Part 2

The great trouble with the average woman is that she does not readily find her balance. Who does not recall some rare, sweet nature that while bearing the burdens of life—heavy burdens, perhaps—is marked by a serenity of soul that is as restful to her friends as it is helpful to herself? But alas! who cannot count on the fingers of one hand the number of such women? On the other hand, the women who flutter and hover and tremble and bustle and chatter are far from isolated cases. One is almost tempted to liken them to the sands of the seashore.

It is not that they are not eager to be of the highest service to mankind, but simply that they do not get at the true secret of how. How to be lifted above the personal frets, the personal sense of importance. Perhaps it is the personal element that spoils it; eliminate that and the true cause for fretting and worrying has in a large measure disappeared. Sometimes the question of what needs to be done gets entirely shunted off the track by that other one: What will be the easiest way for me to do it?

The sense of individual responsibility for the general welfare is one of the hopeful signs of the times. We may as well recognize it and that each generation needs more and more some sort of association with each other. We are individuals, but the force which draws us together and keeps us eager to work for a common cause is a need that belongs to the later development of the human race. We need each other and to come together and work together just as much as we need a home where we can sometimes be alone. And this social dependence on one another is, as one writer says, the highest faculty of the highest race on earth.

That is one of the chief reasons why we come together to discuss methods of thought and of work. The women who join clubs because it is the fashion or because of restlessness and emptiness of mind are few; the women who join because of their need of belonging to a throng that can stir and throb and work in unison are legion. We are seeking more or less consciously the higher forms of relation which are the strength of modern life. And this is the result of a prolonged thirst among women for a fuller and truer social life than that provided by the ordinary functions of society.

It scarcely seems necessary to sum up by saying that this sense of personal responsibility for the general welfare is back of all organized work, nor to repeat that it is to us, like life, what we make of it. It is for us each and severally to settle that question. If we take the attitude of master and make of this feeling a servant to do our bidding, well and good; if, on the other hand, we let it master us and become a slave to a vague and general desire to do something for somebody without the slightest idea of how or what, then woe be to us!

III

ON OUR RELATION TO LIFE

How are we seeking to get the most out of life? By selfishly striving to grasp all the good things therein for ourselves? By trying to stamp our own individuality upon everything, by making ourselves a personal power? Or are we realizing that only in serving others can we best help ourselves? “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” And what is a servant? One who works for others. Look over the women of your acquaintance. Is it the self-seeking woman, who sacrifices her dignity in a scramble for prominence and who pushes herself, regardless of the rights of others, into prominent positions, whose name stands for real service and real value in the world? Or is it she who forgets herself and the paltry honors that come with self-sought place in honest, unselfish work and far-seeing, wise and charitable thought for the best good of the whole whose name is written high on “Rolls of Honor”?

She who is great enough to lose sight of small, unworthy aims and makes it her chief purpose to help and serve others will always be the one who is instinctively trusted. True greatness and true happiness do not come when we set ourselves deliberately to call them to serve our purpose. It is only by putting our lives in harmony with the great principle of service to our fellow-men that we shall find them. It is of little use to strive to attain popularity, greatness, power over others; it is of infinite use to find out how we can be of service to those with whom we are associated, and then to forget ourselves in such service. Kindliness, helpfulness, service: these three were never more needed than now. The great-hearted, sympathetic, charitable-minded, brave woman is needed everywhere. She it is who is beloved, who makes for peace and righteousness; yes, and for power. And it is easy to see why she is the woman of power.

Let us learn the secret of “putting ourselves on the side of the universal.” Let us work from the heart, giving ourselves with no thought of personal gain. The more we do this the broader will become our vision, the grander our lives; and thus while we are giving ourselves to others the fuller and richer and truer will life be for us; and we shall cease to think whether we are getting our money’s worth, satisfied with the joy of living and the unconscious growth within. Can there be anything more beautiful in life than to become one of those rare souls whose personality is a help to their fellow-creatures; whose very presence is like a benediction, and from whom goes out a silent influence that cannot be defined, yet which every one within its radius feels, even though not a word be spoken? And is there not a way by which this serenity of soul, this illumination, may become a characteristic of every good woman?

