To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit for noble career.—E. P. Tenney.Since our happiness is merely the reflex influence of the happiness we make for others it would seem as though the joy of our lives dwells within our own keeping. "The universe," says Zimmerman, "pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; if you frown, you will be frowned at; ifHe who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but he who loses spirit loses all.—S. A. Nelson.you sing, you will be invited into gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth."
If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you.—Charles G. Gordon.All of this being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunities for making others happy if we, ourselves, would get the most and highest enjoyment from life. "There are gates that swing within your life and mine," writes "Amber," that good woman of sainted memory, "letting in rare opportunities from day to day, that tarry but a moment and are gone, like travelers bound for points remote. There is the opportunity to resist the temptation to do a mean thing! Improve it, for it is in a hurry, like the man whose ticket isGreat hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good. To be and keep so is not the gift of a happy nature alone, but it is strength and heroism.—Jules Michelet.bought and whose time is up. It won’t be back this way, either, for opportunities for good are not like tourists who travel on return tickets. There is the opportunity to say a pleasant word to the ones within the sound of your voice. All of the priceless opportunities travel by lightning express and have no time to idle around the waiting-room. If we improve them at all it must beWe live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths.—Bailey.when the gate swings to let them through."
It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are to find the larger and truer happiness of life. Says Jenkin Lloyd Jones, "I would ratherRemember that everybody’s business in the social system is to be agreeable.—Dickens.live in an alley, stayed all round with human loves, associations and ambitions, than dwell in a palace with drawbridge, moat, and portcullis, apart from the community about me, alienated from my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those with whom I divide nature’s bounty of land and landscape, of air and sky." And along this same line of thinking, Charles Hargrove says: "Brother, sister, your mistake is to live alone in a crowded world, to think of yourself and your own belongings, and what is the matter with you, instead ofIn the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail.—Bulwer Lytton.trying to realize, what is the fact—that you are a member of a great human society, and that your true interests are one with those of the world which will go on much the same however it fare with you. Live the larger life, and you will find it the happier."
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own.—Lowell.So one of the chief aims of your life and of mine should be to find happiness and to see to it that others find it as well. And let us not wait to find happiness in one great offering, but let us discover it whenever and wherever we can. Let us carefully study our surroundings to see if it is not hiding all about us. "Very few things," says Lecky, "contribute so much to the happiness ofThe cheerful live longest in years, and afterward in our regards.—Bovee.life as a constant realization of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a naturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one of the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment."
Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivate the gracious habit of being grateful for joysHow sweet and gracious, even in common speech, is that fine sense which men call Courtesy!—James T. Fields.that come to us and to seek to appreciate the worth of the beneficent gifts that are ever being showered upon us. We are so apt to fall into the habit of accepting blessings as a matter of course and of failing to discover their wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have ever thoughtfully dwelt uponMake each goal when reached, a starting point for further quest.—Browning.the priceless attributes of the air that is ever and always floating about us. In order that we may have a truer appreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read these words by Lord Avebury:
"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathes the skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of its presence, and yetThe world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.—Robert Louis Stevenson.so strong that it wafts the odors of flowers and fruit into our rooms, carries our ships over the seas, the purity of sea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It is the vehicle of sound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweet music of nature; it is the great reservoir of the rain which waters the earth, it softens the heat of day and the cold of night, covers us overhead with a glorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning and evening skies with fire. It is soGod bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.—Beecher.exquisitely soft and pure, so gentle and yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovable and fascinating of all Nature Spirits."
It is only when we open our eyes to the beauty of the wonders about us that we see how much there is to contribute to our happiness if we will but open our hearts and let it come in. What a perpetual exaltation nature will afford usIf you are acquainted with Happiness, introduce him to your neighbor.—Phillips Brooks.when we have cultivated the fine habit of looking upon it with the welcoming eyes through which Richard Jefferies beholds it: "The whole time in the open air," he tells us, "resting at mid-day under the elms with the ripple of heat flowing through the shadow; at midnight between the ripe corn and the hawthorne hedge or the white camomile and the poppy pale in the duskiness, with faceNor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st, live well; how long or short, permit to heaven.—Milton.upturned to the thoughtful heaven. Consider the glory of it, the life above this life to be obtained from constant presence with the sunlight and the stars."
