Harriet E. Paine

“ But a woman who does not show consideration for others cannot be an ideal lady. If she is considerate in a mechanical way, because she knows a lady must be so, it does not amount to much. And some women do all they can for others from a sense of duty. They study to make others happy in even trivial ways. They are good women, and on the whole—ladies. But the woman whose love for others is spontaneous, who sheds the radiance of kindness about her because she cannot help it—she is the lovely lady whose charm we all feel. Truth and love are the eternal foundations of the character of a real lady. ”

“ The more we believe in others, the better and happier we all are. A man full of faults, selfish, and even vicious, may be helped by a woman who trusts him. But when he has forsaken her, it is not often that she can be of much real service to him. She must indeed forgive him, but when she has genuinely forgiven him, the glamour of love will usually have disappeared. If she insists upon shutting herself up from other love for his sake, she should question herself as to the part sentimentality and perversity bear in her character. ”

“ If she loves music supremely, it may be worth while for her to spend everything on her education, even if she finally has to support herself with her needle, for it will be its own reward, and having tried to do what she believed to be her best, even her failure will not be a failure of character.
If there is any occupation delightful in itself, there will always be many people who will hope that they have talent enough to make it a source of livelihood. We all wish to be musicians and artists and poets. The most bitter disappointments come to those who try these paths and fail. ”

“ Such manners come from the choice of generation after generation. One woman after another has chosen to be sincere, good-tempered, kind, and noble. The women who so choose also choose the best in other ways. They read good books instead of bad ones, they prefer a beautiful picture to a showy one, and Beethoven to Offenbach. You may say that a girl of such a family cannot help being cultivated: culture is inborn. ”

“ When, therefore, we speak in praise of a woman's emotional nature, we are thinking of a nature in which generosity swallows up justice, and duty is forgotten, because "love is an unerring law." We cannot be too generous, or too loving, or too sensitive to beauty and honor.
But men are as generous and loving as women, so, after all, we do have something a little different from this in our minds when we speak of the emotional nature of women. Do we not mean that a woman is unreasonable?
Love can never be too great, but it is often unwise. ”

“ Some of you may think it is artful in me to propose this broad education under the pretense of requiring that one learn to read, but it is not so. I do believe in a very broad education for girls; but if I had to choose between a broad education which had crammed a girl with knowledge, yet left her without a love for good reading, and a very narrow one which had awakened that thirst, I should choose the second. ”

“ All are readers and keep abreast of the literature of the day. Beyond that, one or another of them is always studying German, or French, or history, or mineralogy, or taking up some social reform. Two of them find time to write acceptably for magazines. It would seem as if they could not have much leisure to entertain friends, yet their great rambling house, which stands in the midst of a shady old-fashioned yard and garden just outside the city, is seldom without a guest or two, and there never was a place where a tired soul and body could find sweeter rest. ”

“ A girl may enjoy biography, history, travels, and science and yet not have a taste for the best reading, that is, for true literature. She needs essays, novels, and especially poetry. She needs to be able to decide what is best and what is not; she must learn to respond to beauty and truth, and to repel what is false and ugly. This is the practical education, because it bears upon both happiness and character. It is practical as it makes the most of life not only for the woman herself, but for those about her. ”

“ I think a young girl is always justified in objecting to be pushed into society even when her parents are eager to push her; yet if the matter is urged, it will probably be best for her to gratify her parents, even at the sacrifice of her own sensitiveness. It is not for her to judge her parents. Even if they are wrong, their fault may be like the vanity of a child, because they are still in the childish stage of education, while the daughter's higher development is entirely due to their efforts in her behalf. ”

“ A girl who has to earn her living has a safeguard, for which few are very thankful. No one will pay her to indulge her tastes without reference to her talents. She finds out gradually what ought to be her minor aim, for she discovers the special service she can render to the world in return for what it offers to her. In most cases she wins a reasonable measure of success and happiness.
But some of us are obstinate. We see one pathway we long to tread even though it is beset with stones and briers. ”

“ But she thought it would be unbecoming in her to say much publicly on that subject, for she could not fail to know that her own genius set her apart from other women and gave her a definite work to do.
For those who have simply many good powers without any dominating one the case is different. The poor must use their gifts to gain bread; but if they do not make their occupation the medium of higher work, they are no better than the idle rich. The rich, instead of being excused from work by circumstances, are the more bound to work, because they can choose what is best in itself. ”

“ We cannot believe a thing simply because we should like to believe it. Without this one article of faith, I believe happiness to be impossible, but we need not fail in our duty. A noble woman whose beautiful life is a benediction to all about her, but whose suffering has been intense, says that as her life has been an exceptionally favored one, it is impossible for her to believe in God. But she adds, "Though things are not for the best, we must make the best of them. We can always lighten somebody's burden." ”

“ Another girl, one of the noblest I ever knew, also found the practical details of life easy, but she was always tossed about from one occupation to another, and from one home to another, because when she found every reality fall short of her ideal she had not the good sense to work quietly to improve the matter, but went about proclaiming her disgust. The first thing we all need is to have our wills so trained that when we see the right, we may instantly do it, and after that we need to be taught to see clearly what is right. ”

