Part 3
Harder even than death is it to find some dearly loved friend grown cold and indifferent; to find instead of the loving sympathy that has seemed a strong fortress in the past, only a distant formality, a chilling frost; or to find, worse than all, disloyalty in place of truth. Nothing is more heart-breaking than to find a love grown cold, especially if that love is one in which we have trusted and believed for years. Such things happen. We find in place of the sympathy and affection on which we have relied without question some sudden failure in time of stress. The sympathy we have accustomed ourselves to lean upon disappoints us. The hollowness of insincerity rings through the formal attempt to simulate affection that is no longer a vital thing. And when this experience befalls us—God help us.
No; death is not the worst thing that can happen to us or to our friends. I sometimes wonder if it is not the best; if we do not do wrong in wishing back those who have gone a little before us to the silent shore. Death is a mystery, but it may be the best part of life, after all. We cannot tell.
We say we believe in immortality; that we believe the future life will take us far in advance of this; that we are to be infinitely happier, infinitely better and infinitely more useful there. Why, then, are we afraid to go forward into it? Why do we grudge our friends that experience? And why—since we believe in infinite love and the life of the soul hereafter do we mourn the death of any human love when we are sure of God’s love and that of the friends who have gone before?
There is a poem of Edward Rowland Sill’s that has long been a favorite with me. Perhaps it may bring a comforting thought to some other who reads it here:
What if, some morning when the stars were paling And the dawn whitened and the east was clear, Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence Of a benignant spirit standing near,
And I should tell him, as he stood beside me, “This is our earth, most friendly earth and fair; Daily its sea and shore, this sun and shadow, Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air?
“There is best living here, loving and serving, And quest of truth and serene friendship dear; But stay not, spirit. Earth has one destroyer, His name is Death. Flee, lest he find thee here.”
And what if then, while the still morning brightened And freshened in the elm the summer’s breath, Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel, And take my hand and say, “My name is Death”?
V
ON ENEMIES
Marcus Aurelius says: “No man can do me an injury unless he can make me misbehave myself.” An older authority than he said: “Love your enemies.” And a good way to love them is not to recognize them as enemies. The old Roman was right—as usual. The greatest harm any one can do us is to disturb the harmony of our souls. There is a serenity which is like an armor. It protects us from the stings of petty jealousy and the stabs of secret foes. Reports, false or true, of these things may come to our ears, but we shall possess our souls in large patience and refuse to be ruffled in spirit or worried by small fears. We shall not “misbehave ourselves.”
My mother—the best and wisest woman I ever knew, God bless her!—used to tell me that the person of whom it could be said, “He or she has not an enemy in the world,” never amounted to anything. Few who accomplish any real good in life escape the attacks of the envious. No matter how disinterested our purpose or how high our ideal, somebody is going to misunderstand; somebody is going to impute a selfish motive. Experience with the world will teach us to expect and make allowances for these things; but we need not be soured by them, nor lose sight of our own standard, provided it be a right one. Only by lowering our own ideals, by giving way to jealousy, envy, fear or discouragement can we really be touched by these outside things. Let us keep single to the purpose of pressing straight forward to the goal of right living and right thinking, not expecting every one to understand or even appreciate our motives, and our enemies can do us no real harm.
To be worried and fretted by little things; to live in a constant atmosphere of anxiety about what may or may not be said of us; to be continually dwelling upon the personal impression we are making on others; to be forever thinking of ourselves and never enlarging our vision to the greatness of humanity; to dwell upon the littleness of some people and forget the nobleness of others; these are the things that belittle us and keep our souls from growing. It matters not who or what are our enemies from without, so long as we keep free from those within. And when it comes to that, if we attend diligently to shutting the door on those within ourselves, we shall have no time for recognizing our foes from without. We need the spirit of serenity and sweetness and patience with our fellow-creatures; and to practice all these virtues. We need more toleration for the opinions and the expressions of opinion from others. We need to cultivate broader views; to remember the difference in environment among women; to remind ourselves that heredity and training in one part of the country may differ widely from the same things in another section; and to educate ourselves up to a standard where we can see that another woman is not necessarily wrong because she cannot see things in just the same light, nor believe just the same way that we do.
