XON SOLITUDE
It is the custom to cry out against the lack of originality in woman; and it is quite true that those who have achieved it have first known the blessedness of solitude. It is the only way. It is difficult for the average woman to realize it, but she either takes too much from or gives too much to her friends. But the best and truest friendships are perhaps those which cannot stand the crucial test of a perpetual companionship. Just because one happens to know the power of giving out much, of feeling intensely, of being for the time so very much to those for whom she cares—precisely for this reason will she need at times to draw into herself, to go away, to be alone, to rest.
Especially is this true if those friends have the sympathetic temperament which takes its color partly from its surroundings. Your happiness,then, becomes partly theirs; they share in your anxiety, your sorrow, your depression—in everything, in fact, that belongs to you. In like manner they compel you to feel with them; and the result, perhaps, hardly recognized at the time, is to make you aware that you have been interested most intensely, that you have given out without intending it, something almost too intimate and too much your own to be so given.
Some of the bitterest lessons in life are learned through such intimacies. Sometimes we refuse to recognize those friends who take all and give nothing, until they have absorbed everything and we are left like a dry sponge to realize their unfaithfulness. But it is through such lessons that we come to know the chaff from the wheat and to realize the need of an inner strength which shall enable us to stand upon our own feet. Hence it is that even friends who know each other through and through, and who are congenial down to the very lightest mood, ought still to shun a life that will bring them into too close relationship and prevent their individual development.
Women have been slow to realize this. For generations women have been sheltered, protectedand cared for until they have been contented to dwell in a state of contented babyhood. Think for an instant of a boy, surrounded from infancy with the influences that have enveloped girlhood. Keep him done up in cotton wool throughout childhood and youth, taught never to raise his voice for fear of being “unladylike,” never to assert his rights, never to be himself and to accept without question the decision and opinions of others on all topics outside the nursery. Repeat this experience with successive generations of boys, and where would your “superiority of man” be?
On the other hand, let your girls out into the sunlight and air, teach them the free use of muscles and mind, and reprove them not if, in the beginning, they are crude, and women will cease to be the complacent and gregarious beings they have been; they will cease to worship the fetish of Who is Who and What is What; they will cease to fear the awful and unblinking eye of Society and be ready to seek and find themselves.
Women are needed in all good work more to-day than ever before. Let us remember, then, the more we are in ourselves the more we cando for others. There is nothing greater in life, nothing greater in Christianity than this great principle of service and love for others. Kindliness, helpfulness, service; these three were never more needed than now. The great-hearted, sympathetic, charitable, brave, intelligent woman is needed everywhere, in the home as much, yes, more than in public service. It is hers to enlarge her own horizons and to lose her pettiness by loyal, intelligent service. The narrow, self-centered mother cannot do for her family what the mother does who possesses a trained and logical mind. It is not only the value of the moral judgment which suffers from a lack of privacy and individual freedom; it is the quality of the feminine mind itself which degenerates by overcrowding.
The hearthstone is no less sacred because intelligence reigns there; the touch of woman’s hand is no less tender because she studies Shakespeare and proposes measures for the beautifying of her town and the alleviation of the sufferings of its people; the press of baby fingers upon the mother’s brow will ever be dearer than the plaudits of the multitude.
But we should not forget that we need to haveour horizons broadened. We need to accustom ourselves to larger views of life and of work. So long as our lives are bounded by our towns, or even our own States—so long are we neglecting our opportunities. Naturally, we are most interested in the things around us, and our own particular kind of work seems to us the greatest thing of the kind. But if we shut ourselves up in that, we cannot grow. We must be interested to know what others are doing, and if they are getting more out of life, or, more important yet, putting more into life, than we.
We cannot do this by confining our interests and sympathies to the territory which is actually bounded by the geographical horizon that surrounds our home. We may not be able to actuallydomuch for ours, but there is no limit to what we may be interested in. And the larger our interests the larger are we. It is impossible for us to accustom ourselves to large views of life and broad sympathies for the world’s charities and remain narrow and petty ourselves.
