raise the temperature to a healthy standard. Try the effect of a room heated to 68°, and plenty of warm, constantly warm clothing.
288A Little Matter of Money
“Itis unpleasant not to have money,” says Mr. Hazlitt; indeed, it has become a sort of social offence to be short of virtue in this respect; for both nationally and personally, we are loath to confess so tragic a calamity. We may assert that, having food and clothes, we are therewith content, and that we would not encounter the perils and snares of vast wealth; but are we quite sure that this humility and contentment is not a fine name for being too lazy to earn money, or too extravagant to keep it? Again, if all were content with the simple satisfaction of their necessities—if nobody wanted to be rich—nobody would be industrious or frugal, or strive to acquire knowledge. Who then would build our churches, and endow our colleges? Who would send out missionaries, and encourage science and inventions?289The golden grapes may be out of our reach, but they are a noble fruit when pressed by kindly hands, and have given graciously unto the world their wine of consolation.
The fact is that we have come to a time in which the want of money is about as bad a moral distemper as the love of it. The latter position is an admitted truth; the former is only beginning to put forth its claims to the notice of professed moralists. Whatever special virtue there was in poverty seems to be in direct antagonism to the spirit of the present day; for there is no doubt that worldly prosperity has come to be regarded as one of the legitimate fruits of the gospel. The modern Church puts forth her hands and grasps the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come. Why not? Money gives a power of doing good that nothing material can equal. Even “The Truth” has now to depend on the currency, and the most evangelical societies pay treasurers as well as missionaries.
The amount of money in a man’s pocket is a great moral factor. He who has plenty of ready cash and is not good-natured needs a290thorough change, and nothing but being born again will cure him. But the man who is in a chronic state of poverty is a man placed in selfish relations to every one around him. How hard it is for such a one to be generous, just, and sympathetic! He is almost compelled to look on his fellow-creatures with the eye of a slave-merchant, to consider: How can they profit me? What can I gain by them? He must marry for money, or not marry for the want of it. His friendship is a kind of traffic. His religion is subject to considerations, for he will either go to church for a certain connection, or he will not go at all because of the collections.
Now, there is abundance of living strength in Christianity to meet this and all other special wants of the age. There is no doubt that money is the principle of our social gravitation, and we need preachers who will not be afraid to tell us the truth, even though nobody has ever told it just in that particular way before. We accept without demur all that has been said about the evils of loving money; will some of our spiritual teachers tell us how to avoid the evils and cure the291moral and physical distress caused by the want of money? That this is a gigantic evil, we have constant proof in the daily papers; in murder, theft, suicide, domestic misery and cruelty. These criminals are far seldomer influenced by the love of money than by the want of it. If instead of being without a dollar, they had had sufficient for their necessities, would they have run such risks, incurred such guilt, staked life on one desperate chance, flung it away in despairing misery?
Of course the word “sufficient” is very elastic. It can be so moderate and temperate; and again it can grasp at impossibilities. “My wants,” said the Count Mirabel, “are few: a fine house, fine carriages, fine horses, a complete wardrobe, the best opera box, the first cook, and plenty of pocket-money—that is all I require.” He thought his desires very temperate; so also did the Scotchman, who, praying for a modest competency, added, “and that there be no mistake, let it be seven hundred pounds a year, paid quarterly in advance.” There are indeed all sorts of difficulties connected with292this question, and anybody can find their way into them. But there must also be a way out; and if our guides would survey the ground a little, they would earn and have our thanks. For undoubtedly this want of money is as great a provocation to sin as the love of it. An empty purse is as full of wicked thoughts as an evil heart; and the Father who allotted seven guardian angels to man, and made five of them hover round his pockets—empty or full—knew well his most vulnerable points.
293Mission of Household Furniture
Havewood and paper and upholstery really any moral and emotional agencies?
Certainly they have. Not very obvious ones perhaps, but all-pervading and ever-persistent in their character; since there is no day—scarcely an hour—of our lives in which we are not, either passively or consciously, subject to their influences. Our cravings after elegance of form, glimmer and shimmer of light and color, insensibly elevate and civilize us; and the men and women condemned to the monotony of bare walls and unpicturesque surroundings—whether they be devotees in cells, or felons in dungeons—are the less human for the want of these things. The want, then, is a direct moral evil, and a cause of imperfection.
