Newspaper Page Text
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Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Writes bn
Ill Temper
If Allowed to Progress in Chil
dren, Its Effect Is Felt in
Later Generations to Destroy
Often the Happiness of Many
Hornes.
THE HOME PAPER
Written For The Atlanta Georgian
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Copyright, 1913, by Star Company.
S OMETHING like one hun
dred and twenty*-five years
ago, a little girl was born
in New England. She was pretty
and bright, and her parents made
much of her; and she soon be
came a spoiled child in the way
of disposition.
She was irritable and fault
finding; and these tendencies were
not corrected, but excused on the
ground that “Abbie was high-
strung,” and “smart,” and “not
like other ordinary children.”
She married, young, a man of
rare sweetness of character, and
with an inexhaustible patience.
He was devoted to his handsome
wife, and she made him a very
good consort, so far as her Indus-'
try and economy and loyalty went.
But she worried him with her
fault-finding and irritability.
He made the great mistake of
establishing his wife with his rel
atives, and all her quarrelsome
and irritable tendencies were, of
course, aggravated.
She bore him six children, and
as she had never been taught any
thing of the laws of prenatal in
fluence, she fretted and com
plained about the increasing
numbers of her children, before
their birth.
Erred in Telling Them.
And after they came into
life and she grew to love them
she made the great error of tell
ing them how unwelcome they
had been. This was especially
true of the second child, who was
scarcely a year younger than her
older sister.
This second child inherited all
her mother’s irritable character
istics and prided herself upon be
ing extremely high-spirited and
capable of “answering back” with
some sharp retort.
She. too. was excused, and even
lauded for her peculiarities.
She was regarded as “out of the
common” and “just like Abbie.”
When she married her husband
did not possess the amiable qual
ities of her father, and, of course,
discord soon prevailed.
Children came into this home,
and so a second generation was
reared in this unfortunate atmos
phere.
The grandmother lived until she
reached the age of ninety-four,
and with each year her disposi
tion grew more unpleasant.
When the daughter visited at
her old home there was always
bickering and scolding and quar
relling.
And into these family fusses
three generations were drawn.
Then came a fourth generation,
after the grandmother died, and
this fourth generation was
brought up under the same con
ditions, and to-day this genera
tion is cursed with the original
uncurbed temper and unhappy
tendency to find fault of the first
great-grandmother, which came
down through the second grand
mother and the father, and was,
like a river, fed from streams run
ning into it from other branches,
which all became corrupted when
the original stream was ap
proached.
Have Wrecked Homes.
Sisters have become enemies,
brothers quarrel; jealousy, ill
temper, gossip, back-biting and
all manner of bad habits, result
ing from uncontrolled temper,
have destroyed homes, and In
some of these homes a fifth gen
eration of little children Is be
coming infected.
And all this might have been
averted, • and heaven, instead of
hell, been established In the
homes of four generations had the
first child been taught self-con
trol, good-will, amiability, gentle
manners, the religion of kindness
and courtesy.
All of these wpmen had kind
hearts toward the poor, sick and
needy. They were always ‘‘good
neighbors” when there was trou
ble in other homes.
But they never learned the
strength and power which lies in
silence, and they never learned
the beauty of the soft answer
which turneth away wrath.
The two original sinners ifor
such uncontrolled tempers are
sinful) were women of great
strength of intellect and of dom
inating personalities, therefore,
their influence was far-reaching
and powerful. In many of their
descendants the unpleasant quali
ties have taken the form of petty
meanness and ignoble nagging
toward all those with whom they
are thrown in close association.
Yet the tendencies can all be
traced back to the first source.
Teach Them Kindness.
If your child, madam or sir,
shows wonderful "spirit” and is
very “high strung” and brilliant
with repartee in the way of the
quick retort, do not laugh and
applaud and think you have
something to be proud of, some
thing out of the ordinary.
Teach your children the religion
of kindness, the religion of gen
tle voices, amiable manners, gen
erous judgments and self-control.
Make them understand early
how vulgar is uncontrolled tem
per and how ill-bred the sharp re
joinder.
Do this for their own sakes
and the sakes of unborn genera
tions.
I SHOULD WORRY
By WEX JONES.
I T used to be jolly to chatter with Polly
On fashion and frivol and froth of the day;
But now it’s sheer folly talking to Polly,
For she puts “I should worry” to all that she’ll say.
“I should , worry like an onion’
(Here she laughs, she feels so tickled),
“I should worry HKe an onion
And discover that I’m pickled.
1 should worry like a saw”
(How that “worry” gets me riled!),
“I should worry like a saw
Till my teeth have all been filed.”
