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Worth Woman's While
Telephone Manners.
We have been interested in reading the story—•
the true story told in a few paragraphs—of Anna
Bennet, a New York telephone girl to whom fortune
came in truly a romantic fashion, like it did to
maidens of old, all unexpected, and making of them
very fairy princesses, with gold for silks and jewels,
and more for dispensing gifts. In the beautiful
old stories the fortune came as reward for goodness,
and so with this modest young girl.
Anna Bennet was the daughter of a cooper. This
of itself would seem to tell that necessity, perhaps,
sent her, the dutiful, helpful child, into the tele
phone exchange, there to earn maintenance for her
self and possibly help for others. In which cir
cumstances she differed in but one respect, it may
be, from hundreds of other girls, but it was this
difference that won her the prize—she had a marvel
lously sweet voice.
It is amazing how little the world considers the
sound of its voice over the telephone. Face to face
the hypnotic power of personality, the force of any
number of influences, may offset the lack in the
voice, but when there is nothing else, when it comes
straight and unaccompanied by anything extenuat
ing or mollifying, its mask dropped off, as it were,
it tells infinitely more than the words it Speaks:
and the very thing we would not have chosen is that
the invisible wire is going to transmit. Nothinng
in the world more surely gives us away than the tel
ephone even when we are mindful of the require
ments of good manners, but, inconceivable as it
ought to be, the most common politeness appears
on occasion to desert some of us when we pick up
the receiver, as thous’h we imagined because out of
sight the true impression of us were as undiscerna
ble. The woman who is all smiles and sweetness to
you will turn to answer the telephone and finding
it a mistake in number be as curt as decency will
allow. We all know what it is to be spoken to in
this way, to be taken this mean advantage of, and
we know what impression is made upon us. We re
call a day when in the house of some acquaintances
the hostess excused herself from pleasant, easy
converse, and went to the telephone in the hall to
make an order on her grocer. It was literally an
order, couched in such words, but above all in such
tones, as. but for his own busines interest, must
have made the merchant disregard it entirely; no
true-born lady would have used such manner to the
most ordinary hireling. She got her goods, of
course—but what thought the grocer, and what
thought her guests?
We answer sometimes as though taken off our
guard; the most punctilious will seem to forget;
one who wears her good maners as unfailingly as
her outer garments will actually show temper over
the telephone. And as to the wav 11 Central” is
addressed, that young woman herself would hardly
want you to know. Her mistakes are not few—
alas!—but what error on the part of that much ma
ligned person should provoke us to so far greater!
The mistake of a wrong number were small com
pared with the flash of anger that goes back at her
and the loss of dignity, her respect and her own, at
our end.
We have our little grievances, but perhaps if we
were a little more conciliatory they would be fewer.
For instance, like the clerk in a hotel on the Gulf
Coast. We had vainly endeavored to get a certain
number when he kindlv volunteered his services.
Taking the receiver and bending his dapper form
to the phone he called with the utmost unction, “0
Miss Central, will you please ma’am give me I<Bl ?
If you please ma’am!—Yes, ma’am—thank you,
ma’am!” And he eot what our ordinary civility
had failed to get. For our own part we never can
quite hold it against “Miss Central” when she
gets a little cross; so many are inconsiderate of
her, and she does not realize hut that we would be
the same—perhaps even in the moment that we
The Golden Age for April 26, 1906.
By F L O REN C Eyi U CK'.E R.
are incensed by her curtness she is smarting under
the sharp words of some other woman. The reflec
tion palliates the offense, and makes us unwilling
to add anything to her burden of wounded feeling
and resentment.
But Anna Bennet did not allow the sweetness to
be provoked out of her voice; at least when she
answered one number it was smooth and pleasing,
with a quality so personal, so positively sweet, that
the man who called up felt the possessor of those
beautiful tones must be in some way known to him,
she was not a mere stranger, her life must in some
way link with his. He was a Canadian lumberman,
a millionaire twenty times over, and as he called
from time to time in his room in the hotel he was
more and more impressed, so much so that finally
he determined he would see the owner of the lovely
voice. So he sought her out at the exchange, and
was not disappointed in the personality he had
hoped to find, the voice had been a true index to
the character, and the dream and hope of his lonely
life was realized. Anna Bennet became Mrs. Whit
ney, and upon her husband’s death, which occurred
but a short time after their marriage, the heir to
his immense fortune. Nor does tlie story end here:
with her vast means she finds many ways to assist
telephone girls for whom she has the sympathy
born of experience, and to whom she is more than
kind.
