Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

6 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.