The Girl Wanted Part 13

There is only one way to get ready for immortality, and that is to love this life and live it as bravely and cheerfully and faithfully as we can.--Henry Van d.y.k.e.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes books.

--Benjamin Franklin.

Anxiety never yet successfully bridged over any chasm.--Ruffini.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?--Shakespeare.

Duty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed, may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor.--William McKinley.

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

--Emily d.i.c.kinson.

No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and loved again.--Ruskin.

Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the best flower of civilization.--Emerson.

It is so easy to perceive other people's little absurdities, and so difficult to discover our own.--Ellen Th.o.r.n.ycroft Fowler.

CHAPTER VII

GOLDEN HABITS

We often hear persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though it were something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature," is a saying that is included among the cla.s.sic epigrams of men. That habits do become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrow and sometimes to its advantage and delight.

For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and in that we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance from wrong doing.

The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual growth ought to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamental principle of their construction should result in giving us very many more good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based on the supposition that while many of us are so const.i.tuted that it is possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is unlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the questionable action become a fixed habit.

The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober second thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permitted ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we would then and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that the wrong should not occur again.

In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good deed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same kind. Wrong deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment of thoughtlessness when one's conscience, one's higher and better self, is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full and proud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful sense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done.

"Could the young," says Henry James, "but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literateness, wiped out." One of our latter day philosophers tells us that "happiness is a matter of habit; and you had better gather it fresh every day or you will never get it at all."

In speaking of the success he had achieved in life, Charles d.i.c.kens said: "I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels."

When we come to study carefully the full meaning of the word "habit"

we find it to be a very comprehensive term. In the sense in which it is here employed the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency or inclination toward an action or condition, which by repet.i.tion has become easy, spontaneous or even

unconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusion that one's habits are in fact one's manners, one's principles, one's mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finally brings one to a clear realization of the secret of

TRUE GENTILITY

One cannot from the world conceal The current of his thought; A word or action will reveal The thing his brain hath wrought.

True goodness from within must come And deeds, to be refined, Their outer grace must borrow from Politeness of the mind.

Our manners are ourselves. They const.i.tute our personality and it is by our personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasant and agreeable we shall not lack for friends.

A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the manners are perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing else could do.

Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It is the spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing." We are told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man is inscribed on his brain, for volition and thoughts have their beginnings in the brain, whence they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the brain in the body, according to the order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure."

Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in the making of character and personality we should leave nothing undone to strengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all are constantly being acted upon by suggestion we should invite to our a.s.sistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplary frame of mind.

In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our good resolves by reading good books and in framing for our own benefit a code of rules for our better conduct.

It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable quotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see them with frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably serves this purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind in the early morning it tends to direct the course of our thinking throughout the day. The following quotations are offered only as suggestions. They can be added to indefinitely:

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.--Chesterfield.

Good breeding shows itself most when to an ordinary eye it appears the least.--Addison.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the company.--Swift.

Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do you make the road of it.--Sterne.

Civility costs nothing and buys everything.--Lady Montague.

Evil communications corrupt good manners.--Bible.

No pleasure is comparable to standing on the vantage ground of truth.--Lord Bacon.

They are never alone that are accompanied with n.o.ble thoughts.--Sidney.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.--New Testament.

Sweet mercy is n.o.bility's true badge.--Shakespeare.

Honest labor bears a lovely face.--Dekker.

The G.o.ds give nothing really beautiful without labor and diligence.--Xenophon.

The key to pleasure is honest work. All dishes taste good with that sauce.--H. R. Haweis.

Work is as necessary for peace of mind as for health of body.--Lord Avebury.

Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the most effectual contribution to the happiness of others."

Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those about us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state of mind into which they throw those about them are not good mannered.

While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in the great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be forever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which we can regale them. Either extreme is more or less absurd and unwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too willingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the Orient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this nature as to almost arouse our mirth.