VION MRS. GUMMIDGE
“Yes,” sighed that immortal woman, “I’m a lone, lorn creetur’ and not only everything goes contrary with me, but I go contrary with everything. I’d better die and be a riddance.” We all know Mrs. Gummidges. They exist to-day in the family, in public life, in literature. Worse yet, there are Mrs. Gummidges of both sexes.
If you venture some remarks during a discussion which call forth praise from all the rest, Mrs. Gummidge looks superior; she regrets that you should have been guilty of misstatement; or she notes a discrepancy between what you say to-day and some other thing you said last year; and how came you to fall into error when the magazines or the newspapers have given such frequent opportunities for you to keep right? And after making you feel too small and insignificanteven to have an opinion of your own, much less to express it, she remarks that she does not suppose other people notice your errors, and that she only mentioned it because her own critical acumen forced her to.
“Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful disposition,” says little David, “and she whimpered sometimes more than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her, but there were moments when I thought how much more agreeable it would be if Mrs. Gummidge had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stayed there until her spirits revived.” Alas! but our Mrs. Gummidge, if she had such an apartment, would refuse to seek its solitude and there bury or nurse her griefs; for she belongs to that class who are gregarious. She insists that her whole world shall share in her discomforts, bear her woes, carry her burdens.
Mrs. Gummidge, in short, was the queen of pessimists. True, after being a lone, lorn creetur’ for many years she developed after the most surprising fashion into a cheerful, busy worker. But so does any confirmed pessimist when he or she realizes that there is honest, earnest workcut out for his or her hand and no other. Those who discourse the most fluently of the anguish and bitter woe of life are seldom those who have felt the iron of sorrow in their own souls. They have more often been soured by little disappointments, tormented by the pin-pricks of a superficial existence; they know little of the heavy griefs which discipline the soul.
We have been taught to believe that in the wise economy of nature nothing superfluous has been created. But it certainly seems as if pessimism, as a confirmed and habitual state of mind, is a quality of which the world has no need. You and I have no right to drag our “lone-and-lorn-ness” before our little public and make other people miserable when we might make them happy. The confirmed pessimist is as much in need of missionary work as ever was the wild Hottentot or the Fiji Islander. I learned a hymn in childhood which was calculated to impress upon the juvenile mind the power of a spoken word by showing how a word once spoken is gone from us forever, but will go on for ages exerting a positive influence. The logic of this hymn may have been far-fetched, but I think if people were more generallybrought up on it there would be a noticeable diminution in the amount of useless talking done in the world.
What right have we to say words that shall depress or discourage the hopes of other women? Hundreds of women lead lonely lives at home because they are so busy with material things that they have no time for “high thinking.” What right have we to utter careless words which shall fail to raise their standards and quicken their desire for higher living? The prophets of old felt that they had a message to bear to humanity and their hearts burned within them until they uttered it. So ought all good and earnest women to feel; and we may at least be sure we send forth no depressing or unhealthy influences. “Of one thing I am sure,” says a writer who has brought comfort to many women, “that I have never written anything without a prayer in my heart that somewhere or somehow a human soul might be the better for it. After all, we only hold the pen. The dear God guides.” And this may apply to all of us, if we will.
I like Margaret Deland’s definition of happiness as “thinking straight and seeing clear, andhaving a true perception of the value of things,” but before reaching this high mental standpoint we must have many a bonfire of what is narrow and feeble in us. A well-ordered home and a mind filled with noble thoughts—what better equipment can we have for the discouragement of Gummidge-ism? Perhaps the multiplication of these is responsible for the fact that we are gradually outgrowing the old habit of criticising each other, and learning to see and love the good qualities in other women; we are even mastering that more difficult task of learning to shut our eyes to their shortcomings in the remembrance that none of us is perfect and that even we ourselves have our limitations. And so we learn the great lesson of forbearance and charity, and we become able to take our friends at their best.
The woman who is truly refined or who is attaining unto real culture will not air her grievances in public places. There is a type of the feminine gender that delights in holding forth on the subject of her family or her neighborhood troubles in the street cars, and who enjoys the more or less sympathetic attention of her fellow-passengers. But nobody would be guilty of describing her as “truly cultured and refined.”There is a kind of culture that is better than the ability to appreciate Charles Lamb, or even to follow one’s favorite authors in delicious dreams where eternity is entered and the fortunate aspirant is admitted to the society of the Olympians. Very true, it cannot be acquired by cramming with the lyrical or dramatic endings of Shakespeare’s lines, or the styles of great artists whose names are difficult to spell and terrifying to pronounce. It is something deeper, less selfish and more productive of good to the world around us.