So let us cultivate the fine habit of finding joy and of shouting it to our friends and neighbors. Life seems bright to us when we are really glad ofThe most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed.—Chamfort.anything and we let gladness have voice to express itself. George MacDonald says "a poet is a man who is glad of something and tries to make other people glad of it, too." In the possession of this kindly spirit, at least, we must all strive to be poets.
It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.—Joseph Roux.Emerson tells us that "there is one topic positively forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans."
The fine tonic effect of a bright, happy face smiling across the breakfast table is known to all the world. Better a feast of corn bread and a cheerful countenance than fruit cake and a sour temperament.People glorify all sorts of bravery, except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.—George Eliot.
So I feel very sure that you, my dear young lady, for whom these lines are written, are never going to appear at the breakfast table with aught other than a bright cheery face and a pleasant wordHow active springs the mind that leaves the load of yesterday behind.—Pope.for all about you. Some one has said that the first hour of the day is the critical one. Happy is the person who can wake with a song, or who can at least hold back the fears and the grumbles until a thought of gladness has establishedOne of the most charming things in girlhood is serenity.—Margaret E. Sangster.itself as the keynote of the day.
"Assume a virtue, if you have it not," says Shakespeare. While as a rule it is deemed wrong to assume to possess any virtue that we do not possess, we may and no doubt should, at times, appear to be happy even though we may feel more like indulging in lamentations. To come to the breakfast table enumerating aEvery generous nature desires to make the earning of an honest living but a means to the higher end of adding to the sum total of human goodness and human happiness.—Frances E. Willard.list of real or imaginary ailments is a most ill-advised thing to do. We should endeavor to forget our troubles and above all we should be slow to give voice to them so that thereby they will be multiplied in the minds of others. It has been truly said that most people who are unhappy are really miserable and bring their misery to others because they allow the failures and discomforts to speak the first word in their souls. For misery is voluble and the little discomforts will turn us into their continual mouthpieces if we will give them aAttempt the end, and never stand in doubt; nothing’s so hard but search will find it out.—Richard Lovelace.chance. But the truly thoughtful and considerate person will have none of them. Instead of displaying the flag of distress and surrender, the wiser method is to pull our courage and determination together and don
THE BETTER ARMOR
If through thick and through thinThere is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to love this life and live it as bravely and cheerfully and faithfully as we can.—Henry Van Dyke.You are eager to win,Don’t go shrouded in Fear and in Doubt,But with Hope and with TruthAnd the blue sky of YouthGo through life with the sunny side out.
So let us determine that we will cultivate the happy habit; for indeed even happiness is largely a habit. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." If he thinks trouble, he is very likely to find it. If he thinks sickness, he isHe that composes himself is wiser than he that composes books.—Benjamin Franklin.likely to be ill. If he thinks unkind things, he is quite sure to put them into the deeds of his daily life. The thought is the architect’s plans which the hands are likely to set about to build. To the one who thinks the weather isAnxiety never yet successfully bridged over any chasm.—Ruffini.bad, it is sure to be disagreeable. To the one who seeks to find something pleasant about it, it is certain to offer some happy phases.
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?—Shakespeare.We must all answer "yes" to this question asked by one of our fine writers on our social amenities: "Don’t you get awfully tired of people who are always croaking? A frog in a big, damp, malarial pond is expected to make all the fuss he can in protest of his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown, and born that he may be educated for the court of a king! Placed in an emerald world with a hither side of opaline shadow, and a fine dust of diamonds to setDuty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed, may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor.—William McKinley.it sparkling when winter days are flying; with ten million singing birds to make it musical, and twice ten million flowers to make it sweet; with countless stars to light it up with fiery splendor, and white, new moons to wrap it round with mystery; with other souls within it to love and make happy, and the hand of God to uphold it on its rushing way among the countless worlds that crowd its path;If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.—Emily Dickinson.what right has man to find fault with such a world? When the woodtick shall gain a hearing, as he complains that the grand old century oak is unfit to shelter him, or the bluebird be harkened to when he murmurs that the horizon is off color, and does notmatch his wings, then, I think, it will be time for man to find fault with the appointments of the magnificent sphere in which he lives."
