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The Girl Wanted: A Book of Friendly Thoughts
The law of true living is toil. – J. R. Miller. Sunshine has ever been deemed by the close students of life as a most essential element in the achievement We may make the best of life, or we may make the worst of it, and it depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or misery from it. – Smiles. of the highest and fullest success. The optimist sees open paths leading to pleasant and prosperous fields of endeavor where the pessimist can see no way out of the hopeless surroundings amid which he has been thrust by an unkind fate. The disposition to seize upon the opportunities Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the world at a standstill. – Helen Keller. lying close at hand and to believe that the here and now is full of sunshine and golden possibilities has carried many a one to success, where others, lacking the illumination born of good cheer and a hope well grounded in a broad and beautiful faith, have sat complainingly by the He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night. – Benjamin Franklin. way and permitted the golden chances to go by unobserved.
"Born of only ordinary capacity, but of extraordinary persistency," said Professor Maria Mitchell, the distinguished astronomer, in the later years of It is great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible, but to try instead to escape from other people’s faults, which is impossible. – Marcus Aurelius. her life in looking back upon her career. But she added, with a simplicity as rare as it is pleasing: "I did not quite take this in, myself, until I came to mingle with the best girls of our college, and to become aware how rich their mines are and how little they have been worked." At sixteen she left school, and at eighteen accepted the position of librarian of the Nantucket public library. Her duties were light and she had ample opportunity, surrounded as she was by books, Labor is discovered to be the grand conquerer, enriching and building up nations more surely than the proudest battles. – William Ellery Channing. to read and study, while leisure was also left her to pursue by practical observation the science in which she afterward became known. Those who dwell upon the smaller islands, among which must be classed Nantucket, her island It is easier to leave the wrong thing unsaid than to unsay it. – George Horace Lorimer. home, learn almost of necessity to study the sea and the sky. The Mitchell family possessed an excellent telescope. From childhood Maria had been accustomed to the use of this instrument, searching out with its aid, the distant sails upon the horizon by day, and viewing the stars by night. Her father possessed a marked taste for astronomy, and carried on an independent series of observations. He taught his daughter all he knew, and what was more to her advancement, she applied herself to the study and made as much independent Work is the inevitable condition of human life, the true source of human welfare. – Tolstoi. advancement as was possible for her to do. It was this cheerful willingness to make the most of her immediate surroundings that proved to be the secret of her world-wide fame in after years when her name was included with those of the other prominent astronomers of the world. At half past ten of the evening of October First, 1847, If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure comes through toil, and not by self-indulgence and indolence. When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one. – Ruskin. she made the discovery which first brought her name before the public. She was gazing through her glass with her usual quiet intentness when she was suddenly startled to perceive "an unknown comet, nearly vertical above Polaris, about five degrees." At first she could not believe her eyes; then hoping and doubting, scarcely daring to think that she had really made a discovery, she obtained its right ascension and declination. She then told her father, who gave One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up. – George MacDonald. the news to the other astronomers and to the world, and her claim to the discovery was duly accepted and ever after stood to her lasting credit. But had she not been interested in her work and competent to seize upon and to make the most of the opportunity that presented itself, she would not have been able to make herself the first of all the beings of our earth to observe and record this strange visitant to our starry realms above us.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respects, whether he chooses to be or not. – Hawthorne. It is the faith which the sunshiny spirit has in the "worth whileness" of life and its possibilities that makes him or her who possesses it prepare for the best that is to come. It is because of the "preparedness" achieved by labor that men and women are able to seize upon and make the most of the "lucky chance" that may bring them happiness and success.
Expediency is man’s wisdom. Doing right is God’s. – George Meredith. While Thomas A. Edison was yet a youth, the desire to make himself of worth to the world and to be able to do something that would make him a living while he was still fitting himself for better things, he spent the leisure which most Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. – Victor Hugo. boys would spend in idleness or purposeless pastime in learning the telegrapher’s code. Later on this knowledge gave him work which enabled him to gain experience as a telegraph operator, which in turn led to his invention of the quadruplex telegraph. But the invention was temporarily a I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth of literature when I can get strong soup. – George Eliot. failure, although later on a great success. Sorely reduced in circumstances, he was one day tramping the streets of New York without a cent.
