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CHAPTER VII
GOLDEN HABITS
We often hear I think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. – Dickens. persons speaking of "the force of habit" as though it were something to be regretted. "Habit is second nature," is a saying that is included among the classic epigrams of men. That habits do become very strong, all the world has learned, sometimes to its sorrow and sometimes to its advantage and delight.
For be it known that good habits are just as strong as bad habits and in that Every noble work is at first impossible. – Carlyle. we should all feel a common joy and a sense of deliverance from wrong doing.
The fact that a fixed habit is only a matter of long and gradual growth ought Truth is a strong thing, let man’s life be true. – Browning. to be very much to our advantage. This very fundamental principle of their construction should result in giving us very many more good habits than bad habits. This happy conclusion is based on the supposition that while many of Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous – a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. – Carlyle. us are so constituted that it is possible we might, in some unguarded moment, do a wrong act, it is unlikely we could repeat the error so often and so long as to make the questionable action become a fixed habit.
The doing of a wrong thing should result in convincing us, on sober second Pass no day idly; youth does not return. – Chinese Proverb. thought, that it was a mistake on our part to have permitted ourselves to have been led into uncertain, unhappy paths and we would then and there reinforce our moral strength and our determination that the wrong should not occur again.
In doing right things, the conditions are quite reversed. Every good deed inspires us to still greater determination to do more of the same kind. Wrong If, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels must give. – George MacDonald. deeds are, in most cases, committed in a moment of thoughtlessness when one’s conscience, one’s higher and better self, is momentarily off guard. Our good acts are performed with a full and proud realization of what we are doing and are followed by a grateful sense of retrospective pleasure, after they have been done.
"Could the young," says Henry Nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good manners for its foundation. – Bulwer Lytton. James, "but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literateness, wiped out." One of our latter day philosophers tells us that "happiness is a matter of habit; and you had better gather it fresh every day or you will never get it at all."
In speaking of the success he had achieved in life, Charles Dickens said: "I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder The common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voices and blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a music and its path a light. – H. W. Mabie. and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels."
When we come to study carefully the full meaning of the word "habit" we find it to be a very comprehensive term. In the sense in which it is here employed The truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them. – Oliver Wendell Holmes. the dictionary defines it as being "a tendency or inclination toward an action or condition, which by repetition has become easy, spontaneous or even unconscious." From this definition it is easy to deduce the conclusion that one’s habits are in fact one’s manners, one’s principles, one’s mode of conduct; and a careful consideration of the theme finally brings one to a clear realization of the secret of
TRUE GENTILITY
One cannot from the world conceal
The current of his thought;
A word or action will reveal
The thing his brain hath wrought.
It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count always your highest moments your truest moments. – Phillips Brooks.
True goodness from within must come
And deeds, to be refined,
Their outer grace must borrow from
Politeness of the mind.
Our manners are ourselves. They constitute our personality and it is by our We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence to do good to others with them. – Joseph Cook. personality that we are judged. If that is frank and pleasant and agreeable we shall not lack for friends.
A person may be deficient in the charm of form or face but if the manners are Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things more worth while than comradeship. – Margaret E. Sangster. perfect they will call forth admiration as nothing else could do.
Our thoughts are the essential and impressive part of ourselves. "It is the spirit that maketh alive. The flesh profiteth nothing." We are told by Swedenborg that "every volition and thought of man is inscribed on his brain, Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, and so make life, death, and the vast forever, one grand, sweet song. – Charles Kingsley. for volition and thoughts have their beginnings in the brain, whence they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate. Whatever, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the brain in the body, according to the order of its parts. Thus a man writes his life in his physique, and thus the angels discover his autobiography in his structure."
And to get peace, if you do want it, make for yourself nests of pleasant thoughts. – Ruskin. Since good habits and pleasing manners are such important aids in the making of character and personality we should leave nothing undone to strengthen the better side of our lives. And since we all are constantly being acted upon by When one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose that he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy – the joy of self-sacrifice. – Lyman Abbott. suggestion we should invite to our assistance anything that will tend to keep us in the most exemplary frame of mind.
In addition to the spoken word of admonition from parents, teachers, and others honestly interested in our welfare we should reinforce our good resolves by reading good books and in framing Morality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous action, with the best intention founded on principle. – A. E. Winship. for our own benefit a code of rules for our better conduct.
