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 seeing the many little favors we could, if we would, grant to those just about us at the present time. Yet we all know that it is not the things we are going to do that really count. It is the thing that we do do that is worth while.

No doubt we should all be much more thoughtful of our many present opportunities and make better use of them were we frequently to ask ourselves,

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO-DAY?

Genius is the transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all. – Carlyle.

 
We shall do so much in the years to come,
But what have we done to-day?
We shall give our gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give to-day?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
 

For dreams, to those of steadfast hope and will, are things wherewith they build their world of fact. – Alicia K. Van Buren.

 
We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer;
But what did we speak to-day?
We shall be so kind in the after while,
But what have we been to-day?
 

Love is the leaven of existence. – Melvin L. Severy.

 
We shall bring each lonely life a smile,
But what have we brought to-day?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth;
But whom have we fed to-day?
 

No man can rest who has nothing to do. – Sam Walter Foss.

 
We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown to-day?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built to-day?
’T is sweet in idle dreams to bask,
But here and now do we do our task?
Yes, this is the thing our souls must ask,
"What have we done to-day?"
 

Among the every-day accomplishments which everyone should wish to possess is a knowledge of the fine art of smiling. To know how and when to smile, not too much and not too little, is a fine mental and social possession.

Work is no disgrace but idleness is. – Hesiod. Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smile that children love." Any one possessing a smile that children as well as others may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face is of great worth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged to look upon it.

Shoddy work is not only a wrong to a man’s own personal integrity, hurting his character; but also it is a wrong to society. Truthfulness in work is as much demanded as truthfulness in speech. – Hugh Black. A smile is an indication that the one who is smiling is happy and every happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we all understand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There is truly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forever grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our most cheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the The flowering of civilization is in the finished man, the man of sense, of grace, of accomplishment, of social power – the gentleman. – Ralph Waldo Emerson. little, smiling lines in the face that are so quickly and easily distinguished from the lines produced by depression and frowning that grow deeper and deeper until they become as hard and severe as if they were cut in stone." Such happiness is one of the virtues which people of all classes and ages, the world over, admire and enjoy. "We do not know what ripples of healing are set in motion," It is all very well to growl at the cold-heartedness of the world, but which of us can truthfully say that he has done as much for others as others have done for him? – Patrick Flynn. says Henry Drummond, "when we simply smile on one another. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people."

Most persons are very quick to see whether or not a smile is genuine or is manufactured and put on like a mask for the occasion. The automatic, stock-in-trade smile hardly ever fits the face that tries to wear it. It is a little too wide or sags at the corners or something else is wrong A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work, and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. – Emerson. with it.

A smile may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door; it may be "sweeter than honey," but the instant we detect that it is not genuine, it loses its charm and becomes, in fact, much worse than no smile at all. Smiles that are genuine are always just right both in quality and quantity. So the only really safe rule is for us not to smile until we feel like it and then we shall get on all right. And we ought to feel like smiling Some people meet us like the mountain air and thrill our souls with freshness and delight. – Nathan Haskell Dole. whenever we look into the honest face of any fellow being. A smile passes current in every country as a mark of distinction.

But it is even possible to overdo in the matter of smiling. "I can’t think of anything more irritating to the average human being," says Lydia Horton Knowles, "than an incessant, everlasting smile. There are people who have it. When things go wrong they have a patient, martyr-like smile, and when things go right they have a dutifully pleasant smile which has all the appearance of being I let the willing winter bring his jeweled buds of frost and snow. – Edward Francis Burns. mechanical, and purely a pose. Now I think the really intelligent person is the one who can look as though he realized the significance of various incidents or happenings and who can look sorrowful, even, if the occasion demands it. It is not a pleasant thing The world is unfinished; let’s mold it a bit. – Sam Walter Foss. to suffer mentally or physically, for instance, and have any one come up to you with a smile of patient, sweet condolence. The average man or woman does not want smiles when he or she is uncomfortable. We are apt to remember that it is easy enough to smile when it is somebody else who has the pain. I venture to say that a smile given at the wrong moment is far more Our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform. – Goethe. dangerous to human happiness than the lack of a smile at any given psychological moment. There is a time and a place for all things, even a smile."

No expression of feeling is of much moment without a warm heart and an Do not let us overlook the wayside flowers. – Joe Mitchell Chapple. intelligent thought behind it. The seemingly mechanical, automatic expressions of feeling and of interest in our affairs are sometimes even harder to bear than an out and out attitude of indifference. The thing that really warms and moves us is a touch of heartfelt, intelligent

SYMPATHY

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. – R. L. Stevenson.

 
When the clouds begin to lower,
That’s a splendid time to smile;
But your smile will lose its power
If you’re smiling all the while.
Now and then a sober season,
Now and then a jolly laugh:
We like best, and there’s a reason,
A good, wholesome half and half.
 

The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, and by which he is loved and blessed. – Carlyle.

