Newspaper Page Text
6
Worth Woman s While
“If you have gentle words and looks, my friends,
To spare for me—if you have tears to shed
That I have suffered—keep them not, I pray,
Until I hear not, see not, being dead.
For loving looks, though fraught with tenderness
And kindly tears, though they fall thick and fast,
And words of praise alas! can naught avail
To lift the shadows from a life that’s past.”
Unfortunate to Know Too Much.
A party of friends were sitting together the other
•afternoon in the enjoyment of a quiet hour when
one, an elderly and cultivated gentleman, inquired
casually:
“Do you know Mrs. S ? No? She is stay-
ing with us at present. A great talker, a woman
of considerable wealth, comes of a rich family.
She talks all the time—you can’t mention any sub
ject that she doesn’t know something about it.”
“How tiresome!” exclaimed a woman who doesn’t
make any claim to superior knowledge. “People
like that make me so tired!”
The gentleman smiled quietly, and remarked in a
confidential tone, “They do me.”
And isn’t it true of us all? People who know so
much, whose word is the final one, aren’t they just
a little trying company? “No,” they say, “it is
thus or so.” And will allow you not so much as
an opinion differing from their ultimatum. It is a
fine thing to have knowledge, but to what end is
knowledge? Surely not that it shall be used to the
disconcerting and discomfort of others. For it is
disconcerting and discomforting to be forced into
the position of one who does not know, whether
or not it be true, simply because a dominating spirit
will allow you no slightest assertion. It is humili
ating, and to a sensitive person, often to the point
of tears.
Better is a little knowledge and the sweetness
which allows to others what would be claimed for
self. What is a mind stored full of facts; a mem
ory that parrots them forth in order? Learning
has done little more than ignorance unless it enters
into and makes the person. All that we can acquire
is but to the one end, to make us broad and gener
ous and high, to make us considerate of others, a
helpful but a modest factor in the great universal
plan.
Calling People By their Given Names.
Don’t call people by their given names—it takes
■away from their sense of what they represent to
you, and opens the way for familiarity on their
part which is not always desirable. Sometimes we
condescend with a patronage meant for kindness,
but it is not bringing up to our level, it is simply
stepping down to theirs. Even our intimate friends
cannot but respond to the delicate battery of “a
handle” to their names. The Reverend Thomas
Brown will feel himself inflate with an added dig
nity addressed as Doctor, when just familiar Tom
may make him doubt his own greatness. And so
with a married woman who flushes with happy pride
and consequence at being called by her husband’s
name—it feels to her a sort of tribute to her estate
of dignity and importance.
Young women make the mistake of speaking of
their men friends as Jack and Dick and Billy—not
just those they have grown up with; it is amazing
to see how quickly new acquaintances are admitted
to this footing, spoken of and spoken to with the
utmost ease of perfect familiarity. And you will
hear a woman speak of her husband as “John,”
thus seeming to let down the bars to domestic dig
nity and sanctity—for there is not sanctity where
all the world is admitted. Instinctively when your
friend speaks of her husband as “Mr. ” you
fell a prompting of respect for him and for her,
but “John” inspires nothing more than just
“John.”
The Golden Age for August 30, 1906.
By FLORENCE TUCKER
The show of respect is a wonderful promoter of
self-respect, especially with young people. Treat
ed as irresponsible children they are apt to deport
themselves as such, but consideration and courtesy
awaken a sense of individuality and involuntary
reciprocity—unconsciously they maintain their per
sonality, and give as they receive and as is expect
ed of them. The attitude servants are taught to
assume toward the children of a household has
much to do with the opinion young people form of
their own place in the family life. How shocking
it is to overhear the maid speaking of the young
lady of the house by her name unprefaced by the
usual title of Miss. Yet if she is accustomed to
have the mistress say to her, “Go and tell Mary to
come here,” instead of, “Go to Miss Mary and ask
her to come here”—isn’t it plain she, observing the
difference, will act upon it?
In a household we know the servant addresses the
young son of fifteen as “Bob” and his elder sister
of seventeen as “Annie”; and not only that, but
her manner, especially toward the latter, is distinct
ly domineering—following the example of the moth
er who regards her children as children merely, and
by her manner instigates the behavior of the ser
vant who is permitted her disrespect until it
reaches the point of insolence when she is dis
charged and another put in her place, only to go
through with the same thing. Such a home of con
fusion and turmoil and high-pitched voices and con
stant irritating of one by the other! And such
awkward, self-conscious, ill-at-ease young people!