It is considered to be a good plan to select a number of suitable quotations and display them in some manner where the eye must see them with frequency. A calendar with a daily quotation admirably serves this purpose. Oftentimes when a good thought is put into the mind in the early morning it tends to direct the To have a friend is to have one of the sweetest gifts that life can bring; to be a friend is to have a solemn and tender education of soul from day to day. – Anna Robertson Brown. course of our thinking throughout the day. The following quotations are offered only as suggestions. They can be added to indefinitely:
A man’s own good breeding is the best security against other people’s ill manners. – Chesterfield.
Good breeding shows itself most when to an ordinary eye it appears the When it comes to doing a thing in this world, I don’t ask myself whether I like it or not, but, what’s the best way to get it done. – Ellen Glasgow. least. – Addison.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the company. – Swift.
Hail! ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do you make the road of it. – Sterne.
Civility costs nothing and buys everything. – Lady Montague.Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. – Ruskin.
Evil communications corrupt good manners. – Bible.
No pleasure is comparable to standing on the vantage ground of truth. – Lord Bacon.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. – Sidney.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. – New Testament.
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge. – Shakespeare.There is no cosmetic for homely folks like character. Even the plainest face becomes beautiful in noble and radiant moods. – Newell Dwight Hillis.
Honest labor bears a lovely face. – Dekker.
The gods give nothing really beautiful without labor and diligence. – Xenophon.
The key to pleasure is honest work. All dishes taste good with that sauce. – H. R. Haweis.
Work is as necessary for peace of mind as for health of body. – Lord Avebury.
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. – Thoreau. Sir John Lubbock has said: "I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the duty of Happiness, as well as the happiness of Duty, for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is the most effectual contribution to the happiness of A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. – Milton.others."
Surely we cannot include among good habits the habit of making those about us unhappy. Hence it is that they who are careless of the state of mind into which Happiness is the natural flower of duty. – Phillips Brooks. they throw those about them are not good mannered. While it is but simple kindness to allow our friends to sympathize in the great griefs that may overtake us, it is not kindness for us to be forever stirring them with all the real or fancied ills with which we can regale them. Either extreme is more or By wisdom wealth is won; but riches purchased wisdom yet for none. – Bayard Taylor. less absurd and unwarranted. Perhaps, as a rule, we thrust our troubles quite too willingly upon others. On the other hand, some of the peoples of the Orient we deem to be so ludicrously polite in matters of this nature as to almost arouse our mirth.
It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much. – George Eliot. An English writer in speaking of the Japanese says: "There must really have been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these people who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that a guest in the home might not be burdened with their sorrow. The habit is in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning streamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, black To be a strong hand in the dark to another in the time of need, to be a cup of strength to a human soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know the glory of life. – Hugh Black. chargers, and funeral hearses with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of all beholders!"
In Japan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching of morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would deem it strange It is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to do them. – R. L. Stevenson. if a master gave them an hour’s instruction in the correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters. Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it does in Japan where it is counted the most vital instruction of all. Step by step the Japanese child is led along the course of behavior, learning how to stand up, sit down, bow, hang up its hat, and how to think of its parents, brothers and sisters, and of its country. Later on these lessons are repeated with illustrations from short stories, and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives of great men of all Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee. – Walter Raleigh. countries. Before the end of the course of instruction is reached all manner of virtues and points of behavior have been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially in the case of girls) the proper way of advancing and retiring, offering and accepting things, sleeping and eating, visiting, congratulating and condoling, mourning and holding public meetings. So the school course continues It is easy to condemn; it is better to pity. – Abbott. from year to year, the elementary school course lasting four years and the secondary course four years more, and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their duty to ancestors, to other people’s property, other people’s honor, other people’s freedom, and, finally, to self-discipline, modesty, dignity, dress, labor, the treatment of animals, and the due relations of men and women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords" of creation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior rather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest detail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment.
To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of habit, If you don’t scale the mountain, you can’t view the plain. – Chinese Proverb. some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men’s behavior," said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured," and he warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait or point-device, but free for exercise or For him who aspires, and for him who loves his fellow-beings, life may lead through the thorns, but it never stops in the desert. – Anonymous. motion." However, it is better to err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than to be thought careless of our persons and our behavior.
Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners, refinement, good Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes; some falls are means the happier to arise. – William Shakespeare. breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the forms of etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from savagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one who does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility.
It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the breach of Be resolutely and faithfully what you are, be humbly what you aspire to be. – Thoreau. written or traditional laws, and choose our society, and even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommon occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position in life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by a graciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead to success.
