If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well directed labor; nothing is to be obtained without it. – Joshua Reynolds. Fortunate is the girl who is permitted to dwell within the living presence of such a matron and to be directed by her into the paths of usefulness and sunshine. And thrice fortunate is every girl who has for her guide and counselor a loving mother to whom she can go for light and wisdom with which to meet all the problems of life.
"Mother knows." Her earnest, loving words are to be cherished above all others as many men and many women have learned after the long miles and If you are doing any real good you cannot escape the reward of your service. – Patrick Flynn. the busy years have crept between them and "the old folks at home." Do not, O Girl! I pray you, ever grow impatient, as boys sometimes do, to be set beyond the protecting care of
Simplicity and plainness are the soul of elegance. – Dickens.
When I was but a careless youth,
I thought the truly great
Were those who had attained, in truth,
To man’s mature estate.
And none my soul so sadly tried
Or spoke such bitter things
As he who said that I was tied
To mother’s apron-strings.
I loved my mother, yet it seemed
That I must break away
And find the broader world I dreamed
Beyond her presence lay.
But I have sighed and I have cried
O’er all the cruel stings
I would have missed had I been tied
To mother’s apron-strings.
Happiness is one of the virtues which the people of all nationalities and every pursuit appreciate. – Joe Mitchell Chapple. O happy, trustful girls and boys!
The mother’s way is best.
She leads you ’mid the fairest joys,
Through paths of peace and rest.
If you would have the safest guide,
And drink from sweetest springs,
Oh, keep your hearts forever tied
To mother’s apron-strings.
CHAPTER II
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Only to the pure and the true does Nature resign herself and reveal her secrets. – Goethe. I am sure that every girl wishes to become accomplished, and I am quite as certain that every girl can become so if she will.
My dictionary defines an accomplishment as an "acquirement or attainment that tends to perfect or equip in character, manners, or person."
Every man carries with him the world in which he must live, the stage and the scenery for his own play. – F. Marion Crawford. Surely every girl can do something, or has acquired some special line of knowledge, that is covered by this broad definition.
It means that every girl who can sweep a room; read French or German The best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more to more. – Sam Walter Foss. or English as it should be read; bake a loaf of bread; play tennis; darn a stocking; play the violin or pianoforte; give the names of flowers and birds and butterflies; write a neat, well-composed letter, either in longhand or shorthand; draw or paint pictures; make a bed or Notwithstanding a faculty be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it. – Addison. do one or more of a thousand and one other things is accomplished. The more things she can do and the greater the number of subjects on which she is informed, the more highly is she accomplished.
It is understood, as a matter of course, that thoroughness in one’s accomplishments is the true measure of his worth. One who knows a few subjects very well is no doubt more accomplished than one who has only a superficial "smatter" of knowledge concerning many.
Every truth in the universe makes a close joint with every other truth. – Melvin L. Severy. We can all readily understand how much more pleasing it is to hear a true virtuoso play the violin or pianoforte than it is to listen to a beginner who can perform indifferently on a number of instruments.
"A little diamond is worth a mountain of glass."
Quality is the thing that counts.
All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie, of which a man ought to be ashamed. – John Stuart Blackie. The desire and disposition to do a thing well, coupled with a firm determination, are pretty sure to bring the ability necessary for achieving the wished-for end. The will is lacking more often than is the way.
When we cease to learn, we cease to be interesting. – John Lancaster Spalding. It is a matter of frequent comment that we usually expect too much of the average young and attractive girl in the way of accomplishments. Because she is pleasing in her general appearance we are apt to feel a sense of disappointment if we find that her qualities of mind do not equal her outward charms.
The workless people are the worthless people. – Wm. C. Gannett. Charles Lamb says: "I know that sweet children are the sweetest things in nature," and adds, "but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind." And so it is with girls who are bright and blithe and beautiful; the world would give them every charming quality of mind and heart to match the grace of face and figure.
Hence we find that the girl who is most fondly wanted, by the members of her own family, by her schoolmates, and by all with whom she shall form an acquaintance, is the one who is as pleasing in her manners as she is beautiful in her physical features.
Our ideals are our better selves. – Bronson Alcott. Of all the accomplishments it is possible for a girl to possess, that of being pleasant and gracious to those about her is the greatest and most desirable. "There is no beautifier of the complexion,
All literature, art, and science are vain, and worse, if they do not enable you to be glad, and glad, justly. – Ruskin. or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us," says Emerson.
It is possible for persons to acquire a great deal of information and to become skillful in many things and still be unloved by those with whom they are associated.
All things else are of the earth, but love is of the sky. – William Stanley Braithwaite. The heart needs to be educated even more than the mind, for it is the heart that dominates and colors and gives character and meaning to the whole of life. Even the kindest of words have little meaning unless there is a kind heart to make them stand for something that will live.
To fill the hour, that is happiness. – Emerson. "You will find as you look back upon your life," says Drummond, "that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory Ah, well that in a wintry hour the heart can sing a summer song. – Edward Francis Burns. pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal Avast there! Keep a bright lookout forward and good luck to you. – Dickens. life … Everything else in our lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, or can ever know about – they never fail."
It is the ability to do the many little acts of kindness, and to make the most of all the opportunities for gladding the lives of others, that constitute the finest accomplishment any girl can acquire.
It often happens that the thought of the great kindnesses we should like to do, and which we mean to do, "sometime" in the days to come, keeps us from