You hear all the flappers, tongues going like clappers
Bandy about this ridiculous phrase;
Prue, Polly and Lizzie v. Ill jabber you dizzy.
Twisting it round in its different ways:
“I should worry seven days
And become a little weak.”
“I should worry,” “I should worry,”
Every time they speak.
“I should worry like a fish
And get the hook. ’
“I should worry like a gumdrop
And go North with old Doc Cook.”
“I should worry,” “I should worry”—
Phrase that sets me in a flurry,
Phrase that sets my goat a-scurry—
Oh, well, I should worry.
EDITORIAL RAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St.. Atlanta, Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffire at Atlanta, under act of March 3.1873
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall, $5.00 a year.
Payable In Advance.
Speech and Thought Make
Our Lives
Everything That We Do Is Accomplished in Time BY
THOUGHT. Thinking Is Your Only Real Power; Time
Is Your Real Property—and There Is Little of It.
Copyright. 1»!3
We human beings ceased to be animals and became MEN
when we first used thought in place of brute strength.
At some distant day in our development the animal that
preceded us here made up its feeble mind that there was some
thing better than strength, teeth and claws, and began to use
its little brain.
This animal, our ancestor, the so called pithecanthropos, or
monkey-man, observed the saber-toothed tiger ripping open the
stomach of a monster three times its size, watched the mammoth
ploughing through swamps, crushing down trees, observed the
great reptiles and all other proofs of brute force, and, without
realizing it, this ancestor said vaguely to himself:
“I can’t compete when it comes to teeth and claws, weight
and bulk. I am a feeble thing in this jumble of power and bat
tle. I must THINK the way out.”
And so our real human life began
Our ancestor with a forehead one-quarter ol an inch high,
a jaw that stuck out as far as the jaw of a gorilla, with feeth
bigger than any of those of any bulldog, and with long arms
dropping below the knees, that could crush a man of to day with
ease—this old ancestor of ours decided that he would get out of
the battle for supremacy of muscle and teeth and see what could
be done with the brain AND WITH THINKING.
You can imagine how the thinking process started.
It was hardly real thought at first, just a kind of intelligent
impulse. Our ancestor sat up in a tree rubbing his nose and
looking at the saber-toothed tiger that couldn’t climb.
He saw the shining teeth, six inches long perhaps, and he
didn’t like the looks of them.
Later, when the tiger was gone, he climbed down and picked
up a sharp flint, ten inches long, heavier, sharper and harder
than the tiger’s tooth.
He held this in his hand, struck his brother with it, killed
the brother, and felt highly satisfied with his intellectual accom
plishment.
He had discovered that a tooth made of stone, held at the
end of an arm four feet long, could do as much damage as the
tooth of a tiger.
So he fastened his sharp flint to the end of a piece of wood,
sat in the tree, stabbed the tiger in the back as he passed, broke
his backbone, ate his flesh, took the teeth to make implements
and ornaments for himself—and so began the thinking human
race.
Later man used explosive dynamite shells in place of sharp
flints, he dwelt in skyscrapers in place of holes in the rocks, he
used flying machines in place of canoes dug out of a log.
BUT ALL THE TIME HE WAS A THINKING ANIMAL
INSTEAD OF AN ANIMAL RELYING ON STRENGTH,
TEETH, MUSCLE, THICK HIDE, CLAWS.
And every step that he gained in his upward climb toward
control of the earth and dominion over the animals was gained
by the THOUGHT that was started when he made up his mind
to use the sharp flint and conquer the long white tooth.
All of this leads to the thinking man, sitting on the ash
barrel in the picture at the top of this page.
He is a descendant of all the thinkers of three hundred
thousand years past.
He comes in an unbroken line from the old half monkey,
half thinking creature that discovered the possibility of con
quering animals stronger than himself.
And this thinker on the ash barrel in poverty, in anxiety, in
remorse, is unfortunately the type of many of those—more than
half, probably—who represent the so-called “civilization and
marvels of achievement.”
This picture is a copy, simply made, of Rodin s great statue,
“Le Penseur.”
In his statue of thought Rodin shows the man of power
seated on the rock solving his problems by thought.
In the picture that we print on this page the artist shows
the man of sorrow and of weakness, pitifully trying to use for
his betterment and for his defense the power which has been
man’s only weapon.
The Atlanta Georgian
The Thinker
Readers, whether you be old or young, realize NOW that
your salvation, your hope, your chances in life, are all in the
thinKing power hidden away in your head.
How much will you use that power of thought?