One of the greatest things any movement can do for women is to develop their sense of proportion. As the individual develops and broadens her sympathies by doing for others, the small personal side of life fades into the background; the weightier interests of humanity are grasped by degrees, and the better qualities of womanhood come out in bolder relief. In this evolution we are growing up to a point where petty jealousies will never be recognized and small enmities will have no place. Self-development and a new sort of self-possession is what we need.
“Human nature is so constituted,” some one says, “that it cannot see one person rising above his fellows without experiencing the pangs of jealousy. No sooner does one of us rise, either by force of our own abilities or by a combination of outside circumstances, than do some whom we had once called friends set to work to pull us down, to belittle our influence and to malign our motives. Human nature cannot stand success in other people.” Some human nature cannot, perhaps. But there are as many kinds of human nature as there are people in the world. We talk as if human nature was one solid lump of which everybody is fashioned, and consequently we must all be alike at heart—as a bushel of peas. Thank God there are more kindly natures in the world than unkindly, and a hundred good friends who rejoice at our success to one who gives it grudging favor. The world is a much better place than we give it credit for being. The trouble is we make more fuss over the one enemy than we do over five hundred friends, staunch and true. There is lots of lovable, kindly, faithful, generous human nature lying around loose. It is easy to forgive our enemies by forgetting that we have them. It is easy to make good cheer for others by keeping it first in our own hearts. The selfish inlooking soul is never happy; the broad-visioned worker for humanity may always be so. Which shall we choose?
Let us look out and not in; let us forget the annoyances of life and recognize only the kindness and nobleness of humanity; let us give generously of ourselves, seeking nothing in return.
We worry too much about what somebody has said or may say against us. Some petty criticism which should be beneath our notice keeps many a woman tossing on a restless pillow half the night.
Said a white sister for whom old Aunt Hannah was washing:
“Aunt Hannah, did you know that you have been accused of stealing?”
“Yes, I hearn about it,” said Aunt Hannah, and went on with her washing.
“Well, you won’t rest under it, will you?” said the sister.
Aunt Hannah raised herself up from her work, with a broad smile on her face, and looking up full at the white sister, said:
“De Lord knows I ain’t stole nuthin’, and I knows I ain’t, an’ life’s too short for me to be provin’ and ’splainin’ all de time; so I jest goes on my way rejoicin’. Dey know dey ain’t tellin’ the truf, and dey’ll feel ashamed and quit after awhile. If I can please de Lord dat is enough for me.”
Let us remember this, and be satisfied with pleasing the Lord. And let us not be too critical of others. Says Marcus Aurelius:
“How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbor says, or does, or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure.”
There is always danger of forming ourselves into a mutual admiration society, and nothing is more of a hindrance to progress. Self-satisfaction is fatal to self-development. And here our enemies may have been all actual benefit to us, in order that we might not think more of ourselves than we ought to have done.
Somebody once sent me a printed motto which I keep over my working-desk, and read often. I do not know who, seeing it, recognized in it a message for me, but I pass it along to you. It is called “The Foot Path to Peace,” and is signed by Henry Van Dyke, whose writings show such a wonderful appreciation of nature as God’s best minister. It reads as follows:
“To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and every day of Christ, and to spend as much time as you can with body and spirit in God’s out-of-doors—these are little guide posts on the foot path to peace.”
There is a whole sermon in it. “To be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts”—how many of us do this? Think what a different atmosphere we should breathe, how much pleasanter our outlook on life if we made this our rule. Again, “think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends and daily of Christ,”—there is another “guide post on the foot path to peace” which it is worth our while to linger over and study. It is too easy to think often of our enemies, to poison our lives and vitiate our whole moral atmosphere by dwelling upon their faults.
The truth is they are not worth our thinking about—unless we can do so kindly and helpfully. We take our hosts of friends as a matter of course and seldom congratulate ourselves that we have so many and such excellent ones; but our one enemy! Alas! we let him or her sully our spirit with all uncharitableness. She is not worth it. A high, clean soul is infinitely better.
Let us walk together in the foot path to peace. We can find it if we will; we can make for ourselves all these little guide posts along the way. And we shall be much the better women and much better fitted for life.
