"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones." It is the little disputes, little fault-findings, little insinuations, little reflections, sharp criticisms, fretfulness and impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad temper, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family.
How much it would add to the glory of the homes of the world if that might be said of every one which Rogers said of Lord Holland"s sunshiny face: "He always comes to breakfast like a man upon whom some sudden good fortune has fallen"!
The value of pleasant words every day, as you go along, is well depicted by Aunt Jerusha in what she said to our genial friend of "Zion"s Herald":--
"If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and struggling along, what a help it would be"! she sighed, upon returning from a funeral, wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she could have heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she never dreamed they set so much by her!
"Mis" Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, he"d got a way of blaming everything on to her. I don"t suppose the deacon meant it,--"twas just his way,--but it"s awful wearing. When things wore out or broke, he acted just as if Mis" Brown did it herself on purpose; and they all caught it, like the measles or the whooping-cough.
"And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought his young wife here when "t wa"n"t nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently she bore hardship, and what a good wife she"d been! Now the minister wouldn"t have known anything about that if the deacon hadn"t told him. Dear!
Dear! If he"d only told Mis" Brown herself what he thought, I do believe he might have saved the funeral.
"And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, seemed as though they couldn"t stand it, poor things!
"Well, I guess it is true enough,--Mis" Brown was always doing for some of them. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn"t help thinking that that was something Mis" Brown would have to get used to, for she never had none of it here.
"She"d have been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no mistake. Ye see, the deacon wa"n"t never willing for her to have a flower-bed. He said "t was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages a-growing; but Mis" Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling things, like roses and such.
"What did you say, Levi? "Most time for supper? Well, land"s sake, so it is! I must have got to meditating. I"ve been a-thinking, Levi, you needn"t tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and pumpkin pies are good, you just say so as we go along. It ain"t best to keep everything laid up for funerals."
_It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the affection you really have._
"He is the happiest," it was said by Goethe, "be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." There are indeed many serious, too serious-minded fathers and mothers who do not wish to advertise their children to all the neighbors as "the laughing family." If this be so, yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may read the Bible. Where it is said, "provoke not your children to wrath," it means literally, "do not irritate your children;" "do not rub them up the wrong way."
Children ought never to get the impression that they live in a hopeless, cheerless, cold world; but the household cheerfulness should transform their lives like sunlight, making their hearts glad with little things, rejoicing upon small occasion.
"How beautiful would our home-life be if every little child at the bed-time hour could look into the faces of the older ones and say: "We"ve had such sweet times to-day.""
"To love, and to be loved," says Sydney Smith, "is the greatest happiness of existence."
V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK.
Dining one day with Baron James Rothschild, Eugene Delacroix, the famous French artist, confessed that, during some time past, he had vainly sought for a head to serve as a model for that of a beggar in a picture which he was painting; and that, as he gazed at his host"s features, the idea suddenly occurred to him that the very head he desired was before him. Rothschild, being a great lover of art, readily consented to sit as the beggar. The next day, at the studio, Delacroix placed a tunic around the baron"s shoulders, put a stout staff in his hand, and made him pose as if he were resting on the steps of an ancient Roman temple. In this att.i.tude he was found by one of the artist"s favorite pupils, in a brief absence of the master from the room. The youth naturally concluded that the beggar had just been brought in, and with a sympathetic look quietly slipped a piece of money into his hand. Rothschild thanked him simply, pocketed the money, and the student pa.s.sed out. Rothschild then inquired of the master, and found that the young man had talent, but very slender means. Soon after, the youth received a letter stating that charity bears interest, and that the acc.u.mulated interest on the amount he had given to one he supposed to be a beggar was represented by the sum of ten thousand francs, which was awaiting his claim at the Rothschild office.
This ill.u.s.trates well the art of cheerful amus.e.m.e.nt even if one has great business cares,--the entertainment of the artist, the personation of a beggar, and an act of beneficence toward a worthy student.
It ill.u.s.trates, too, what was said by Wilhelm von Humboldt, that "it is worthy of special remark that when we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself." We carry each day n.o.bly, doing the duty or enjoying the privilege of the moment, without thinking whether or not it will make us happy. This is quite in accord with the saying of George Herbert, "The consciousness of duty performed gives us music at midnight."
Are not buoyant spirits like water sparkling when it runs? "_I have found my greatest happiness in labor_," said Gladstone. "I early formed a habit of industry, and it has been its own reward. The young are apt to think that rest means a cessation from all effort, but I have found the most perfect rest in changing effort. If brain-weary over books and study, go out into the blessed sunlight and the pure air, and give heartfelt exercise to the body. The brain will soon become calm and rested. The efforts of Nature are ceaseless. Even in our sleep the heart throbs on. I try to live close to Nature, and to imitate her in my labors. The compensation is sound sleep, a wholesome digestion, and powers that are kept at their best; and this, I take it, is the chief reward of industry."