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The desire for beautiful surroundings is a natural instinct in a pure mind. How tenaciously people who live in dull streets, and who never see a sunrise, nor a mountain peak, nor an unbroken horizon, cling to it is proved on all sides of us by the picturesqueness which many a mechanic’s wife imparts to her little twelve-feet-square rooms. And it is wonderful with what slender materials she will satisfy this hunger of the eye for beauty and color. A few brightly polished tins, the many-shaded patchwork coverlets and cushions, the gay stripes in the rag carpet, the pot of trailing ivy or scarlet geranium, the shining black stove, with its glimmer and glow of fire and heat, are made by some subtle charm of arrangement both satisfactory and suggestive.
In spite of all arguments about the economy of “boarding,” who does not respect the men or women who, at all just sacrifices, eschew a boarding-house and make themselves a home?
A man without a home has cast away an anchor; an atmosphere of uncertainty clings about him; he advertises his tendency to295break loose from wholesome restraints. So strongly is the force of this home influence now perceived that the wisest of our merchants refuse to employ boys and women without homes, while the universal preference is in favor of men who have assumed the head of the house, and thus given hostage to society for their good behavior.
But a house is not ahometill it is swept and garnished, and contains not only the wherewithal to refresh the body, but also something for the comfort of the heart, the elevation of the mind, and the delight of the eye.
If we would fairly estimate the moral power of furniture, let us consider how attached it is possible for us to become to it. There are chairs that are sacred objects to us: the large, easy one, in which some saint sat patiently waiting for the angels; the little high chair which was some darling baby’s throne till he “went away one morning;” the low rocker, in which mother nursed the whole family of stalwart sons and lovely daughters.
Ask any practised student or writer how296much he loves his old desk, with its tidy pigeon-holes and familiar conveniences. Have they not many a secret between them that they only understand? Are they not familiar? Could they be parted without great sorrow and regrets? Nothing is more certain than that we do stamp ourselves upon dead matter, and impart to it a kind of life. Is there a more pathetic picture than that of Dickens’s study after his death? Yet no human figure is present; there is nothing but furniture, the desk on which he wrote those wonderful stories, and the empty chair before it.
Nothing but the empty chair and the confidential desk to speak for the dead master; but how eloquently they do it!
Our furniture ought, therefore, to be easy and familiar. We cannot give our hearts to what is uncomfortable, no matter how quaint or rich it may be. And though it is always pleasant to have colors and forms assorted with perfect taste, it is not desirable to have the effect so perfect that we are afraid to make use of it, lest we destroy it. No furniture ought to be so fine that we dare not light a297fire for fear of smoking it, or let the sunshine in for fear of fading it. In such rooms we do not lounge and laugh and eat and rest and live,—we only exist.
The proper character of drawing-rooms is that of gayety and cheerfulness. This is attained by light tints, and brilliant colors and gilding; but the brightest colors and the strongest contrasts must be on the furniture, not on the walls and ceilings. These must be subordinate in coloring, or the effect will be theatrical and vulgar.
The dining-room ought to be one of the pleasantest in the house; but it is generally in the basement. It ought to be a room in which there is nothing to remind us of labor or exertion, for we have gone there to eat and to be refreshed. A few flowers, a dish of fruits, snowy linen and china, glittering glass and silver, a pleasant blending of warm and neutral tints are essentials. For ornaments, rare china, Indian vases, Eastern jars suggestive of fine pickles or rare sweetmeats, and a few pictures on the walls, representing only pleasant subjects, and large enough to be examined without exertion, are the best.
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Advantages of locality, a refined diner will always perceive and appropriate. Thus I used to dine frequently with a lady and gentleman who in the spring always altered the position of the table, so that while eating they could look through the large open windows, and see the waving apple-blossoms and breathe the perfumed air, and listen to the evening songs of the birds. Bedrooms should be light, cleanly, and cheerful; greater contrasts are admissible between the room and the furniture, as the bed and window-curtains form a sufficient mass to balance a tint of equal intensity upon the walls. For the same reason gay and bright carpets are often pleasant and ornamental.
Staircases, lobbies, and vestibules should be cool in tone, simple in color, and free from contrasts. Here the effects are to be produced by light and shadow, rather than by color. Every one must have noticed that some houses as soon as the doors are opened look bright and cheerful, while others are melancholy and dull. The difference is caused by the good or bad taste with which they are papered. Yet who shall say what events299may arise from such a simple thing as the first impressions of an important visitor? And these impressions may involuntarily receive their primal tone from a light, cheerful, or dull, dark hall paper.