"I happened one day," he says, "into the office of a ’gold ticker’ company which had about five hundred subscribers. A thousand words leave not the same deep print as does a single deed. – Ibsen. I was standing beside the apparatus when it gave a terrific rip-roar and suddenly stopped. In a few minutes hundreds of messenger boys blocked up the doorway and yelled for some one to fix the tickers in the office. The man in charge of the place was completely upset; so I stepped up to him and said: ’I think I know what’s the matter.’ I removed a loose contact spring that had fallen between the wheels; the machine went on. The result? I was appointed to take charge of the Woman – the crown of creation. – Herder. service at three hundred dollars a month. When I heard what the salary was I almost fainted." It had been his hopeful, cheerful, expectant attitude toward the future that had ever prompted him to fit himself so well that when the opportunity offered itself he was able to show that he possessed the grasp of things that made him
THE CONQUERORHarmony is the essence of power as well as beauty. – A. E. Winship.
There’s a day, there’s an hour, a moment of timeWhen Fate shall be willing to try us;This one test of our worth and our purpose sublime,It will not, it cannot deny us.’Tis our right to demand one true crisis, else howShall we prove by our valor undauntedThat we merit the wreath Fortune lays on the browOf the man who is there when he’s wanted?Be faithful to thyself, and fear no other witness but thy fear. – Shelley.
And whene’er Opportunity knocks at his doorThe wise one’s glad greeting is, "Ready!"He has garnered, of knowledge, an adequate store,His purpose is seasoned and steady.With soul and with spirit, with hand and with heart,And with strength that he never has vaunted,He is fashioned and fitted to compass his part,Is the man who is there when he’s wanted.To give heartfelt praise to noble actions is, in some measure, making them our own. – La Rochefoucauld.
The world is a stage and our lives are a playAnd the role that is given us in itMay be grand or obscure, yet there comes the great dayWhen we speak its best lines for a minute.And the dream that through all of life’s trials and tears,The soul, like soft music, has haunted,Comes true, and the world gives its smiles and its cheersTo the man who is there when he’s wanted.CHAPTER VI
A MERRY HEART
Mirth is God’s medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it. – Holmes. Who among us can presume to estimate the value of a merry heart? What a perpetual blessing it is to its possessor and to all who must come into close relationship with the owner of it!
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud – Elizabeth Barrett Browning. There is nothing more pleasantly "catching" than happiness. The happy person serves to make all about him or her the more happy. What the bright, inspiring sunshine adds to the beauty of the fields, a happy disposition adds to the charm of all the incidents and experiences of one’s daily life.
A gay, serene spirit is the source of all that is noble and good. – Schiller. Do not you, whose eyes are perusing these lines, love to associate with a friend possessing a cheerful disposition? And do you not intuitively refrain from meeting with the unfortunate one whose looks and words are heavy with complainings or whose eyes fail to see the beauty of the world lying all about? And Your manners will depend very much on what you frequently think on; for the soul is as it were tinged with the color and complexion of thought. – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. if we are given to wise thinking we must reach the conclusion that as we regard these attributes in others, so others must regard them in us.
Nothing is more eloquent than a beautiful face. It is the open sesame to all our hearts. A sunshiny face melts away all opposition and finds the word "Welcome" written over the doorways where the face wearing a hard, unfriendly look sees only the warning, "No Admittance."
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. – Benjamin Franklin. But a smile that is only skin deep is not a true smile, but only a superficial grin. A true smile comes all the way from the heart. It bears its message of good will and friendliness. It is a mute salutation of "good luck and happy days to you!" and it makes whoever receives it better and stronger for the hour.
Be yourself, but make yourself in everything as delightful as you can. – Margaret E. Sangster. The genuine smile is closely related to, and is a part of, that laughter which beams and sparkles in the eye and makes the little, cheerful, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the lines that are the outward sign of an unhappy spirit within.
Many centuries ago that wise and The tissue of the life to be we weave with colors all our own, and in the field of destiny we reap as we have sown. – Whittier. admirable philosopher, Epictetus, discovered that "happiness is not in strength, or wealth, or power; or all three. It lies in ourselves, in true freedom, in the conquest of every ignoble fear, in perfect self-government, in a power of contentment and peace, and the even flow of life, even in poverty, exile, disease and the very valley of the shadow."
What must of necessity be done you can always find out beyond question how to do. – Ruskin. One of the happiest observers of life and its higher purposes – Anne Gilchrist – says: "I used to think it was great to disregard happiness, to press to a high goal, careless, disdainful of it. But now I see there is nothing so great as to be capable of happiness, – to pluck it out of each moment, The doctrine of love, purity, and right living has, step by step, won its way into the hearts of mankind, and has filled the future with hope and promise. – William McKinley. and, whatever happens, to find that one can ride as gay and buoyant on the angry, menacing, tumultuous waves of life as on those that glide and glitter under a clear sky; that it is not defeat and wretchedness which comes out of the storms of adversity, but strength and calmness."