It is in our power to make our lives a beneficence to those who come within our circle. Whether we will or no, the club movement is proving such a beneficence. Let us resolve that we will enlarge our vision, that we will broaden our sphere, that we will deepen our love to humanity, that we will be true to our best selves.
Let us see to it that our hearts beat true; that they beat with sympathy and love and sisterly charity; that they beat with high hope for the future and a growing desire to help, and not hinder the work of making the world a better place. God gives his prophets now as of old a message to his people. Life with too manywomen is a treadmill. They need all the stimulus they can get. If we realize how the things we say and the things we do as individuals affect others, we should try at least to guard our lips. We little think of the wounded souls near us ready to drop the burden of life because of the dreary lack of a friendly word; we are not conscious of the bereaved heart within our own radius, perhaps dumb with despair; we do not realize that eager hearts are waiting silently for some message of love and comfort; and so we are careless and blind and cynical; and so we neglect our opportunities to be “God’s messengers.”
In our anxiety to avoid being a “mush of concession,” as Emerson puts it, let us not be that most uncomfortable person, the Chronic Objector. I suppose it is true that sometimes we are pessimistic from physical causes. Young people are usually inclined to morbid speculations. I remember the sensation when I was young. I thought it came from a deep appreciation of life’s mysteries; in reality it was the need of spring medicine and liver pills. At a very early age I sought to give vent to pent-up gloom and despair in blank verse patterned after Miltonat his best; but I committed the folly of repeating the first stanzas to my older brother, who ridiculed me so unmercifully that my poetic pessimism was nipped in the bud. Blushing with mortification I sought to distract his mind from my poetry by playing at “see-saw” with him; but he persisted, when his end of the board was uppermost, in screaming out my beloved though gloomy stanzas in a derisive tone. It was very hard to bear. But the world owes him a debt of gratitude—and so do I.
None of us is so humble that cheerful optimism is not in some sort a duty. Not that we should go to extremes; and the out-and-out optimist is seldom a good observer. But we should not indulge ourselves in sarcasm, nor gloomy forebodings, nor in saying things that may be stumbling blocks in the way of weaker sisters.
How much better to live a self-contained life—to maintain a steady poise of character so that we shall be able to enjoy to the fullest the winter’s work and the summer’s play. To be mistresses of ourselves, to be calm and serene under all provocation, to be restful in ourselves and therefore to others, to keep the love of God inour hearts simply and humbly is to make of life a well-spring of joy, and to make of ourselves a blessing and an inspiration to those around us. There are so many tired souls, so many discouraged hearts, so many narrow-visioned ones, so many weak ones that need the sunshine and courage and light and strength—how dare we indulge ourselves in weakness or in discouragement?
When we are all through with life and the affairs of this world are only a scroll of the past, if we shall find that a pathway has been smoothed for somebody or a burden lightened for some one else; if we shall find that even one sorrowing, heavy-hearted woman found comfort and the source of all comfort from any word or any effort of ours, shall we then ask—“Was it worth while?”
Let us make a little set of rules that can be easily learned and less easily lived by. First, then, that we will seek the peace and the strength that come from Mother Nature—for that is the sort that will make better women of us.
That we will make our lives henceforth more profitable than ever.
That we will begin by doing everything required of us whether it happens to be agreeable or not.
That we will make all days brighter for everybody because of our presence.
That we will seek out the poor, the unacquainted, the shabby and retiring people and make them glad they belong to the same world as we do.
That we will, in everything, be true to ourselves; for then it shall follow, as night follows day, that we cannot be untrue to any other woman.
That we will learn the gentle art of saying nothing uncharitable of any person, no matter how great the provocation.
That the spirit of the right life means a broader charity, a greater tolerance and a more universal, practical love for humanity; and that if we are not learning all these we are missing our opportunity.
We might as well finish up with Saint Paul: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Good for Saint Paul; old bachelor though he was, he had the requisites necessary to make a good all-roundwoman himself. And were he alive to-day, he wouldn’t say a thing about silence in the churches, either.