All rooms open to the public must have a certain air of conventional arrangement; but the parlor in every home ought to be a room of character and individuality. Here is the very shrine and sanctuary of the Lares and Penates. Here is the grandmamma’s chair and knitting, and mamma’s work-basket, and the sofa on which papa lounges and reads his evening paper. Here are Annie’s flowers and Mary’s easel and Jack’s much-abused class-books. Here the girls practise and the boys rig their ship and mamma looks serious over the house books. In this room the picture papers lie around, every one’s favorite volume is on the table, and the walls are sacred to the family portraits. In this room the family councils are held and the dear invalids nursed back to life. Here the boys come to say “good-bye” when they go away to school or to business. Here the girls, in their gay party-dresses, come for papa’s final bantering300kiss and mamma’s last admiration and admonition. Ah, this room!—this dear, untidy, unfashionable parlor! It is the citadel of the household, the veryheart of the home.
None can deny the influence which childhood’s home has over them, even unto their hoary-hairs; the memory of a happy, comfortable one is better than an inheritance. The girls and boys who leave it have a positive ideal to realize. There is no speculation in their efforts; theyknowthat home is “Sweet Home.” But in all their imaginings chairs and tables and curtains and carpets have a conspicuous place. This life is all we have to front eternity with, therefore nothing that touches it is of small consequence.Itis something to the body to have comfortable and appropriate household surroundings, it is much more to the mind. Is there any one whose feelings and energies are not depressed by a cold, comfortless, untidy room? And who does not feel a positive exaltation of spirit in the glow of a bright fire and the cosey surroundings of a prettily furnished apartment?
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God has not made us to differ in this respect. A pleasant home is the dream and hope of every good man and woman. As Traddles and his dear little wife used to please themselves by selecting in the shop windows their contemplated service of silver, so also many honest, hopeful toilers fix upon the chairs and curtains that are to adorn their homes long before they possess them. The dream and the object is a great gain morally to them. Perhaps they might have other ones, but it is equally possible that the possession of this very furniture is the very condition that makes higher ones possible.
Depend upon it “A Society for the Improved Furnishing of Poor Men’s Homes” would be a step taken in the seven-leagued boots forthe elevation of poor men’s and women’s lives.
302People Who Have Good Impulses
Thereis a raw material in humanity—often very raw—called impulse, or enthusiasm; and some people are very proud of possessing this spasmodic excellence. They talk glibly of their “good impulses,” their “noble impulses,” their “generous impulses,” but the fact is that the majority of impulses are neither good nor noble; while they are, of all guides in human affairs, the most questionable. For impulses do not come from settled principles, but rather from a loose habit of mind—a mind just drifting along, and ready to accept any new suggestion as an “impulse,” an “inspiration,” a “command.” We believe far too readily the cant about emotion, and erratic genius, and suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by fussy, impulsive people;303for if we are at all allied with such, it is impossible to escape imposition; since we have to be patient enough for two, and so bear an undue burden of civility and good manners.
It may be said that such a discipline is not to be despised, and could be made a lesson of spiritual grace. But if we are not sick, why should we take medicine? Lessons God sets us, He helps us to learn, but there are no promises for those who impose penance upon themselves. And it is a penance to associate with impulsive, fussy persons; for no matter how good their impulses are, they are simply nowhere—as far as noble, enduring work is concerned—beside well-considered plans, carried out by cool, consistent people, who know what can be done and do it,—just as much next year as this year; just as well in one place as in another.
Ministers of the gospel know this fact perhaps better than any other mortals. They are constantly finding out how uncertain a quantity good impulses are to depend upon. For they have not the habit of materializing into good actions; they are evanescent304pretenders to righteousness; they tell more flattering tales than ever Hope told. All too soon the practical, calm minister discovers that impulse and enthusiasm are but rudimentary virtues, and seldom available for any real, good work. The men of service, either in spiritual or temporal work, are men whom nothing hurries or flurries; who are never in haste, and never too late. They are not men of impulse, but of consideration. Whether they are going to deliver a sermon or keep a momentous appointment, to get a high office or a sum of money, or merely to catch an express train, they are perfectly cool, and always in time. Of course, impulsive people keep appointments and catch trains, but oh, what a fuss they make about it!
Unfortunately, calm, grand natures are not of indigenous growth, and we do not do all we might to cultivate them. If we took more time to think, we should be less impulsive, more reasonable, less shallow. If we made less haste, we should make more speed. “Slow and sure win the race” is a proverb embodying a great truth. Fussy,305impulsive people never get at the bottom of things, never give an impartial judgment, never are masters of any difficult situation; for the power of deliberation, of staving off personal likes and dislikes, of waiting, of knowing when to wait and when to move,—are powers invariably linked with a cool head and a clear, calm will. But none of these grand qualities come at the call of impulse. Even good impulses are of no practical value until they crystallize into good deeds. Without this result the impulse or the intention to do great things may be a serious spiritual danger; the soul may satisfy itself with its impulses and designs, and rest upon them; forgetting what place of ineffectual regret is paved with good intentions.