Of course, it was a little Boston girl, sitting at the family dinner table while her father and his friends carried on a serious discussion as tothe child of nowadays. They were lamenting the fact that the children to-day seem so blasé, so little affected by things grave or gay. “Why,” said the father, “my children read without a tear, books that used to make me weep! It seems as if all emotion has gone out of them.” Whereupon our little friend looked up and remarked, with overpowering dignity, “Oh, papa, it is not that emotion has gone out, but self-control has come in.” Wasn’t the child right? This is an age of self-control. It is supposed to be the correct thing to hide our emotions, and, like most correct things, it is often carried too far. How often we hear people wax eloquent, even to tears, over the help they have received from some friend who is no longer with them on earth—some quiet, unseen personality, whose power over their lives they now fully realize. Are we not sometimes tempted to wonder, in listening to such tributes, how often in their lifetime they received such devotion, such recognition? Do we not catch ourselves hoping that they used sometimes to put their arms about their mother and say, “What a good mother you are to me!” But how sadly true it is that the glowing tribute, the costly monument, the piled-uproses, are often attempts to atone for lost opportunities.
He was a wise man who said, “Give me a little taffy now rather than a lot of epitaphy later on.” Not “taffy,” but honest appreciation is due the woman who goes patiently day after day about her business, not worrying about the future, not getting easily discouraged, and knowing just how to conserve herself for their best interests.
We might all be helped by adopting the following, which was put forth some years ago as a “Business Man’s New Year Endeavor,” although I cannot see why it will not do for an every-day endeavor for every woman:
“To be joyous in my work, moderate in my pleasures, chary in my confidences, faithful in my friendships; to be energetic but not excitable, enthusiastic but not fanatical; loyal to the truth, as I see it, but ever open-minded to the newer light; to abhor gush as I would profanity, and hate cant as I would a lie; to be careful in my promises, punctual in my engagements, candid with myself and frank with others; to discourage shams and rejoice in all that is beautiful and true; to do my work and live my life so thatneither shall require defence or apology; to honor no one simply because rich or famous, and despise no one because humble or poor; to be gentle and considerate toward the weak; respectful yet self-respecting toward the great, courteous to all, obsequious to none; to seek wisdom from great books and inspiration from good men; to invigorate my mind with noble thoughts, as I do my body with sunshine and fresh air; to prize all sweet human friendships and seek to make at least one home happy; to have charity for the erring, sympathy for the sorrowing, cheer for the despondent; to leave the world a little better off because of me; and to leave it, when I must, bravely and cheerfully, with faith in God and good will to all my fellow-men; this shall be my endeavor during the coming year.”
When a woman learns to turn her back upon the common, the regular, the accepted, and prove for herself the blessedness of solitude, she learns to find her mental balance.
“The love or hatred of solitude,” says Schopenhauer, “does not depend on the good or evil disposition of the heart, but on the natural wealth or poverty of the mind.” Let us go farther and say it depends also upon the amount ofmental discipline and the habit of standing upon one’s own intellectual feet. We need to love the silence of the stars and the blackness of midnight. We need the courage to face ourselves in the blessedness of solitude. What the crowd gives is only an average, a commonplace goodness; let us be strong enough to seek acquaintanceship with the highest by the only legitimate path, which is marked “Solitude,” and be thankful if it be not hedged about by thorns and thick darkness.
To the woman who would be individual, who wants to be an inspiration and a beneficence, there is but one message: Be not afraid of yourself; get acquainted with the deeps of your own nature; face the shortcomings of your own spirit. Go into the open country alone if you can; if not, take a little time out of every twenty-four hours to think. Just as the observance of the Sabbath is a wise thing from a physiological standpoint, so are self-communion and its breathing spaces a blessing to the individual.