We have always before us the individual problem. We can solve it, not in crowds nor in co-operation, but by wrestling with all cowardice and meanness and narrowness and pettiness, and by looking up “to the stars” and beyond them. Let us try.
Above all, let us love one another, and not hesitate to say the loving word. Flattery is poison, but sincere approbation is a wholesome stimulant. Let us speak the simple truth. A foolish reserve often makes us withhold it. It seals the lips to the expression of the heart. It is like locking the gate of a garden where roses bloom. Let their beauty and perfume be freely given. True love never harms; it helps and ennobles. For love is the fulfilling of the law. “Love your enemies.”
VI
ON MRS. GUMMIDGE
“Yes,” sighed that immortal woman, “I’m a lone, lorn creetur’ and not only everything goes contrary with me, but I go contrary with everything. I’d better die and be a riddance.” We all know Mrs. Gummidges. They exist to-day in the family, in public life, in literature. Worse yet, there are Mrs. Gummidges of both sexes.
If you venture some remarks during a discussion which call forth praise from all the rest, Mrs. Gummidge looks superior; she regrets that you should have been guilty of misstatement; or she notes a discrepancy between what you say to-day and some other thing you said last year; and how came you to fall into error when the magazines or the newspapers have given such frequent opportunities for you to keep right? And after making you feel too small and insignificant even to have an opinion of your own, much less to express it, she remarks that she does not suppose other people notice your errors, and that she only mentioned it because her own critical acumen forced her to.
“Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful disposition,” says little David, “and she whimpered sometimes more than was comfortable for other parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her, but there were moments when I thought how much more agreeable it would be if Mrs. Gummidge had a convenient apartment of her own to retire to, and had stayed there until her spirits revived.” Alas! but our Mrs. Gummidge, if she had such an apartment, would refuse to seek its solitude and there bury or nurse her griefs; for she belongs to that class who are gregarious. She insists that her whole world shall share in her discomforts, bear her woes, carry her burdens.
Mrs. Gummidge, in short, was the queen of pessimists. True, after being a lone, lorn creetur’ for many years she developed after the most surprising fashion into a cheerful, busy worker. But so does any confirmed pessimist when he or she realizes that there is honest, earnest work cut out for his or her hand and no other. Those who discourse the most fluently of the anguish and bitter woe of life are seldom those who have felt the iron of sorrow in their own souls. They have more often been soured by little disappointments, tormented by the pin-pricks of a superficial existence; they know little of the heavy griefs which discipline the soul.
We have been taught to believe that in the wise economy of nature nothing superfluous has been created. But it certainly seems as if pessimism, as a confirmed and habitual state of mind, is a quality of which the world has no need. You and I have no right to drag our “lone-and-lorn-ness” before our little public and make other people miserable when we might make them happy. The confirmed pessimist is as much in need of missionary work as ever was the wild Hottentot or the Fiji Islander. I learned a hymn in childhood which was calculated to impress upon the juvenile mind the power of a spoken word by showing how a word once spoken is gone from us forever, but will go on for ages exerting a positive influence. The logic of this hymn may have been far-fetched, but I think if people were more generally brought up on it there would be a noticeable diminution in the amount of useless talking done in the world.
What right have we to say words that shall depress or discourage the hopes of other women? Hundreds of women lead lonely lives at home because they are so busy with material things that they have no time for “high thinking.” What right have we to utter careless words which shall fail to raise their standards and quicken their desire for higher living? The prophets of old felt that they had a message to bear to humanity and their hearts burned within them until they uttered it. So ought all good and earnest women to feel; and we may at least be sure we send forth no depressing or unhealthy influences. “Of one thing I am sure,” says a writer who has brought comfort to many women, “that I have never written anything without a prayer in my heart that somewhere or somehow a human soul might be the better for it. After all, we only hold the pen. The dear God guides.” And this may apply to all of us, if we will.