In a certain sense it is true that the power of taking things in a cool, practical way is often an affair of the pulse, and so many beats, more or less, per minute, make a person fussy or serene. But it is only true in measure. Forethought and preparation—realizing what is likely to happen, and what is best to be done—are great helps to keeping cool and calm. The will306also can work miracles. I believe in the will because I believe that the human will is God’s grace. Those who say, “I cannot” are those who think, “I will not.” Besides which there are heavenly powers that wait to help our infirmities. Paul did not hesitate to pray for the removal of his physical infirmity, and the “sufficient grace” that was promised him will be just as freely given to us. Indeed, I may rest the question here, for this is our great consolation: one cannot say too much of the Divine help. It will keep all in perfect peace that trust in it.
307Worried to Death
Tosay “we are worried to death” is a common expression; but do we really comprehend the terrible truth of the remark? Do we realize that the hounds of care and anxiety and fretful inability may actually tear and torment us into paresis, or paralysis, or dementia, and as virtually worry us to death, as a collie dog worries a sheep, or a cat worries a mouse? And yet, if we are Christian men and women, worrying is just the one thing not needful; for there are more than sixty admonitions in the Bible against it; and the ground is so well covered by them that between the first “Fear not” and the last, every unnecessary anxiety is met, and there is not a legitimate subject for worrying left.
Are we troubled about meat and money matters? We are told to “consider the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do308they reap nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
Have we some malignant enemy to fight? Fear not! “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Are we in sorrow? “I, even I, am He that comforteth you.”
Are we in doubt and perplexity? “I will bring the blind by a way that they know not. I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.”
Do we fear that our work is beyond our strength? “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might, He increaseth strength.”
Are we sick? He has promised to make all our bed in our sickness.
Do we fear death? He has assured us that in the valley and shadow of death He will be with us.
Is the worry not for ourselves, but for wife and children that will be left without support and protection? Even this last anxiety is provided for. “Leave thy fatherless309children to me, and let thy widows trust in me, and I will preserve them alive.”
Now, if we really believe that God made these promises, how shameful is our distrust! Do we think that God will not keep His word? Do we doubt His good-will toward us? When He says that He will make all things work together for our good, is the Holy One lying to our sorrowful hearts? Thirty years ago I was thrown helpless, penniless, and friendless upon these assurances of God; and in thirty years He has never broken a promise. He is a God that keepeth both mercy and truth. I believe in His goodness. I trust in His care. I would not, by worrying, tell Him to His face that He either has not the power or the good-will to help and comfort me.
Worriers live under a very low sky. They allow nothing for probabilities and “Godsends.” They suffer nothing to go by faith. All times and all places supply them with material. In summer, it is the heat and the dogs and the hydrophobia. In winter, it is the cold, and the price of coal. They take all the light and comfort310out of home pleasures; and abroad their complaints are endless. Yet to argue with worriers is of little use; convince them at every point, and the next moment they return to their old aggravating, vaporingcredo.
What remains for them then? They must pray to God, and help themselves. Egotism and selfishness are at the bottom of all worrying. If they will just remember that there is no reason why they should be exempted from the common trials of humanity, they may step at once on to higher ground; for even worrying is humanized, when it is no longer purely selfish and personal.
It is usually idle people who worry. Men and women whose every hour is full of earnest business do not try to put two hours’ care and thought into one. Even a positive injury or injustice drops easily from an honestly busy man. He has not time to keep a catalogue of his wrongs, and worry about them. He simply casts his care upon Him who has promised to care for him—for his health, and wealth, and happiness,311and good name; for all the events of his life, and for all the hopes of his future.
Worriers would not like to see written down all the doubtful things they have said of God, and all the ill-natured things they have said of men; besides, they might consider that they are often righteously worried, and only suffering the due reward of some folly of their own. Would it not be better to ask God to put right what they have put wrong; to lay hold of all that is good in the present; to refuse to look forward to any possible change for the worse? I know a good man who, when he feels inclined to worry over events, takes a piece of paper and writes his fears down, and so faces “the squadron of his doubts,”—finding generally that they vanish as they are mustered.