How long are you going to wait to use it efficiently?
To what extent can you make thought, recently acquired by
men, control the animal forces and passions that date back mil
lions of years to our earliest ancestors of the days when this
earth was young?
Are you going to use your power, your health, your clear
mind, and your will NOW to solve your problems and protect
yourself, and be a benefit to the human race, or are you to wait,
and waste, and wonder, and delay, until it is too late, as with
this man?
5u«a.fcsr£D •SY
'fc&DtH '•& mrgotr*
He Thinks Hard, Bitterly—But Too Late. Thought Conquers and Solves Life’s Problems, but Only
When the Thought Controls the Power of the Body and the Mind. When the Power is Gone. THOUGHT
COMES TOO LATE. ( SEE EDITORIALS
.:. Housewives and the Art of Housekeeping
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
T HE reign cf the good house
keeper is only just begin
ning. Every month sees
some new invention that helps to
diminish the slavery of house
work. Housekeeping has for ages
been Tn art, and. as with all arts,
its practitioners range in their
abilities from mediocrity through
fair talent up to positive genius.
Now housekeeping is becoming
a science, and science has this
advantage over art—that it tends
to equalize abilities by bringing
results through mechanical and
automatic methods which any
body can employ.
The French Kitchen.
For a plain male citizen, who
knows little about the secrets of
the kitchen, it is a wonderful rev
elation to read the articles in
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAG
AZINE and to it ok at the devices
t re shown which relate to this
fast-growing science. Almost
everything about a house can
now be done with half the ex
penditure of labor and time
formerly required. To be without
this knowledge and these inven
tions ir not merely to be behind
the times, but it is to live harder,
le>s well and more expensively
Ui-iuv* necessity for.
The kitchen is the stomach of
the house, and upon the way in
which it performs its functions,
the welfare of the whole estab
lUhmer.t depends. My attention
has just been called to a model
French kitchen. All the world has
long ’coked up to France as the
ideal home, of culinary art. and it
is evident that she does not in
tend to be left behind in the mod
ern transformation of this art
into a science.
The kitchen has also been
called “the theater of the French
housewife.” and this theater is
becoming really a fascinating
place with its display of electri
cal ranges, scientific lamps, auto
matic grinders, mills and churns.
Pasteur Alters, coffee makers, ice
cream freezers, devices for easily
getting rid of waste substances,
porcelain sinks as white and clean
as Alpine snow, scouring ma
chines. filters, convenient cup
boards. and all the glittering ar
ray of nickel, silver, copper,
aluminum, bronze and granite-
ware utensils that All the room
with bright reflections.
Not to Visit. But to Help.
One of the great charms of a
Krench kitchen is that the mis
tress is frequently to be seen
there, not merely as a visitor, but
as a helper and director. She in
spires her servants by her pres
ence, and by her advice. She does
not pretend to live in another
world than theirs. They know
that she understands their busi
ness as well as they do them
selves, and even better. She can
take their place if necessary. This
is as true of the rich as of the
relatively poor.
The economy of the French
people has long been world-fa
mous. and nowhere is it more
brilliantly displayed than In the
kitchen. A French family, as has
often been said, could live, and
live well, upon the waste of many
American families. And the ex
ercise of this economy—this art of
getting all the good out of things
—fascinates those who practise it.
It has the charm of all applied
knowledge. They not only get all
that is good—they make the good
better. I know many a little
country inn In France where, for
three or four francs, wine Includ
ed (a franc is worth 20 cents),
one can have a really better meal
than can be had in Atlanta for
two or three dollars.
And yet meats, and similar
things, cost about as much In
France as they do here. The se
cret lies tn economical manage
ment and good cooking. It is no
wonder that a first-rate French
cook can command in New York
a salary of $5,000, or even more.
And If he, or she, retains on this
side of the Atlantic the economi
cal skill learned at home, more
than half the salary is saved to
the employer.
To Learn Economy.
One thing to be noticed in the
French kitchen is that there is
usually no false economy in the
choice of apparatus. Everything
is of the best, or at least good and
substantial. The kitchen, in its
way, is as well furnished as the
parlor. You may be sure that
this spells economy in the end,
for if it did not it would not be
found in France.
I have often been surprised on
entering a house in France,
which, in America, might be
taken as the abode of people in
very humble circumstances, to
find a far larger and better-
stocked kitchen than many rather
pretentious houses possess here,
accompanied by a culinary skill
in its mistress which would earn
her a large salary on this side of
the ocean.
No doubt we shall learn this
economical wisdom in good time—
a&d Lha sooner the better.