No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and loved again.—Ruskin.Therefore let it be determined between us, right here and now, that come what may, we shall each of us endeavor to keep a merry heart and a pleasant face. As we love to see a happy expression on the faces of our parents, brothers, sisters and friends, so must they enjoy seeing a pleasant look overspreading ourWise, cultivated, genial conversation is the best flower of civilization.—Emerson.features. And with this good and kindly resolve in our minds it will never be difficult for us to decide whether we shall give to the good world about us the gladness or the gloom that is embodied in
SONG OR SIGH
If you were a bird and shut in a cage,Now what would you better do,—Would you grieve your throat with a sorry noteAnd mourn the whole day through;Or would you swing and chirp and sing,Though the world were warped with wrong,Till you filled one place with the perfect graceAnd gladness of your song?
It is so easy to perceive other people’s little absurdities, and so difficult to discover our own.—Ellen Thornycroft Fowler.If you were a man and shut in a world,Now what would you better do,—On a gloomy day, when skies were gray,Would you be gloomy, too?When crossed with care would you let despairLife’s happy hope destroy,Or with a smile work on the whileYou found the path to joy?
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
CHAPTER VIIGOLDEN HABITS
We often hearI think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made.—Dickens.persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though it were something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature," is a saying that is included among the classic epigrams of men. That habits do become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrow and sometimes to its advantage and delight.
For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and in thatEvery noble work is at first impossible.—Carlyle.we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance from wrong doing.
The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual growth oughtTruth is a strong thing, let man’s life be true.—Browning.to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamental principle of their construction should result in giving us very many more good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based on the supposition that while many ofEfforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous—a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.—Carlyle.us are so constituted that it is possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is unlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the questionable action become a fixed habit.
The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober secondPass no day idly; youth does not return.—Chinese Proverb.thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permitted ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we would then and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that the wrong should not occur again.
In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good deed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same kind. WrongIf, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels must give.—George MacDonald.deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment of thoughtlessness when one’s conscience, one’s higher and better self, is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full and proud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful sense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done.
"Could the young," says HenryNothing can constitute good breeding that has not good manners for its foundation.—Bulwer Lytton.James, "but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literateness, wiped out." One of our latter day philosophers tells us that "happiness is a matter of habit; and you had better gather it fresh every day or you will never get it at all."
In speaking of the success he had achieved in life, Charles Dickens said: "I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harderThe common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voices and blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a music and its path a light.—H. W. Mabie.and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels."
When we come to study carefully the full meaning of the word "habit" we find it to be a very comprehensive term. In the sense in which it is here employedThe truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them.—Oliver Wendell Holmes.the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency or inclination toward an action or condition, which by repetition has become easy, spontaneous or evenunconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusion that one’s habits are in fact one’s manners, one’s principles, one’s mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finally brings one to a clear realization of the secret of
TRUE GENTILITY
One cannot from the world concealThe current of his thought;It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count always your highest moments your truest moments.—Phillips Brooks.A word or action will revealThe thing his brain hath wrought.
True goodness from within must comeAnd deeds, to be refined,Their outer grace must borrow fromPoliteness of the mind.
Our manners are ourselves. They constitute our personality and it is by ourWe only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence to do good to others with them.—Joseph Cook.personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasant and agreeable we shall not lack for friends.
A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the manners areBelieve me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things more worth while than comradeship.—Margaret E. Sangster.perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing else could do.
Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It is thespirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing." We are told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man is inscribed on his brain,Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, and so make life, death, and the vast forever, one grand, sweet song.—Charles Kingsley.for volition and thoughts have their beginnings in the brain, whence they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the brain in the body, according to the order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure."
