E. Azalia Hackley

“ Each muscular movement should reflect health and youth until one feels hardy and young. One should breathe all the fresh air that she can consume. Breathing is a vital force which sends blood to fill out wrinkles and eradicate blemishes and spots.
The fair, fat, and forty age is no longer dreaded. Like Lillian Russell, women are learning to keep the face youthful by keeping the illusion of youth and the belief that she is youthful. If we feel young we look young. ”

“ The beautiful part about the colored race in America, is the future. As a mixed race we are undeveloped. We may become whatever we WILL to become.
This race is a growing people. The future is veiled but it may reveal some strange things to the world. What opportunities there are for leadership! If there were only some ways to "squelch" the fakers and arouse the dreamers!
If each would only think out a different plan for race advancement, there would always be followers. Some would be attracted in one way and others reached in another way, and so carry lines of thought. ”

“ If the starlight, the moonlight, the dawn, the sunrise, the sunset, the blue sky, the tranquility of a summer day or the grandeur of a storm have no response in the mother's soul, then how can a child be expected to lift its eyes and see the beautiful everywhere, every day and absorb the benefits from such communion? ”

“ Tell her that each colored girl may be an Esther, [31] especially in all matters of cleanliness, manners, and self sacrifice, to advance and change the prevalent opinion of the Negro. Each colored woman, not only bears her own burden, but she bears the burden of posterity and the burden of the race. Each one must fit herself for the triple burden. Not even a talent should be used wholly for personal gain nor solely for present uses. Her education must be a process of development of powers not only to fit her for citizenship and life, but it must fit her for her race's burdens. ”

“ A woman who marries and does not intend to have children is merely an object of convenience who has sold herself.
To assume the position of colored motherhood is the greatest privilege and responsibility that can come to any woman in this age.
The colored mother beautiful carries a heavy burden—the weight of future generations of a handicapped, persecuted people. She may bless or curse [182] each succeeding generation; she may change race history; she may make a more beautiful race with the beauty that comes from beauty of character and right living. ”

“ A slip-shod, half-hearted working woman is a curse to the race, because she gives it a bad reputation. She should put the "somebody" stamp on every portion of daily work and do the work as if she expected to get a diploma for it each night. She should not work mechanically or it will be drudgery. She should put pride and enthusiasm in her work, and let it reflect her inner self.
It is the duty of every working girl to make her employer adore her for her personal value and her word. ”

“ With many people, finery seems to mean good dressing, yet their clothes jar, cry out, even "scream out their unfitness and unwholesomeness, and betray their dishonesty, shame and sacrifice." Clothes show silliness, conceit, and selfishness more than any other thing, and often they shame a home, so a colored girl should study her individuality and her life position and dress accordingly. She should wear only becoming colors, and she might affect a certain color to her advantage. ”

“ She will be taught that politeness is a necessary virtue; that every form of impoliteness is an evidence of mental [136] as well as moral weakness and that an ill bred colored girl is a curse to the race. She will be taught the value of silence and that of speech, and will aim to train herself along both lines for silence is often more effective than speech.
She will learn that the aim of education is the aim of religion, that is, to lift one above the animal. She will endeavor to lift herself to the highest plane of true womanhood that she may pull others higher. ”

“ A wife should ask herself if she is living up to the ideal she suggested before she married, or if she is a disappointment, before she questions her husband's conduct.
Some wives think that their morality in wifehood is all sufficient. A woman may boast of her "virtue" until doom's day, but "if her soul is small and her heart stingy" her example is not worthy of imitation—for she is only good to herself. ”

“ Because God has given each colored girl a beautiful voice, she should be taught to speak in a soft mellow tone. She should speak eloquently and elegantly. If she screeches or yells and abuses her vocal cords, she will not only disgust people but she will lose her voice and have no beauty of tone to bequeath.
As the colored child has been made in the image of God, her poise should be erect and fearless. Nature bestowed the gift of a straight backbone.
The native African has always been straight like the pine sapling. ”

“ The peace and contentment that comes from having done her whole duty gives her a spiritual beauty of countenance that comes from the other world; the habit of right living through right thought, reflects in her face and gives her a physical beauty that comes in no other way. ”

“ One might take up the study of music, voice culture, elocution, art, embroidery or housekeeping (domestic science) and pass it along to others.
The surest way to make people "take notice of one" is to work for others. One may also live in peoples' hearts as well as their minds, if she will ally herself with a good humanitarian cause.
If one is not what is termed religious, or is lacking in religious feeling, she should at least conceal this serious void by showing respect for religion in no unmistakable terms for the sake of example. ”

“ Every movement of every portion of the body has significance. Picking up a glass, a cup, or tools and other habits reflect the mind and its superiority to the physical. There is no surer way to judge people.
Every face tells a tale and we read character from the physical form—the head, the backbone, the eye, the mouth, the chin, or hand. The uplifted eye, the corners of the mouth, the manner in which one eats or stands, in fact every movement has a special meaning, which may be easily read. ”

“ Many a servant girl has seen her posterity lead a town, socially.
To know how to wait is a great secret; to patiently bide the time when one may step into the niche that right living and preparation has made possible. She will try to be contented and will strive for power to conquer her work, and herself to be ready for the day when opportunity will open her door to a larger and more responsible life. ”

“ It is rather fascinating to try to change the expression of other people's faces by exaggerating the happy timbre in one's voice. Even if one may not do big things she may charge the atmosphere with smiles.
When I was a girl, an old friend used to say to me, "Never let people down you, always come up smiling." One may come up from troubles and bitterness with a forced smile until the smiling muscles act for themselves, automatically. ”