The strongest incentive for the cultivation of a merry heart is that it is a duty as well as a delight. Sydney Smith has very wisely observed that "mankind is always happier for having been Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing. – Goethe. happy; so that if you make them happy now, you may make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it."
True happiness has about it no suggestion of selfishness. The genuinely happy person is the one who would have all the world to be happy. "Is there any happiness in the world like the happiness of a disposition made happy by the happiness of others?" asks Faber. "There is no joy to be compared with it. The Every wish is a prayer with God. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning. luxuries which wealth can buy, the rewards which ambition can obtain, the pleasures of art and scenery, the abounding sense of health and the exquisite enjoyment of mental creations are nothing to this pure and heavenly happiness, where self is drowned in the blessings of others."
Say not always what you know, but always know what you say. – Claudius. One of the most heavenly attributes of happiness is that it begets more happiness not only in ourselves but in others about us. It has in it an uplift and a strength that enables us to build the stronger to-day against the distress that would beset us to-morrow.
"Health and happiness" are terms that are so often closely linked in our speech and in our literature. One is Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart. – Hood. almost a synonym for the other. Perhaps the true significance existing between the two would be more correctly stated were we to reverse the form in which they are usually set forth and say "happiness and health" instead. All observers of human nature and its many complex attributes are convinced that happiness is the Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. – Goldsmith. fountain spring of health.
One of our keenest students of life tells us that "small annoyances are the seeds of disease. We cannot afford to entertain them. They are the So use present pleasures that thou spoilest not future ones. – Seneca. bacteria, – the germs that make serious disturbance in the system, and prepare the way for all derangements. They furnish the mental conditions which are manifested later in the blood, the tissues, and the organs, under various pathological names. Good thoughts are the only germicide. We must kill our resentment and regret, impatience and anxiety. Health will inevitably follow. Every thought that holds us in even the slightest degree to either anticipation A good manner springs from a good heart, and fine manners are the outcome of unselfish kindness. – Margaret E. Sangster. or regret hinders, to some extent, the realization of our present good. It limits freedom. Life is in the present tense. Its significant name is Being."
Whether we are happy or not depends much on our point of view. The disposition to look at everything through kind and beautiful eyes makes all the world more kind and beautiful. If we are gloomy within the whole world appears likewise. Perhaps the two ways of looking at things could not be better set forth than in these clever lines by E. J. Hardy:
"How dismal you look!" said a bucket to his companion, as they were Reading and study are in no sense education, unless they may contribute to this end of making us feel kindly towards all creatures. – Ruskin. going to the well.
"Ah!" replied the other, "I was reflecting on the uselessness of our being filled, for, let us go away never so full, we always come back empty."
"Dear me! how strange to look on it that way!" said the other bucket; "now I enjoy the thought that however empty we come, we always go away full. Only look An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits would, if properly employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity, to go far toward mastering a science. – Samuel Smiles. at it in that light and you will always be as cheerful as I am."
The difference between the pessimist and the optimist is in their
POINT OF VIEWBecause each rose must have its thorn,The pessimist Fate’s plan opposes;The optimist, more gladly born,Rejoices that the thorns have roses.To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes the soul strong and fit for noble career. – E. P. Tenney. Since our happiness is merely the reflex influence of the happiness we make for others it would seem as though the joy of our lives dwells within our own keeping. "The universe," says Zimmerman, "pays every man in his own coin; if you smile, it smiles upon you in return; if you frown, you will be frowned at; if He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but he who loses spirit loses all. – S. A. Nelson. you sing, you will be invited into gay company; if you think, you will be entertained by thinkers; if you love the world, and earnestly seek for the good therein, you will be surrounded by loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the treasures of the earth."
If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you. – Charles G. Gordon. All of this being true we must early learn to seize upon opportunities for making others happy if we, ourselves, would get the most and highest enjoyment from life. "There are gates that swing within your life and mine," writes "Amber," that good woman of sainted memory, "letting in rare opportunities from day to day, that tarry but a moment and are gone, like travelers bound for points remote. There is the opportunity to resist the temptation to do a mean thing! Improve it, for it is in a hurry, like the man whose ticket is Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good. To be and keep so is not the gift of a happy nature alone, but it is strength and heroism. – Jules Michelet. bought and whose time is up. It won’t be back this way, either, for opportunities for good are not like tourists who travel on return tickets. There is the opportunity to say a pleasant word to the ones within the sound of your voice. All of the priceless opportunities travel by lightning express and have no time to idle around the waiting-room. If we improve them at all it must be We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths. – Bailey. when the gate swings to let them through."
