The Girl Wanted Part 3

Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smile that children love." Any one possessing a smile that children as well as others may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face is of great worth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged to look upon it.

A smile is an indication that the one who is smiling is happy and every happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we all understand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There is truly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forever grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our most cheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the little, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the lines produced by depression and frowning that grow deeper and deeper until they become as hard and severe as if they were cut in stone." Such happiness is one of the virtues which people of all cla.s.ses and ages, the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not know what ripples of healing are set in motion," says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smile on one another. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people."

Most persons are very quick to see whether or not a smile is genuine or is manufactured and put on like a mask for the occasion. The automatic, stock-in-trade smile hardly ever fits the face that tries to wear it. It is a little too wide or sags at the corners or something else is wrong with it.

A smile may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door; it may be "sweeter than honey," but the instant we detect that it is not genuine, it loses its charm and becomes, in fact, much worse than no smile at all. Smiles that are genuine are always just right both in quality and quant.i.ty. So the only really safe rule is for us not to smile until we feel like it and then we shall get on all right. And we ought to feel like smiling whenever we look into the honest face of any fellow being. A smile pa.s.ses current in every country as a mark of distinction.

But it is even possible to overdo in the matter of smiling. "I can't think of anything more irritating to the average human being," says Lydia Horton Knowles, "than an incessant, everlasting smile. There are people who have it. When things go wrong they have a patient, martyr-like smile, and when things go right they have a dutifully pleasant smile which has all the appearance of being mechanical, and purely a pose. Now I think the really intelligent person is the one who can look as though he realized the significance of various incidents or happenings and who can look sorrowful, even, if the occasion demands it. It is not a pleasant thing to suffer mentally or physically, for instance, and have any one come up to you with a smile of patient, sweet condolence. The average man or woman does not want smiles when he or she is uncomfortable. We are apt to remember that it is easy enough to smile when it is somebody else who has the pain. I venture to say that a smile given at the wrong moment is far more dangerous to human happiness than the lack of a smile at any given psychological moment. There is a time and a place for all things, even a smile."

No expression of feeling is of much moment without a warm heart and an intelligent thought behind it. The seemingly mechanical, automatic expressions of feeling and of interest in our affairs are sometimes even harder to bear than an out and out att.i.tude of indifference. The thing that really warms and moves us is a touch of heartfelt, intelligent

SYMPATHY

When the clouds begin to lower, That's a splendid time to smile; But your smile will lose its power If you're smiling all the while.

Now and then a sober season, Now and then a jolly laugh: We like best, and there's a reason, A good, wholesome half and half.

When the other one has trouble, We should feel that trouble, too, For, were we with joy to bubble 'Mid his grief, 't would hardly do.

Let us own that keen discerning That can see and bear a part; For the whole wide world is yearning For a sympathetic heart.

Nothing is more restful and refres.h.i.+ng than a friendly glance or a kindly word offered to us in the midst of our daily rounds of duty.

And since we are not often in a position to grant great favors we should not fail to cultivate the habit of bestowing small ones whenever we can. It is in giving the many little lifts along the way that we shall be able to lighten many burdens.

I do not know it to be a fact, but I have read it somewhere in the books that the human heart rests nine hours out of every twenty-four.

It manages to steal little bits of rest between beats, and thus it is ever refreshed and able to go on performing the work nature has a.s.signed for it to do.

And therein is a first-rate lesson for most persons, who if they cannot do something of considerable moment are disposed to do nothing at all. They forget that it is the brief three-minute rests that enable the mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the top whereas longer periods of inactivity might serve to stiffen his limbs and impede his progress.

Wise are they who, like the human heart, sprinkle rest and kindness and heart's-ease all through their daily tasks. They weave a bright thread of thankful happiness through the web and woof of life's pattern. They are never too busy to say a kind word or to do a gentle deed. They may be compelled to sigh betimes, but amid their sighs are smiles that drive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in the trail of every cloud. They gather flowers where others see nothing but weeds. They pluck little sprigs of rest where others find only thorns of distress.