“ Often a perfectly pure minded girl in her youth wastes her life forces with one beau after another, innocently imagining it to be her duty because of the attentions that she receives. When she marries the "man among men to her," she finds that she can not hold his affections because of this waste, and often she sees another woman get the love that is her due, as a wife. At the time of life when maturity should give a full blown rose of a woman, she [64] has dribbled out because she has been too ardent. ”

“ Good habits may not be assumed at a moment's notice. The good breeding of parents is very truly reflected in the manners of their children.
It is sad to have the children learn the laws of politeness and good breeding outside the home, and to watch them assume that which should be innate.
It is sad to hear little children lie about their home training pretending that "My mother makes me do this or that" when they know that the mother has failed to make a strong point of this particular fault. ”

“ In silent meditation she looks back over all the years in which she has tried to rear a creditable member of the race and society. If, after honest review, down in her heart she can truthfully say, "I have raised my child to the best of my knowledge," then she may leave the rest in the hands of the "Creator." Perhaps he will reward her efforts, in a future generation, while she is yet on earth.
A disappointed colored Mother Beautiful does not envy other Mothers nor does she criticise their daughters. ”

“ When one is attired in unbecoming clothes, unconsciously the face reflects the thought in unbecoming lines. One's voice takes on a coarser, unbecoming tone, and the poise takes on an unbecoming attitude. ”

“ A girl who lives in the back woods may make herself so choice and beautiful in the indescribable way, that her fame will spread miles away. She should bide her time, stay to herself until she has fully improved herself, mind and body, and she will reap her full reward. ”

“ Every colored wife who has not borne children, or a wife who has lost children owes a duty to the children of others.
In fact, these owe a greater debt to posterity than the mother. Such women should not live for themselves alone, lest they canker. Contact with youth infuses youthful thoughts and enthusiasm, and keeps a woman's heart young, and if her heart is young her face will reflect this mental attitude.
There are thousands of children with living mothers who still need "mothering." One may work out her own youth and beauty culture while "mothering" a little one. ”

“ Those who own strength and power are always those who are gentle because they are sure of their life position. Real politeness is only an outward expression of the generous impulses of the heart; it is inborn. Politeness may be cultivated until it passes for the real thing.
Originality does not include exclusiveness. Exclusiveness is deadly to originality. The exclusive woman is seldom of service to the race, and she is not always a congenial or an agreeable person. She may live so much to herself that she is uninteresting as well as selfish. ”

“ How can the child be careful and controlled in speech if the mother has not the power of expressing herself in good English. Language is too powerful a weapon in reaching, compelling and swaying the feelings of others and in winning friends—to be neglected. ”

“ A colored mother is a success as she measures up to her relation and obligation to the race.
Negro children of all children need mothers who are strong spiritually, [183] physically, and intellectually. Enough colored children have been born under bad or careless conditions. The child born under bad conditions can not be expected to hold his own among other children.
No woman has a right to blight the future of her race. Not even her body may be abused—this beautiful casket—the treasure house of future souls. Any crime that she commits against herself or her body she commits against the race. ”

“ The sporting element and the under world recognize and fear the laws of vibrations. They know nothing of the laws but they have instinctive recognition of some force, which returns the act. They give because they desire luck. One may always receive help from them because they are afraid to refuse aid.
Washington Irving has said, "Happiness is a reflection." "Everybody's countenance is a mirror transmitting to others, its rays." If one makes a habit of sending out happy, loving thoughts, the face reflects the thought and gains in charm and beauty. ”

“ There are many kinds of love. There is filial love, platonic love, the love leading to marriage, and the greatest love of all, mother love. Too many desecrate love by regarding it as a pastime, or selling all that passes for it, for favors, attentions and support.
What is love? Many definitions could be given but the best answer is, "Love is the habit of giving the best in us." Some one has said that "Love is the easiest thing to make and the hardest to keep."
So much of the life force is wasted because people imagine they are in love. ”

“ One should not attempt athletics unless she is sure that her physique will endure this. A strain may wreck one's health and looks. Most women are built like watches—one thing wrong upsets the whole mechanism.
Observing the small courtesies in life makes one charming. Knowledge of the various forms of society etiquette has made many women popular and has placed them in an enviable social position. Real politeness comes from a kind heart, from good impulses and it ranks as a strong beauty point because it illumines the face. ”

“ How can the child resist the desires of the lower nature when its mother has tantrums? The colored mother must refuse to express passion. A mother can not shame or beat her child into gentle manners when she is rough or coarse. ”

“ While authorities in history say that a race once great, can never attain greatness again, as truly as the pendulum swings this mixed race will surely come into its own. The colored race comes from several lines of white ancestry, and as fruit is grafted to a finer degree of species, so the colored race will some day show its latent powers. The child of today is to be the mother of the great child that is to be, and each one must do her part to help prepare for the future great colored child. ”

“ A colored working girl is a racial trust. Her race burden is a heavy one. Her speech, actions and diligence constitute the measure by which the whole race is judged.
One need not permit previous family conditions or disadvantages of birth to hamper her progress in life. No matter what one's people have been or are, one is not to blame providing she rises above all of it. ”

“ We must teach our minds to act upon the minds of others. We must learn the laws and obey them, that we may send out strong thoughts of peace and love to counteract the overwhelming tide of thought against us. ”