 
When the other one has trouble,
We should feel that trouble, too,
For, were we with joy to bubble
’Mid his grief, ’t would hardly do.
Let us own that keen discerning
That can see and bear a part;
For the whole wide world is yearning
For a sympathetic heart.
 

Nothing is more restful and refreshing than a friendly glance or a kindly word offered to us in the midst of our daily rounds of duty. And since we are not The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. – Jonathan Swift. often in a position to grant great favors we should not fail to cultivate the habit of bestowing small ones whenever we can. It is in giving the many little lifts along the way that we shall be able to lighten many burdens.

I do not know it to be a fact, but I have read it somewhere in the books that the human heart rests nine hours out of every twenty-four. It manages to steal little bits of rest between beats, and thus it is ever refreshed and able to go on performing the work nature has assigned for it to do.

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. – Lord Chesterfield. And therein is a first-rate lesson for most persons, who if they cannot do something of considerable moment are disposed to do nothing at all. They forget Indulge not in vain regrets for the past, in vainer resolves for the future – act, act in the present. – F. W. Robertson. that it is the brief three-minute rests that enable the mountain-climber to press on till he reaches the top whereas longer periods of inactivity might serve to stiffen his limbs and impede his progress.

Wise are they who, like the human heart, sprinkle rest and kindness and heart’s-ease all through their daily tasks. They weave a bright thread of thankful happiness through the web The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in our power. – Hugh White. and woof of life’s pattern. They are never too busy to say a kind word or to do a gentle deed. They may be compelled to sigh betimes, but amid their sighs are smiles that drive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in the trail of every cloud. They gather flowers where others see nothing but weeds. They pluck little sprigs of rest where others find only thorns of distress.

The man who cannot be practical and mix his religion with his business is either in the wrong religion or in the wrong business. – Patrick Flynn. After the manner of the human heart, they make much of the little opportunities presented to them. They rest that they may have strength for others. They gather sunshine with which to dispel the shadows about them.

The I don’t think there is a pleasure in the world that can be compared with an honest joy in conquering a difficult task. – Margaret E. Sangster. grandest conception of life is to esteem it as an opportunity for making others happy. He who is most true to his higher self is truest to the race. The lamp that shines brightest gives the most light to all about it. Thoreau says: "To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of life."

Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on every person’s face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distortion. – Ruskin. He is, indeed, a correct observer and a careful student of human nature who tells us that the face is such an index of character that the very growth of the latter can be traced upon the former, and most of the successive lines that carve the furrowed face of age out of the smooth outline of childhood are engraved directly or indirectly by mind. There is no beautifier of the face like a beautiful spirit.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. – J. M. Barrie. So we see that if we have acquired the habit of wearing a pleasant face, or of smiling honestly and cheerfully, we have an accomplishment that is worth more than many others that are more pretentious and more superficial. If to this accomplishment we can add another – the ability to speak a pleasant word to those whom we may meet – we are not to think poorly of our equipment for life.

There is a good, old-fashioned word in the dictionary, the study of which, with its definition, is well worth our while. Politeness is like an air cushion; there may be nothing in it, but it eases the jolts wonderfully. – George Eliot. The word is "Complaisance," and it is defined as "the disposition, action, or habit of being agreeable, or conforming to the views, wishes, or convenience of others; desire or endeavor to please; courtesy; politeness."

Complaisance, as it has been truly said, renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, an inferior acceptable. It Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all things easy. – Benjamin Franklin. sweetens conversation; it produces good-nature and mutual benevolence; it encourages the timid, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. – Disraeli. Politeness has been defined as society’s method of making things run smoothly. True complaisance is a more intimate quality. It is an impulse to seek points of agreement with others. A spirit of welcome, whether to strangers, or to new suggestions, untried pleasures, fresh impressions. It never is satisfied to remain inactive as long as there is anybody to please or to make more comfortable.

The complaisant person need not be lacking in will, in determination, or individuality. In fact it is the complaisant We would willingly have others perfect and yet we amend not our own faults. – Thomas à Kempis. person’s strength of will that holds in check and harmonizes all the other traits of character and moulds them into a perfectly balanced disposition.

Complaisance rounds off the sharp corners, chooses softer and gentler words and makes it easy and pleasant for all to dwell together in unity. And it never fails to contribute something to The most manifold sign of wisdom is continued cheer. – Montaigne. the enjoyment of everyone even though it be

ONLY A WORD

There is only one cure for public distress – and that is public education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. – Ruskin.

 
Tell me something that will be
Joy through all the years to me.
Let my heart forever hold
One divinest grain of gold.
Just a simple little word,
Yet the dearest ever heard;
Something that will bring me rest
When the world seems all distressed.
 

To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. – Wade.

 
As the candle in the night
Sends abroad its cheerful light,
So a little word may be
Like a lighthouse in the sea.
When the winds and waves of life
Fill the breast with storm and strife,
Just one star my boat may guide
To the harbor, glorified.