It is so unfair to them. Hectored at home, and not
accustomed to respect, when they go out such an
unprepossessing appearance they present. And
what uncertain, shiftless sort of characters are be
ing built up in them—what a confused thing life
already is to them!
It seems just a little thing’, this giving of people
the appellation of common courtesy, but it means
so much in far-reaching effect. We even like our
selves better, when we think of it, for being polite
to those around us.
“A gay, serene spirit is the source of alt that i«
good,” said Schiller. Whatever is accomplisTle?
of the greatest and the noblest sort flows from such
a disposition. Petty, gloomy souls that only mourn
the past and dread the future are not capable of
seizing on the holiest moments of life. If people
would look at worry in all its naked hideousness,
as the manifestation of a small, narrow nature, in
capable of entertaining large views, or of trusting
grandly, they would be ashamed to be counted
among its victims. But the chronic worrier prides
himself on his “foresight,” on his prudence in tak
ing thought for the morrow. The mother who is
afraid to let her children go out to play, lest thev
fall and hurt themselves, or soil their clothes, and
worries from morning till night over the petty
cares of the day, thanks her stars that she is not
careless like other women.—Ex.
Although all cannot live in the country, nor drink
water from deep wells, nor live in houses built on
hill-tops, all can approximate the conditions on
which longevity depends. Water may be made pure
by boiling, or, better still, by distillation; air and
sunshine are the gifts of heaven; cleanliness and
cheerfulness are free to the humblest; plain food
and ripe fruit (the latter at least during the sum
mer and autumn months) are within the reach of
all but the absolutely destitute. But the great
secret of all good health is to think good health.
One thing in regard to which there is no room
for difference of opinion is the daily bath. No mat
ter whether you are a dweller in the city or the
country, a hand worker or a brain worker, a farmer
or a mechanic, tin* daily bath, not alone for cleanli
ness, but also for perfect health, is a necessity. To
remove harmful excretions, to keep the pores of the
skin open and in a condition to act freely, to stim
ulate the flow of the blood, to promote a vigorous
state of body and a happy state of mind, nothing
can take the place of a liberal use of soap and wa
ter. A brisk shampooing is necessary to produce
that healthful glow which should follow bathing, if
it is to produce the best results. A daily cold wa
ter bath for those who react readily, is not only a
powerful tonic, but also the best known preventive
of colds, disease, or illness in any form. A hot.
bath, weekly, will prove a renovator of the whole
system.—Ex.
To the Man Who Fails.
Let others sing to the hero who wins in the cease
less fray,
Who, over the crushed and the fallen, pursueth his
upward way;
For him let them weave the laurel, to him be their
paean song,
Whom the kindly Fates have chosen, who are happy
their loved among;
But mine be a different message, some soul in its
stress to reach;
To bind, o’er the wound of failure, the balm of pity
ing speech;
To whisper: “Be up and doing, for courage at last
prevails. ’ ’
I sing—who have supped with Failure—l sing to
the man who fails.
I know how the gray cloud darkens, and mantles the
soul in gloom;
I know how the spirit harkens to voices of doubt or
of doom;
I know how the tempter mutters his terrible word,
“Despair!”
But the heart has its secret chamber, and I know
that our God is there.
Our years are as moments only; our failures He
counts as naught;
The stone that the builders rejected, perchance, is
the one that He sought.
Mayhap, in the ultimate judgment, the effort alone
avails,
And the laurel of great achievement shall be for the
man who fails.
We sow in the darkness only; but the Reaper shall
reap in the light,
And the day of His perfect glory shall tell of the
deeds of the night.
We gather our gold, and store it, and the whisper
is heard, 4 ‘ Success ! ’ ’
But, tell me, ye cold, white sleepers, what were
achievement less?
We struggle for fame, and win it, and, lo! like a
fleeting breath,
It is lost in the realm of silence whose ruler and
king is Death.
Where are the Norseland heroes, the ghosts of a
housewife’s tales?
I sing—for the Father heeds me—l sing to the man
who fails.
Oh, men who are labeled “failures,” up, up! again,
and do!
Somewhere in the world of action is room: I here is
room for you.
No failure was e’er recorded in the annals of truth
ful men,
Except of the craven-hearted who f&ils, nor at
tempts again.
Ihe glory is in the doing, and not in the trophy
won;
Ihe walls that are laid in darkness may laugh to
the kiss of the sun.
Oh, weary, and worn, and stricken, oh, child of
fate’s cruel gales!
I sing—that it haply may cheer him—l sing to the
man who fails.
Alfred J. Waterhouse,