I like Margaret Deland’s definition of happiness as “thinking straight and seeing clear, and having a true perception of the value of things,” but before reaching this high mental standpoint we must have many a bonfire of what is narrow and feeble in us. A well-ordered home and a mind filled with noble thoughts—what better equipment can we have for the discouragement of Gummidge-ism? Perhaps the multiplication of these is responsible for the fact that we are gradually outgrowing the old habit of criticising each other, and learning to see and love the good qualities in other women; we are even mastering that more difficult task of learning to shut our eyes to their shortcomings in the remembrance that none of us is perfect and that even we ourselves have our limitations. And so we learn the great lesson of forbearance and charity, and we become able to take our friends at their best.
The woman who is truly refined or who is attaining unto real culture will not air her grievances in public places. There is a type of the feminine gender that delights in holding forth on the subject of her family or her neighborhood troubles in the street cars, and who enjoys the more or less sympathetic attention of her fellow-passengers. But nobody would be guilty of describing her as “truly cultured and refined.” There is a kind of culture that is better than the ability to appreciate Charles Lamb, or even to follow one’s favorite authors in delicious dreams where eternity is entered and the fortunate aspirant is admitted to the society of the Olympians. Very true, it cannot be acquired by cramming with the lyrical or dramatic endings of Shakespeare’s lines, or the styles of great artists whose names are difficult to spell and terrifying to pronounce. It is something deeper, less selfish and more productive of good to the world around us.
It is in our power to make our lives a beneficence to those who come within our circle. Whether we will or no, the club movement is proving such a beneficence. Let us resolve that we will enlarge our vision, that we will broaden our sphere, that we will deepen our love to humanity, that we will be true to our best selves.
Let us see to it that our hearts beat true; that they beat with sympathy and love and sisterly charity; that they beat with high hope for the future and a growing desire to help, and not hinder the work of making the world a better place. God gives his prophets now as of old a message to his people. Life with too many women is a treadmill. They need all the stimulus they can get. If we realize how the things we say and the things we do as individuals affect others, we should try at least to guard our lips. We little think of the wounded souls near us ready to drop the burden of life because of the dreary lack of a friendly word; we are not conscious of the bereaved heart within our own radius, perhaps dumb with despair; we do not realize that eager hearts are waiting silently for some message of love and comfort; and so we are careless and blind and cynical; and so we neglect our opportunities to be “God’s messengers.”
In our anxiety to avoid being a “mush of concession,” as Emerson puts it, let us not be that most uncomfortable person, the Chronic Objector. I suppose it is true that sometimes we are pessimistic from physical causes. Young people are usually inclined to morbid speculations. I remember the sensation when I was young. I thought it came from a deep appreciation of life’s mysteries; in reality it was the need of spring medicine and liver pills. At a very early age I sought to give vent to pent-up gloom and despair in blank verse patterned after Milton at his best; but I committed the folly of repeating the first stanzas to my older brother, who ridiculed me so unmercifully that my poetic pessimism was nipped in the bud. Blushing with mortification I sought to distract his mind from my poetry by playing at “see-saw” with him; but he persisted, when his end of the board was uppermost, in screaming out my beloved though gloomy stanzas in a derisive tone. It was very hard to bear. But the world owes him a debt of gratitude—and so do I.
None of us is so humble that cheerful optimism is not in some sort a duty. Not that we should go to extremes; and the out-and-out optimist is seldom a good observer. But we should not indulge ourselves in sarcasm, nor gloomy forebodings, nor in saying things that may be stumbling blocks in the way of weaker sisters.
How much better to live a self-contained life—to maintain a steady poise of character so that we shall be able to enjoy to the fullest the winter’s work and the summer’s play. To be mistresses of ourselves, to be calm and serene under all provocation, to be restful in ourselves and therefore to others, to keep the love of God in our hearts simply and humbly is to make of life a well-spring of joy, and to make of ourselves a blessing and an inspiration to those around us. There are so many tired souls, so many discouraged hearts, so many narrow-visioned ones, so many weak ones that need the sunshine and courage and light and strength—how dare we indulge ourselves in weakness or in discouragement?
When we are all through with life and the affairs of this world are only a scroll of the past, if we shall find that a pathway has been smoothed for somebody or a burden lightened for some one else; if we shall find that even one sorrowing, heavy-hearted woman found comfort and the source of all comfort from any word or any effort of ours, shall we then ask—“Was it worth while?”