The more we are in ourselves the more we can do, the more we shall desire to do for others. There is nothing greater in life, nothing greater in Christianity than this great principle of helpfulness and service and love for others. It is the kingdom of heaven to which we all aspire some time or other, only we do not always realize that it is here and now if we will have it so. And in proportion as we stand for higher conditions and better influences we are an uplifting power to those around us. We cannot do this, however, if we allow ourselves to take narrow and petty views of the lives and motives of others. Only by merging the personal side of things into the larger, universal one; by rising above prejudices and becoming indifferent to the criticisms and opinions of others—so long as we are sure of being actuated by right motives ourselves—do we reach the higher life. Service to others is the great solution to the actual problem of life. Realizing and building our lives upon this great, eternal principle, minor things will not matter.

Think how much more charitable we then shall be toward the faults and failings of others. We may even so accustom ourselves to the larger view of life and service that we shall not readily see shortcomings in those around us; or, if called to our notice, they will not rasp or fret us, because our souls are lifted above the plane where such trials are possible. And, above all, we shall be possessed of that larger charity that sees beneath the surface and knows that we have no right to judge our sister. Have we innate knowledge and infallible wisdom ourselves that we shall decide for another? Can we know of the struggles another woman makes for a better life, or condemn her when she fails? “You may think I am cynical in my speech and impatient in my words at times,” exclaimed one woman to another who had rebuked her, “but you do not know how many times I have overcome that tendency, nor that I am striving daily to outgrow it.”

The limitations of other women are no personal concern of ours. It is ours to do for others, to lose our own pettiness and enlarge our own horizon by giving loyal, loving service, and this includes a broad, universal love to all women, to the world around us—a world, whoever and whatever we are, that always needs us. It may be the world of home, it may be the public schoolroom, it may be the ranks of fashionable society, or it may be the small circle of the small country town, but our love and our service are needed. We are individually responsible for so much.

“From each as she has power to give, to each as she has need.” What a motto! It is so easy to forget that each one has something to give to some one. And what is this giving to “each as she has need”? It is being gracious, broad-minded, tolerant of others, “not easily puffed-up”—nor put out, either; it is by keeping ourselves in a serene, well-balanced frame of mind that will act on others as a bit of bright sunshine falling across a dark corner. We cannot give to others anything better than is in our own natures, and only by keeping them bright and sunny can we shed sweet temper and serenity of soul wherever we go. “How shall we keep ourselves so if we are not born that way?” asks somebody. Cultivate the habit. We have habits of mind as well as of body. Cultivate sunshine and sweetness in ourselves at home, every day and every hour in the day, and we shall have no difficulty in keeping sweet and pleasant everywhere else. Let us each be the woman for whose presence her friends wait as for a benediction of peace.

Do you not know women whose very presence is uplifting, whose very atmosphere is peace? We might all be so if we would set ourselves steadily and calmly to work to find our balance and lift ourselves to a mental plane where outside worries and flurries and tempers and jealousies could not reach us. It would be a work of time, perhaps, but it would pay. And having once arrived at that condition we should help others just as naturally as the sun sheds its life-giving beams on the dependent earth. Let us learn the highest secret of life, self-giving. Not for what it will bring us in peace or honor or happiness, but because we realize how much the world needs disinterested help, and how much more we need to give it. “If you would have all the world love you, you must first love all the world.”

“We buy ashes for bread; We buy diluted wine; Give me the tree— Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled Among the silver hills of heaven, Draw everlasting dew.”

A few years ago Mr. Trine took occasion to send out to his friends a little card with the following printed thereon. It helped us all, and therefore I pass it on like so much “sunshine”:

“A SORT OF CREED.

“To live up to our highest in all things that pertain to us.

“To lend a hand as best we can to all others for this same end.

“To remain in nature always sweet and simple and humble, and therefore strong.