For some quite unwarranted reason If people only knew their own brothers and sisters, the Kingdom of Heaven would not be far off. – George MacDonald. society seems to have taken the position that we have a right to expect more from our girls than from our boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the view held by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. The The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angel. – Dickens. demand that every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that which says that every girl must be a gentle woman and a thorough lady.
Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, sisters, If every day we can feel, if only for a moment, the realization of being our best selves, you may be sure that we are succeeding. – Bliss Carman. teachers, society and the world intend that she shall be good and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of all that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities of person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely to ask of the readers of these lines —
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
What are you going to do, girls,
With the years that are hurrying on?
Do you mean to begin life’s purpose to win
In the freshness and strength of the dawn?
The builders who build in the morning,
At even may joyfully rest,
Their victories won, as they watch the glad sun
Sink down in the beautiful west.
What are you going to do, girls,
With time as it ceaselessly flows?
Are you molding a heart that will pleasures impart
As perfume exhales from the rose?
Let all that is purest and grandest
In duty’s fair wreath be entwined;
There is no other grace can illumine the face
Like the charm of a beautiful mind.
If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone. – Benjamin Franklin.
He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. – Ruskin. A student of the subject of ethics must understand that the true spirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals. It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this assertion is required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moral teachings, so frequently touches upon the The fine art of living, indeed, is to draw from each person his best. – Lilian Whiting. subject of manners. He teaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openly rebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seats at the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues.
The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they were, Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. – Dickens. themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail to teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have left behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a "Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay on manners in which he reminds If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs – is more elastic, more starry, more immortal – that is your success. – Thoreau. us that a stone must be of very high value to do without a setting.
The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow and superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise one’s self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield’s good manners, fine as they appear, do not bear the true Blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds. – Congreve. stamp of genuineness. There is not the living person back of them possessing heart and character. They seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure in the dressmaker’s window. True manners mean more than The microscope gives us a world, a universe, a single drop of dew. So also there is a world in a single profound, earnest meditation. – Madame Swetchine. mannerisms. They cannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rules to be observed on any and every occasion. They are rather a cultivated method of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character that knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to do without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth.
Better is it to have a small portion of good sense, with humility and a slender understanding, than great treasures of science, with vain self-complacency. – Thomas à Kempis. It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in the cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than we otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom we may meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are placed. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty to cultivate one’s manners as it is to cultivate one’s mind, and no one can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the nicer amenities of society than we are when we pay no heed to them.
Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom, both upon There is one road to peace and that is truth. – Shelley. mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principle magistrate of man’s life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom."
He hath from his childhood conversed with books and bookmen; and always being where the frankincense of the temple was offered, there must be some perfume remaining about him. – Thomas Fuller. So we see that our true characters are but the expression of our habits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that are formed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly and naturally throughout all the years.
It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in later life the manners and graces that escape us in youth.
Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the good Everything great is not always good, but all good things are great. – Demosthenes. influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world shall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teach her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward others whose early years are lived among less The turmoil of the world will always die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. – Hawthorne. advantageous surroundings. For if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify her heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost.
Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable for the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the prize of gentility If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God. – George MacDonald. which they would obtain. And in this very struggle against adverse circumstances will be engendered a strength and a spirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy equivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment.
It is experience that develops character, and character is the one thing that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual thing of supreme beauty. Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people but to get ahead of ourselves. – Maltbie D. Babcock.
The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring. Golden habits that have been hammered out of our life experiences are to be implicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point. They have been shaped out of the very necessity of one’s surroundings. They are worth every effort that The narrow kingdom of to-day is better worth ruling over than the widest past or future. – Edith Wharton. they have cost. The world will never know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much of its beauty it owes to that which we are all so prone to call
DRUDGERY
Dull drudgery, "gray angel of success;
"There’s always a bloom on the world if one looks. – Abby M. Roach.
Enduring purpose, waiting long and long,
Headache or heartache, blent with sigh or song,
Forever delving mid the strife and stress:
Within the bleak confines of your duress
Are laid the firm foundations, deep and strong,
Whereon men build the right against the wrong, —
The toil-wrought monuments that lift and bless.
The coral reefs; the bee’s o’erflowing cells;
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another. – George Eliot.
The Pyramids; all things that shall endure;
The books on books wherein all wisdom dwells,
Are wrought with plodding patience, slow and sure.
Yours the time-tempered fashioning that spells
Of chaos, order, perfect and secure.