After the manner of the human heart, they make much of the little opportunities presented to them. They rest that they may have strength for others. They gather suns.h.i.+ne with which to dispel the shadows about them.

The grandest conception of life is to esteem it as an opportunity for making others happy. He who is most true to his higher self is truest to the race. The lamp that s.h.i.+nes brightest gives the most light to all about it. Th.o.r.eau says: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of life."

He is, indeed, a correct observer and a careful student of human nature who tells us that the face is such an index of character that the very growth of the latter can be traced upon the former, and most of the successive lines that carve the furrowed face of age out of the smooth outline of childhood are engraved directly or indirectly by mind. There is no beautifier of the face like a beautiful spirit.

So we see that if we have acquired the habit of wearing a pleasant face, or of smiling honestly and cheerfully, we have an accomplishment that is worth more than many others that are more pretentious and more superficial. If to this accomplishment we can add another--the ability to speak a pleasant word to those whom we may meet--we are not to think poorly of our equipment for life.

There is a good, old-fas.h.i.+oned word in the dictionary, the study of which, with its definition, is well worth our while. The word is "Complaisance," and it is defined as "the disposition, action, or habit of being agreeable, or conforming to the views, wishes, or convenience of others; desire or endeavor to please; courtesy; politeness."

Complaisance, as it has been truly said, renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, an inferior acceptable. It sweetens conversation; it produces good-nature and mutual benevolence; it encourages the timid, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages.

Politeness has been defined as society's method of making things run smoothly. True complaisance is a more intimate quality. It is an impulse to seek points of agreement with others. A spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, fresh impressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactive as long as there is anybody to please or to make more comfortable.

The complaisant person need not be lacking in will, in determination, or individuality. In fact it is the complaisant person's strength of will that holds in check and harmonizes all the other traits of character and moulds them into a perfectly balanced disposition.

Complaisance rounds off the sharp corners, chooses softer and gentler words and makes it easy and pleasant for all to dwell together in unity. And it never fails to contribute something to the enjoyment of everyone even though it be

ONLY A WORD

Tell me something that will be Joy through all the years to me.

Let my heart forever hold One divinest grain of gold.

Just a simple little word, Yet the dearest ever heard; Something that will bring me rest When the world seems all distressed.

As the candle in the night Sends abroad its cheerful light, So a little word may be Like a lighthouse in the sea.

When the winds and waves of life Fill the breast with storm and strife, Just one star my boat may guide To the harbor, glorified.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARRIET BEECHER STOWE]

[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are gathered in this section.]

Only to the pure and the true does Nature resign herself and reveal her secrets.--Goethe.

Every man carries with him the world in which he must live, the stage and the scenery for his own play.--F. Marion Crawford.

The best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more to more.--Sam Walter Foss.

Notwithstanding a faculty be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it.--Addison.

Every truth in the universe makes a close joint with every other truth.--Melvin L. Severy.

All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie, of which a man ought to be ashamed.--John Stuart Blackie.

When we cease to learn, we cease to be interesting.--John Lancaster Spalding.

The workless people are the worthless people.--Wm. C. Gannett.

Our ideals are our better selves.--Bronson Alcott.

All literature, art, and science are vain, and worse, if they do not enable you to be glad, and glad, justly.--Ruskin.

All things else are of the earth, but love is of the sky.--William Stanley Braithwaite.

To fill the hour, that is happiness.--Emerson.

Ah, well that in a wintry hour the heart can sing a summer song.

--Edward Francis Burns.

Avast there! Keep a bright lookout forward and good luck to you.

--d.i.c.kens.

Genius is the transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all.

--Carlyle.

For dreams, to those of steadfast hope and will, are things wherewith they build their world of fact.--Alicia K. Van Buren.

No man can rest who has nothing to do.--Sam Walter Foss.