It is in living not for ourselves alone but for others that we are to find the larger and truer happiness of life. Says Jenkin Lloyd Jones, "I would rather Remember that everybody’s business in the social system is to be agreeable. – Dickens. live in an alley, stayed all round with human loves, associations and ambitions, than dwell in a palace with drawbridge, moat, and portcullis, apart from the community about me, alienated from my neighbors, unable to share the woes and the joys of those with whom I divide nature’s bounty of land and landscape, of air and sky." And along this same line of thinking, Charles Hargrove says: "Brother, sister, your mistake is to live alone in a crowded world, to think of yourself and your own belongings, and what is the matter with you, instead of In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail. – Bulwer Lytton. trying to realize, what is the fact – that you are a member of a great human society, and that your true interests are one with those of the world which will go on much the same however it fare with you. Live the larger life, and you will find it the happier."
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies in other men, sleeping, but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet thine own. – Lowell. So one of the chief aims of your life and of mine should be to find happiness and to see to it that others find it as well. And let us not wait to find happiness in one great offering, but let us discover it whenever and wherever we can. Let us carefully study our surroundings to see if it is not hiding all about us. "Very few things," says Lecky, "contribute so much to the happiness of The cheerful live longest in years, and afterward in our regards. – Bovee. life as a constant realization of the blessings we enjoy. The difference between a naturally contented nature and a naturally discontented one is one of the marked differences of innate temperament, but we can do much to cultivate that habit of dwelling on the benefits of our lot which converts acquiescence into a more positive enjoyment."
Nothing can do more to add to our happiness of mind than to cultivate the gracious habit of being grateful for joys How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, is that fine sense which men call Courtesy! – James T. Fields. that come to us and to seek to appreciate the worth of the beneficent gifts that are ever being showered upon us. We are so apt to fall into the habit of accepting blessings as a matter of course and of failing to discover their wonderful value. How many of us, for example, have ever thoughtfully dwelt upon Make each goal when reached, a starting point for further quest. – Browning. the priceless attributes of the air that is ever and always floating about us. In order that we may have a truer appreciation of its fine qualities and purposes let us read these words by Lord Avebury:
"Fresh air, how wonderful it is! It permeates all our body, it bathes the skin in a medium so delicate that we are not conscious of its presence, and yet The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings. – Robert Louis Stevenson. so strong that it wafts the odors of flowers and fruit into our rooms, carries our ships over the seas, the purity of sea and mountain into the heart of our cities. It is the vehicle of sound, it brings to us the voices of those we love and the sweet music of nature; it is the great reservoir of the rain which waters the earth, it softens the heat of day and the cold of night, covers us overhead with a glorious arch of blue, and lights up the morning and evening skies with fire. It is so God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else. – Beecher. exquisitely soft and pure, so gentle and yet so useful, that no wonder Ariel is the most delicate, lovable and fascinating of all Nature Spirits."
It is only when we open our eyes to the beauty of the wonders about us that we see how much there is to contribute to our happiness if we will but open our hearts and let it come in. What a perpetual exaltation nature will afford us If you are acquainted with Happiness, introduce him to your neighbor. – Phillips Brooks. when we have cultivated the fine habit of looking upon it with the welcoming eyes through which Richard Jefferies beholds it: "The whole time in the open air," he tells us, "resting at mid-day under the elms with the ripple of heat flowing through the shadow; at midnight between the ripe corn and the hawthorne hedge or the white camomile and the poppy pale in the duskiness, with face Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st, live well; how long or short, permit to heaven. – Milton. upturned to the thoughtful heaven. Consider the glory of it, the life above this life to be obtained from constant presence with the sunlight and the stars."
So let us cultivate the fine habit of finding joy and of shouting it to our friends and neighbors. Life seems bright to us when we are really glad of The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed. – Chamfort. anything and we let gladness have voice to express itself. George MacDonald says "a poet is a man who is glad of something and tries to make other people glad of it, too." In the possession of this kindly spirit, at least, we must all strive to be poets.
It is impossible to be just if one is not generous. – Joseph Roux. Emerson tells us that "there is one topic positively forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder stroke, I beseech you, by all the angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans."