“To open ourselves fully and to keep ourselves pure and clean as fit channels for the Divine Power to work through us.

“To turn toward and keep our faces always to the light.

“To do our own thinking, listening quietly to the opinions of others, and to be sufficiently men and women to act always upon our own convictions.

“To do our duty as we see it, regardless of the opinions of others, seeming gain or loss, temporary blame or praise.

“To play the part of neither knave nor fool by attempting to judge another, but to give that same time to living more worthily ourselves.

“To get up immediately when we stumble, face again to the light, and travel on without wasting even a moment in regret.

“To love all things and to stand in awe or fear of nothing save our own wrongdoing.

“To recognize the good lying at the heart of all people, of all things, waiting for expression, all in its own good way and time.

“To love the fields and the wild flowers, the stars, the far-open sea, the soft, warm earth, and to live much with them alone, but to love struggling and weary men and women and every pulsing living creature better.

“To strive always to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

“In brief—to be honest, to be fearless, to be just, to be kind. This will make our part in life’s great and as yet not fully understood play truly glorious, and we need then stand in fear of nothing—life nor death; for death is life.

“Or, rather, it is the quick transition to life in another form; the putting off of the old coat and the putting on of a new; a passing not from light to darkness, but from light to light, according as we have lived here; a taking up of life in another form just where we leave it off here; a part in life not to be shunned or dreaded or feared, but to be welcomed with a glad and ready smile when it comes in its own good way and time.”

IV

ON FRIENDS

Who shall estimate the value of a cheery, breezy, hopeful friend? Nobody can get along without her. She keeps us in good humor, she switches off the bores, she lights us up and keeps things in motion; in her company our spirits rise, our wits grow bright and our tongues loosen, so that we really believe after half an hour’s contact with her that we are in ourselves as brilliant and as happy as she makes us. A friend that can raise everybody around her from a state of practical imbecility to that of a brilliant and beautiful song bird is a being we may all envy. If we would be such a friend ourselves, there is but one way: we must be agreeable at all times, kindly serviceable to every outward call, never see a slight or notice a snub, and never allow ourselves to get into the dumps. “To be warped unconsciously under the magnetic influence of all around is the destiny to a certain extent of even the greatest souls.” We cannot be too careful of our friendships, nor value too highly the love of the good women whom we meet in life.

The late “Jennie June,” Mrs. Croly, said at one of the celebrations in honor of her seventieth birthday: “I am glad to have lived so many years because I have come to know that most beautiful thing on earth, the love of one woman for another—the love of good women for one another.” And truly, if any woman on earth has reason to know it, this “mother of clubs,” who did more than any other one woman to introduce women to one another, ought to from long and intimate experience. Through her pen, that of the first regular, trained woman-journalist in the world, and through her long, active experience as president of the foremost woman’s club in the country, Mrs. Croly did more, perhaps, for the emancipation of women in a social way than almost any other woman of her age, and we may well pause to consider her words for a moment.

It has long been the custom, even among women, to sneer at the love of woman for woman; to say that women cannot be true, cannot overlook peculiarities in other women, have not charity for one another’s shortcomings. But the women who say this to-day are not trained thinkers and observers. The more we associate with other women along any definite line, the broader grows the individual outlook, the more charitable the mental attitude. It is the beginner who believes women are not true to each other, mainly because she hasn’t it in her own heart to be true to others. It is a case where the verdict of the immortal bard is illustrated:

“To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

The modern “passion for organization” has done more for the friendships of women than anything else has ever done. It has lifted the ordinary woman from the plane of petty gossip and trivial interest in each other’s every-day affairs, and it has, in part at least, killed out that love of gossip which in times past men have delighted to ascribe to women as their especial prerogative; although for that matter some of the worst gossips I have ever known are men. Long ago, when clubs and societies were first started, the club may have been a promoter of gossip just the same as the sewing bee and the church social were in earlier days. Women were not trained then to think great thoughts, to live on a plane where the comings and goings of their neighbors are beneath them, to take so broad and lofty an outlook upon affairs in general as to be incapable of scrutiny of the insignificant motives of their friends.