“ It gives a great sense of comfort in going into a house to find it warm all through. Many people, however, cannot afford such luxury. But if you can only have one fire in the house, see that that is always burning; and if it must be in the kitchen in the cooking-stove, keep the stove so bright that its black ugliness is a centre radiating cheerfulness. There are plenty of homes in which there is no need of stint, where through carelessness and neglect there are times when everybody in the house is shivering, while perhaps at other times half the rooms are at a red heat. ”

“ Not there are washer-women so truthful, unselfish, and noble in character that they are far superior as women to many whom we may fairly call ladies. Such women usually have self-respect enough to understand that they lose rather than gain dignity in claiming to be anything they are [Pg 117] not. The essential point in life is not the being considered a lady. It is not even to be a lady, though that is a beautiful thing. A woman is like a vigorous plant, with strong roots firmly fixed in the soil and abundant fresh green leaves. A lady is such a plant crowned by a beautiful blossom. ”

“ We sometimes, alas, take a certain pride in our sensitiveness in this particular. We justify our hatred for uncongenial people till we have fairly faced the truth that love is the law of our being, and that we must love our neighbor. Then, though we cannot change our temperament, yet by the doing of prosaic duties, the germ of love may be made to bud and blossom. At least do not let us allow the turmoil of every-day affairs to crowd out love. We have not time to see our friend. ”

“ An impossible duty is done. The fact that women ignore the impossibility is their strongest power. This, I suppose, is what the physician meant when he said that men liked a woman a little better if she was not always governed by reason. "Love believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." We all like to have such love as that lavished upon us. It is a noble love which glorifies the object by keeping in view all the time the ideal which is to be some day realized. ”

“ Every act of this kind makes another easier, and every such act nourishes the little germ of love in the heart. I have no doubt that persistence in doing small kindnesses for every one about her would be potent enough to transform the coldest of us into a woman glowing with love. Yet I cannot say I have ever seen such a transformation. I suppose that is because the cold nature does not perceive its coldness or desire to change. Still there are surely some of us who know that love in us is only a stunted plant, and who do sincerely desire its more luxuriant growth. ”

“ Let us remember that our direct usefulness in the world and most of our conscious happiness will depend on our choosing and steadily pursuing as our minor aim that for which our nature fits us, even if we wish our nature had been different; while our utmost usefulness and our highest happiness will depend on our clearness of vision in seeing, and our unwavering fidelity in following, the grand aim of life. ”

“ A sense of duty will keep a daughter outwardly kind and respectful to her mother, but love is the mother's only real security; and a mother must be thoroughly good at heart and refined in feeling to hold the warm love of a daughter whose intellectual tastes and social standards she outrages every moment. On the other hand, if the daughter's education has not taught her that character is more than intellect, it is worse than useless. ”

“ And so it seems to me she did right to choose the best work open to her and do it as well as she could, and I think if she had forsaken the school-room for the restaurant she would not have done what was best either for herself or for others.
I have known an ignorant woman who kept a lodging-house with such devotion that it was like a work of art. Its purity and freshness, its warmth and light had a charm beyond that of comfort. Such work is to be done, and it is not often done well, because the woman who does it is below rather than above her task. ”

“ I put reading first, for though no civilized beings can live without cooking and sewing, and we occasionally find good and gentle women who cannot read, yet a woman of real character who can read can teach herself any branch of housekeeping which she is convinced she ought to know, while a cook cannot teach herself to read in any broad sense; for by reading I do not mean pronouncing words. I want a girl to have a taste for good reading. ”

“ Duties we make for ourselves are seldom entirely free from affectation. An ardent, active girl may easily become so interested in her charities and her studies that she may make a genuine plea that she is too busy for parties and calls; but perhaps she ought not to give up society duties until higher duties actually open before her. Is it not possible that society has some intrinsic worth, or that at all events it might have worth, if earnest people did their part? There is much to be done for the poor, but the poor are not the only ones to be helped. ”

“ The surplus can be laid aside for the time when they are at leisure.
But although I do not think that all girls should be urged to support themselves, the majority must do so, or they will burden others. There is also a large class of women who do not absolutely need to earn money, who nevertheless will be better and happier to do so. Independence is very sweet, and even if for love's sake a woman chooses to give it up, it is more inspiring to make a deliberate sacrifice of it than to be dependent because she must be. ”

“ I suppose every large-hearted girl wishes to do some work which will add to the happiness of others, and most girls would like to do a little, at least, outside of their own immediate circle. It seems to me that the most beautiful charity is always that which is done within one's own circle. There is the personal giving, the real denial of ourselves for others, the doing of the duties which come to us rather than of those we have fancifully chosen. And these duties are done for love. ”

“ One cannot read even the most sensible book on etiquette without being oppressed with the feeling that a terrible addition has been made to the moral law in the by-laws which treat of visiting cards, and every writer on etiquette says mildly but firmly that there is a reason for all the rules in the very nature of things, and that if any of us venture to disregard them and substitute our own reason, we simply show our incapacity for appreciating real refinement. A part of this is no doubt true. The rules of society are reasonable for those who give their whole time to society. ”

“ A woman with artistic tastes will probably do better service in studying ways of making beautiful homes or in lines of decorative work than by striving to paint great pictures. Let her paint the pictures if she is moved to do it and has time, and if they turn out to be great pictures that will be well; but until her greatness has been proved, would it not be better for her to depend for her support on the less ambitious departments of her art, especially as a beautifully planned home gives a higher artistic pleasure than second-rate painting? ”