As I have said before and say often, it rests with the woman herself whether she will be like a rose tree, full of brightness and fragrance, a help, a comfort and an inspiration; or whethershe will degenerate into a mere replica of other women who wear good clothes, do and say the conventional, commonplace thing and are as uninteresting as a sunset without a flush of color. Are we “building ourselves fairy palaces proof against all adversity?” Are we learning the continuous habit of serious consecutive thought and clearing our minds from the loose-fibred accumulations of generations?
If girls could be left to themselves as boys are, and allowed to know from childhood the blessed privilege of unconscious self-companionship, and the solitary communion of earth and air and sky, would not the other side of their natures be developed? Would not they learn to form their own opinions, and hold independent ideas, just as naturally as boys? To those occasional seasons when a woman seems to have lost her hold on life is owing some of the most helpful work ever given to the world. Take the case of Helen Hunt. What poet has ever given us more real heart-lifting words, more soulful encouragement and inspiration than she? And yet, not until after grief and bereavement had swept in a perfect storm over her life and left her prostrate, not till after she had formonths blankly faced the problem of a seemingly blasted life, did she begin to realize the object of her existence—the message of help for the world which must come through bitter pain and trial. Not until after she knew the blessedness of solitude, and had wrestled alone with her angel of renunciation did she see the lesson of life and experience the strength that comes after drinking the cup of disenchantment.
There is no such thing as standing face to face with our inmost selves, of divesting ourselves of all pretense and sham while in the company of others, even the most intimate friend. “We do not speak our deepest feelings—our inmost thoughts have no revealings.” A certain sensitiveness debars us, even when we would do so, from showing either our best or our worst qualities. We even keep them veiled from ourselves, except when some exigency of sorrow or surprise reveals them momentarily, or we face ourselves alone in the blackness of night. It is then that real thought begins, that independence of intellect is generated, that the power of concentrated, serious mentality begins. A prominent woman writer, in an account of her travels in Scotland, tells of a half-hour in which shewas left behind in a rough climb, by her companions. “To see the falls was of small account,” says she. “But just once in a lifetime to have a few blessed moments all to one’s self in those sweet, wild Highland solitudes, would not that be worth the having?” That half-hour was worth more than a whole week of castle-seeing in company with a crowd of tourists. A good digestion is as necessary to a hearty dinner as the viands composing it. And there are plenty of thoughtful women who can say with truth, “I should die if I could not sometimes be alone.” We may love our friends never so well, but there are times when we must face ourselves and “take account of stock” intellectually and morally.
There is a delight beyond expression in the realization of mental and spiritual individuality. To know and to feel that one is an independent, thinking being with the divine right to judge for herself, and the capability for sustained mental work, is an inheritance which woman is now coming into with deep and holy joy.
The world needs strong women more than ever before; it needs them as the established rule, not as the exception. What have you and I todo about it? Let us have less “gabble” and more real gain; less noise and flurry and more of the benefits of heart-stillness.
Be still; the crown of life is silentness.Give thou a quiet hour to each long day.Too much of time we spend in profitlessAnd foolish talk—too little do we say.If thou wouldst gather words that shall avail,Learning a wisdom worthy to express,Leave for a while thy chat and empty tale—Study the golden speech of silentness.
Be still; the crown of life is silentness.Give thou a quiet hour to each long day.Too much of time we spend in profitlessAnd foolish talk—too little do we say.If thou wouldst gather words that shall avail,Learning a wisdom worthy to express,Leave for a while thy chat and empty tale—Study the golden speech of silentness.
Be still; the crown of life is silentness.Give thou a quiet hour to each long day.Too much of time we spend in profitlessAnd foolish talk—too little do we say.
Be still; the crown of life is silentness.
Give thou a quiet hour to each long day.
Too much of time we spend in profitless
And foolish talk—too little do we say.
If thou wouldst gather words that shall avail,Learning a wisdom worthy to express,Leave for a while thy chat and empty tale—Study the golden speech of silentness.
If thou wouldst gather words that shall avail,
Learning a wisdom worthy to express,
Leave for a while thy chat and empty tale—
Study the golden speech of silentness.