And to get peace, if you dowantit, make for yourself nests of pleasant thoughts.—Ruskin.Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in the making of character and personality we should leave nothing undone to strengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all are constantly being acted upon byWhen one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose that he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy—the joy of self-sacrifice.—Lyman Abbott.suggestion we should invite to our assistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplary frame of mind.
In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our good resolves by reading good books and in framingMorality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous action, with the best intention founded on principle.—A. E. Winship.for our own benefit a code of rules for our better conduct.
It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable quotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see them with frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably serves this purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind in the early morning it tends to direct theTo have a friend is to have one of the sweetest gifts that life can bring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education of soul from day to day.—Anna Robertson Brown.course of our thinking throughout the day. The following quotations are offered only as suggestions. They can be added to indefinitely:
A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners.—Chesterfield.
Good breeding shows itself most when to an ordinary eye it appears theWhen it comes to doing a thing in this world, I don’t ask myself whether I like it or not, but, what’s the best way to get it done.—Ellen Glasgow.least.—Addison.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the company.—Swift.
Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do you make the road of it.—Sterne.
Civility costs nothing and buys everything.—Lady Montague.Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it.—Ruskin.
Evil communications corrupt good manners.—Bible.
No pleasure is comparable to standing on the vantage ground of truth.—Lord Bacon.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.—Sidney.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.—New Testament.
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.—Shakespeare.There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character. Even the plainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods.—Newell Dwight Hillis.
Honest labor bears a lovely face.—Dekker.
The gods give nothing really beautiful without labor and diligence.—Xenophon.
The key to pleasure is honest work. All dishes taste good with that sauce.—H. R. Haweis.
Work is as necessary for peace of mind as for health of body.—Lord Avebury.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.—Thoreau.Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for weought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the most effectual contribution to the happiness ofA good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.—Milton.others."
Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those about us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state of mind into whichHappiness is the natural flower of duty.—Phillips Brooks.they throw those about them are not good mannered. While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in the great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be forever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which we can regale them. Either extreme is more orBy wisdom wealth is won; but riches purchased wisdom yet for none.—Bayard Taylor.less absurd and unwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too willingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the Orient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this nature as to almost arouse our mirth.
It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much.—George Eliot.An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says: "There must really have been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these people who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that a guest in the home mightnot be burdened with their sorrow. The habit is in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning streamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, blackTo be a strong hand in the dark to another in the time of need, to be a cup of strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know the glory of life.—Hugh Black.chargers, and funeral hearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of all beholders!"
In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching of morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would deem it strangeIt is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to do them.—R. L. Stevenson.if a master gave them an hour’s instruction in the correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters. Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it does in Japan where it is counted the most vital instruction of all. Step by step the Japanese child is led along the course of behavior, learning how to stand up, sit down, bow, hang up its hat, and how to think of its parents, brothers and sisters, and of its country. Later on these lessons are repeated with illustrations from short stories, and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives of great men of allUse thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee.—Walter Raleigh.countries. Before the end of the course of instruction is reached all manner of virtues andpoints of behavior have been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially in the case of girls) the proper way of advancing and retiring, offering and accepting things, sleeping and eating, visiting, congratulating and condoling, mourning and holding public meetings. So the school course continuesIt is easy to condemn; it is better to pity.—Abbott.from year to year, the elementary school course lasting four years and the secondary course four years more, and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their duty to ancestors, to other people’s property, other people’s honor, other people’s freedom, and, finally, to self-discipline, modesty, dignity, dress, labor, the treatment of animals, and the due relations of men and women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords" of creation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior rather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest detail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment.
To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of habit,If you don’t scale the mountain, you can’t view the plain.—Chinese Proverb.some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men’s behavior," said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured," and he warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait or point-device, but free for exercise orFor him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, life may lead through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert.—Anonymous.motion." However, it is better to err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than to be thought careless of our persons and our behavior.
Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners, refinement, goodBe cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are means the happier to arise.—William Shakespeare.breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the forms of etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from savagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one who does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility.