After working together for others, women begin to recognize in one another the loftier ideals and higher ambitions. When we are lifted upon the peak of high living ourselves, we are not so isolated as perhaps we once thought we should be; on the contrary, we are able to see many others who are striving to reach the summit of high thinking and worthy endeavor. Women have needed this outlook in ages past, while they are but just coming to their own, and although we may have reached the state where we are able to endure our own company, and to find comfort in the inner life, we need the friendship of others; we need the sunshine of good company to bring out the best that is in ourselves.

We may think we can do without other people, or that we do not care what other women think of us, but we all know that we do and that we depend on one another for help and for comfort. If we are inclined to too much introspection or to looking upon the dark side of things it is well to take pattern after Dr. Johnson and “live in a crowd of jollity,” at least so far as to get out of our own solitary chambers and fling ourselves into something which is their polar opposite. The ordinary woman needs contact with her intellectual mates in order that she may get out of the small round of her daily sympathies and interests. Dr. Johnson was the greatest hypochondriac in the world, but when once aroused by stimulating contact with the wise and the erudite, the change was like that in the forlorn, drooping eagle in a cage to the same bird when free to soar into the limitless space above.

It is this need that is bringing the rich woman into closer association with her poorer sister. This mutual contact is helpful. The one learns that riches do not buy brains and refinement; the other finds out that poverty does not preclude the possibility of richness of intellect and gentle manners. If one wears Paris gowns and another is severely plain in her costumes, there need not be any difference in the attire of their ideas. The one sees that an unfashionable garment may clothe a body containing a mind that is above rubies, that “the rank is but the guinea’s stamp—the man’s a man for a’ that.” The other discovers that her next neighbor, whom she considered a toy of fashion, has a soul and some lofty aspirations. Companionship with other women renders a woman more lenient, more sincere and more sympathetic. The pettiness of personal aims is dying out in the presence of humanity’s needs.

We should not forget that a barbed wire fence shuts out more than it shuts in. Social barriers cannot set aside mental and spiritual harmonies, for the force of personality is becoming the supreme force, before which custom and conservatism must yield. The standard by which all must judge each other is high, unselfish womanhood. The result of woman’s individual growth is nowhere more apparent than in the home, the corner-stone of civilization, and in her friendships.

Mrs. Croly declared that the passion for associated effort was far greater than any one woman, and that no woman who sought only her own personal aggrandizement could possibly have more than a transitory, fleeting fame. How true her words have proved can easily be computed by any of us. We all know women who, through personal machination or what is even more contemptible, the unscrupulous use of their friends, have risen to high positions; but who let ambition get the better of their judgment, and consequently, though clinging tenaciously to place and grasping violently at position, were finally engulfed in the sea of oblivion.

But, happily, these women are fewer and fewer as the years roll by, and consequently the limitations of self are giving way to the largeness of a universal idea.

To enter upon any labor worthy the honest effort of any earnest woman with the selfish spirit dominant within, is not only to fail ultimately by the personal measure, but to degrade the work itself to the level of the spirit in which it was undertaken; to enter upon the most unpretending labor simply because of duty, nobly because of the possibility for others, is not only to beautify the worker, but to glorify the work.

A soul so narrow as to know no broader horizon than is measured by its own puny pleasure or purpose, ideal or method, can never be long in the ascendant, and ultimately receives as it deserves the condemnation of the larger, better world; the life that has no definitely fixed ideal toward which it is stirring, no divinely conceived mission which it is struggling to fulfil, can expect no less than the hearty contempt of an honest humanity. Shall we not endeavor, each of us, to become the radiating centre of kindliness and good will and helpfulness? It is hard to do one’s best and then to be troubled with a haunting fear or a real consciousness that some one else would have done that particular thing better. It is harder yet to do one’s best, to work from the purest motives even, and then to feel that one’s friends are looking on with critical eye, or, at best, with cold approval. Why not say the appreciative word and give the sympathetic hand clasp wherever we can?