Come, let us take Cheerfulness as a companion. Let us say farewell to Worrying. Cheerfulness will bid us ignore perplexities and annoyances; and help us to rise above them. God loves a cheerful liver; and when we consider the sin and sorrow, the poverty and ignorance, on every side of us,312we may well hold our peace from all words but those of gratitude and thanksgiving. Worrying is self-torment. It is always preparing “for the worst,” and yet never fit to meet it. Cheerfulness is a kind of magnanimity; it listens to no repinings; it outlooks shadows; it turns necessity to glorious gain; and so breathing on every gift of God, Hope’s perpetual joy, it enables us, mid pleasant yesterdays, and confident to-morrows,—
To travel on life’s common way,In cheerful godliness.
To travel on life’s common way,In cheerful godliness.
To travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness.
313The Grapes We Can’t Reach
Thegrapes we can’t reach are not, as a general thing, sour grapes; and it is a despicable kind of philosophy that asserts them to be so. Why should we despise good things because we do not possess them? Cicero, indeed, says that “if we do not have wealth, there is nothing better and nobler than to despise it.” But this assertion was artificial in the case of Cicero, and it is no nearer the truth now than it was two thousand years ago.
In fact, on the question of money this dictum appeals to us with great force; for though it may be true that some of the best things of life cannot be bought with money, it is equally true that there are other good things that nothing but money can buy. Therefore, to follow Cicero’s advice and314despise wealth if we have not got it, is to despise a great many excellent things; and not only that, it is to despise also the power of imparting these excellent things to other people. The golden grapes may be out of our reach, but we need not say the fruit is sour; rather let us give thanks that others have been able to gather and press the rich vintage and to give graciously to the world of its wine of consolation.
In the same way it has long been, fashionable to assert a contempt for “the bubble reputation,” whether sought on the battlefield or in the senate, or forum, or study. But why despise one of the grandest moral forces in the universe? For when a man can get out of self to follow the fortunes of an idea, when he can fall in love with a cause, when he can fight for some public good, when he can forfeit life, if need be, for his conviction, the “reputation” that is sure to follow such abnegation and courage is not a “bubble;” it is a glorious fact,—one through which the general level of humanity is raised and the whole world impelled forward.
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I do not say that all persons who conscientiously use to their utmost ability the one or two talents they possess are not as happy as they can be. Thank God! life can be full in small measures. But if any man or woman has been given five or ten talents, I do say they have no right to keep them for their own delectation, falling back upon such cheap sentiments as the hollowness of fame and the “bubble reputation.” Fame is not a bubble; it is a power whose beneficent achievements have done a great deal toward making this world a comfortable dwelling-place.
A great many high-sounding maxims in use at the present day have lost their application. There was a time, centuries ago, when the humiliations attending any upward climb were sufficient to deter a sensitive, honorable soul. But such days are forever past. Any one now bearing precious gifts for humanity finds the gates lifted up and a wide entrance ready for him. Men and women can make what mark they are able to make, and the world stands watching with sympathetic heart.316They will not find its “reputation” a “bubble.”
Another fine, windy theme of warning from “sour-grape” philosophers is the hollowness of friendship and the general insincerity of the world. They have “seen through” the world, they know all its falseness and worthlessness; and, as the world is far too busy to dispute their assertions or to defend itself, the superior discernment of this class of people is not brought to accurate accounting. As a matter of fact, however, people generally get just as much consideration from the world, and just as much fidelity from their friends, as they deserve. A friend may ask us to dinner, but not therefore should we expect that he share his purse with us. Community of taste and sentiment does not imply community of goods. But, for all this, friendship is not hollow, nor are the grapes of its hospitality sour.
I may notice here the prevalent opinion that there is no such friendship now in the world as there used to be. “There are no Davids and Jonathans now,” say the unbelievers317in humanity. Very true, for David and Jonathan did not belong to the nineteenth century. To keep up such a friendship, we require, not a spare hour now and then, but an amount of certain and continuous leisure. There are still great friendships among boys at school and young men in college, for they have a large amount of steady leisure; and this is necessary to signal friendship. When we have more time, we shall have more and stronger friendships.
The vanity of life, the deceitfulness of women, the falseness of love, the impossibility of happiness, the passing away of all that is lovely and of good report, are old, old, old texts of complaint. Men and women talk about them until they feel ever so much better than the rest of the world; and such talk enables them to look down with proper contempt upon the hypocrisies of society,—that is, of their next-door neighbors and near acquaintances,—and fosters a comfortable, but dangerous self-esteem. The world, upon the whole, is a good world to those who try to be good and to318do good, and every year it is growing better. During the last fifty years how much it has grown! How sympathetic, how charitable, how evangelizing it has become! Yes, indeed, if we choose to do so, we shall meet with far more good hearts than bad ones, and the topmost grapes are not sour.