It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the breach ofBe resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspire to be.—Thoreau.written or traditional laws, and choose our society, and even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommon occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position in life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by a graciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead to success.
For some quite unwarranted reasonIf people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of Heaven would not be far off.—George MacDonald.society seems to have taken the position that we have a right to expect more from our girls than from our boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the view held by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. TheThe shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angel.—Dickens.demand that every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that which says that every girl must be a gentle woman and a thorough lady.
Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, sisters,If every day we can feel, if only for a moment, the realization of being our best selves, you may be sure that we are succeeding.—Bliss Carman.teachers, society and the world intend that she shall be good and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of all that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities of person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely to ask of the readers of these lines—
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
What are you going to do, girls,With the years that are hurrying on?Do you mean to begin life’s purpose to winIn the freshness and strength of the dawn?
The builders who build in the morning,If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.—Benjamin Franklin.At even may joyfully rest,Their victories won, as they watch the glad sunSink down in the beautiful west.
What are you going to do, girls,With time as it ceaselessly flows?Are you molding a heart that will pleasures impartAs perfume exhales from the rose?
Let all that is purest and grandestIn duty’s fair wreath be entwined;There is no other grace can illumine the faceLike the charm of a beautiful mind.
He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.—Ruskin.A student of the subject of ethics must understand that the true spirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals. It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this assertion is required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moral teachings, so frequently touches upon theThe fine art of living, indeed, is to draw from each person his best.—Lilian Whiting.subject of manners. He teaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openly rebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seats at the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues.
The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they were,Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.—Dickens.themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail to teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have left behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a "Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay on manners in which he remindsIf the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs—is more elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your success.—Thoreau.us that a stone must be of very high value to do without a setting.
The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow and superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise one’s self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield’s good manners, fine as they appear, do not bear the trueBlessings ever wait on virtuous deeds.—Congreve.stamp of genuineness. There is not the living person back of them possessing heart and character. They seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure in the dressmaker’s window. True manners mean more thanThe microscope gives us a world, a universe, a single drop of dew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnest meditation.—Madame Swetchine.mannerisms. They cannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rules to be observed on any and every occasion. Theyare rather a cultivated method of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character that knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to do without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth.
Better is it to have a small portion of good sense, with humility and a slender understanding, than great treasures of science, with vain self-complacency.—Thomas à Kempis.It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in the cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than we otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom we may meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are placed. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty to cultivate one’s manners as it is to cultivate one’s mind, and no one can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the nicer amenities of society than we are when we pay no heed to them.
Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom, both uponThere is one road to peace and that is truth.—Shelley.mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principle magistrate of man’s life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom."
He hath from his childhood conversed with books and bookmen; and always being where the frankincense of the temple was offered, there must be some perfume remaining about him.—Thomas Fuller.So we see that our true characters are but the expression of our habits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that are formed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly and naturally throughout all the years.
It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in later life the manners and graces that escape us in youth.
Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the goodEverything great is not always good, but all good things are great.—Demosthenes.influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world shall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teach her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward others whose early years are lived among lessThe turmoil of the world will always die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward.—Hawthorne.advantageous surroundings. For if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify her heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost.
Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable for the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the prize of gentilityIf I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.—George MacDonald.which they would obtain. And in this very struggle against adverse circumstances will be engendered a strength and a spirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy equivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment.
It is experience that develops character, and character is the one thing that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual thing of supreme beauty.Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people but to get ahead of ourselves.—Maltbie D. Babcock.
The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring. Golden habits that have been hammered out of our life experiences are to be implicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point. They have been shaped out of the very necessity of one’s surroundings. They are worth every effort thatThe narrow kingdom of to-day is better worth ruling over than the widest past or future.—Edith Wharton.they have cost. The world will never know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much of its beauty it owes to that which we are all so prone to call
DRUDGERY
Dull drudgery, "gray angel of success;"There’s always a bloom on the world if one looks.—Abby M. Roach.Enduring purpose, waiting long and long,