Tt is an interesting romance to all those young
women who sit from day to day calling “Number?
number?” to the hundreds of people who, generally,
never come any nearer to them. And it has its
suggestion for us all—we do not know what lives
ours are touching, in casual meeting or passing on
the street, or in just the sending out of the voice—
we do not know what most ordinary means will be
used to bring about the most important events of
all our experience.
Sermons Unawares.
We none of us quite like being instructed, the
most of us resent even suggestion; however in
clined to be didactic ourselves, we do not wish to be
told what to do, and most of all to have our mis
takes pointed out. When one arises to teach we
view him askance or with the critic’s eye. Many a
seed of truth falling on the stony ground of our
hearts has failed to take root because of the stiff
ness of our necks; many a bit of spiritual instruc
tion and of wholesome philosophy have gone by un
heeded. Sermons as such are apt to be unattract
ive to listen to or to read: restive under admoni
tion, we turn from even the appearanct of it. Ytt
unawares we hear or read sermons in the most, ap
parently, trivial or ordinary things.
One instance that has come under our notice is
that of a woman conscientious to a painful degree
who attributes her exceeding carefulnes in little
matters to the impression made on her when but a
child in reading of a little Hindoo servant girl. In
the service of a missionary this child was converted
to the true religion and expressed to her mistress
the desire to become a Christian like herself.
“You wish to be a Christian?” asked the lady.
“Yes,” said the little girl.
“And you think you have been converted—but
how do you know?” the misionary inquired, anx
ious to be sure if the small servant properly com
prehended the change of heart and earnest purpose
she hoped to find in her.
“Oh,” responded the child promptly and with
the utmost simplicity, “I used not to sweep under
the door mat, but now I do!”
The woman who read this story so many years
ago never forgot it, nor forgot herself to sweep
under the door mat. The little Hindoo servant girl
became a very conscience in the broom whenever
in her hands, making her carry it religiously into
every corner and crack and crevice; and the spirit
pervaded to other duties as well. It was a sermon
read and accepted and never lost, a sermon that
did not mean to be one, nor even know that it was,
the sort that reaches straight to the heart and con
science and becomes a very part of us ever after.
Dr. Van Dyke bids us “Remember, that in this
world, every mountain top of privilege is girdled
by the vales of lowly duty.” It is good to reflect
as we labor ever in the valley that we have but to
apply ourselves to duty to reach surely the moun
tain height; no breathless running, no arduous
climbing are needful to bring us to it, simply quiet
and persistent giving of ourselves to each obligation
as it is presented to us, the thing nearest at hand.
Our duty to the different members of our family,
the cares of the house, and the dumb things which
look to us for sustenance and kindness, our neigh
bors, and the needy and the sorrowful that appeal
to us—these are all in the vale where we are, and
just around us; each is an opportunity, an instru
ment given to help us on to the “mountain top of
privilege.” Are we ambitious? Have we dreams
of greatness? All may be attained. We may never
possess vast riches, or be elevated to conspicuous
position before the world. But it is not the things
we have or what the world sees us to be that makes
us—we may be anything and through the very en
vironment which is ours now; the means to the end
we crave Heaven has provided. If we remain ever
in the vale and attain never to the mountain top
of privilege it is only because we have disregarded
the duties which were our opportunities, our step
ping stones, and the ladder of our unconscious as
cent.
Serving.
The sweetest lives are those to duty wed,
Whose deeds, both great and small,
Are close-knit strands of unbroken thread,
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells;
The book of life the shining record tells.
Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes
After its own life working. A child’s kiss
Set on thy shining lips shall make thee glad.
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong.
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Os service which thou renderest.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
As a result of the terrific earthquake shock on
the Pacific coast April 18, the Leland Stanford
University was practically demolished. All but one
of the university buildings are in ruins, together
with the Memorial church. The University was
endowed by Senator Stanford to the extent of near
ly $30,000,000. The buildings were of brown stone,
and said to be the finest cluster of buildings used
for educational purposes in this country. They
were not high, the most of them being four stories
or less. The Memorial chapel, which was situated
in the center of the group of buildings, was built
at a cost of more than $1,000,000.
Mrs Florence Maybrick, wishing to bury the past
and obliterate, if possible, her connection with the
famous murder case which was the talk of the civ
ilized world, has changed her name. Mrs. May
brick’s resources have been practically cut oit.
Her Southern property holdings have been so in
volved in litigation that her chances of realizing
upon them are practically hopeless.
I expect to pass through this way but once; if
there is any kindness or any good thing I can do
to my fellow beings, let me do it now. William
Penn.
Every person is near to you whom you can bless;
he is nearest whom you can bless most, —Channing.