"Owing to ingrained habits," said Horace Mann, "work has always been to me what water is to a fish. I have wondered a thousand times to hear people say, "I don"t like this business," or "I wish I could exchange it for that;" for with me, when I have had anything to do, I do not remember ever to have demurred, but have always set about it like a fatalist, and it was as sure to be done as the sun was to set."
"_One"s personal enjoyment is a very small thing, but one"s personal usefulness is a very important thing." Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness_. "The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures," says La Bruyere, "consists in promoting the pleasures of others." And Hawthorne has said that the inward pleasure of imparting pleasure is the choicest of all.
"Oh, it is great," said Carlyle, "and there is no other greatness,--to make some nook of G.o.d"s creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of G.o.d,--to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, more blessed, less accursed!" The gladness of service, of having some honorable share in the world"s work, what is better than this?
"The Lord must love the common people," said Lincoln, "for he made so many of them, and so few of the other kind." To extend to all the cup of joy is indeed angelic business, and there is nothing that makes one more beautiful than to be engaged in it.
"The high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven."
The memory of those who spend their days in hanging sweet pictures of faith and trust in the galleries of sunless lives shall never perish from the earth.
DOING GOOD BY STEALTH, AND HAVING IT FOUND OUT BY ACCIDENT.
"This," said Charles Lamb, "is the greatest pleasure I know." "Money never yet made a man happy," said Franklin; "and there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness." To do good with it, makes life a delight to the giver. How happy, then, was the life of Jean Ingelow, since what she received from the sale of a hundred thousand copies of her poems, and fifty thousand of her prose works, she spent largely in charity; one unique charity being a "copyright" dinner three times a week to twelve poor persons just discharged from the neighboring hospitals! Nor was any one made happier by it than the poet.
John Buskin inherited a million dollars. "With this money he set about doing good," says a writer in the "Arena." "Poor young men and women who were struggling to get an education were helped, homes for working men and women were established, and model apartment houses were erected. He also promoted a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again from the state in which they had fallen through cruel social conditions and their own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General Booth his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage artistic taste among the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in the public schools of London.
By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides all the income from his books. But the calls of the poor, and his plans looking toward educating and enn.o.bling the lives of working men, giving more sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him $1,500 a year on which to live."
Our own Peter Cooper, in his last days, was one of the happiest men in America; his beneficence shone in his countenance.
Let the man who has the blues take a map and census table of the world, and estimate how many millions there are who would gladly exchange lots with him, and let him begin upon some practicable plan to do all the good he can to as many as he can, and he will forget to be despondent; and he need not stop short at praying for them without first giving every dollar he can, without troubling the Lord about that. Let him scatter his flowers as he goes along, since he will never go over the same road again.
No man in England had a better time than did Du Maurier on that cold day when he took the hat of an old soldier on Hampstead road, and sent him away to the soup kitchen in Euston to get warm. The artist chalked on a blackboard such portraits as he commonly made for "Punch," and soon gathered a great quant.i.ty of small coins for the grateful soldier; who, however, at once rubbed out Du Maurier"s pictures and put on "the faithful dog," and a battle scene, as more artistic.
"Chinese Gordon," after serving faithfully and valiantly in the great Chinese rebellion, and receiving the highest honors of the Chinese Empire, returned to England, caring little for the praise thus heaped on him. He took some position at Gravesend, just below London, where he filled his house with boys from the streets, whom he taught and made men of, and then secured them places on ships,--following them all over the world with letters of advice and encouragement.
HIS HEAD IN A HOLE.
"I was appointed to lecture in a town in Great Britain six miles from the railway," said John B. Gough, "and a man drove me in a fly from the station to the town. I noticed that he sat leaning forward in an awkward manner, with his face close to the gla.s.s of the window. Soon he folded a handkerchief and tied it round his neck. I asked him if he was cold. "No, sir." Then he placed the handkerchief round his face. I asked him if he had the toothache. "No, sir," was the reply. Still he sat leaning forward. At last I said, "Will you please tell me why you sit leaning forward that way with a handkerchief round your neck if you are not cold and have no toothache?" He said very quietly, "The window of the carriage is broke, and the wind is cold, and I am trying to keep it from you." I said, in surprise, "You are not putting your face to that broken pane to keep the wind from me, are you?" "Yes, sir, I am." "Why do you do that?" "G.o.d bless you, sir! I owe everything I have in the world to you." "But I never saw you before." "No, sir; but I have seen you. I was a ballad-singer once. I used to go round with a half-starved baby in my arms for charity, and a draggled wife at my heels half the time, with her eyes blackened; and I went to hear you in Edinburgh, and _you told me I was a man_; and when I went out of that house I said, "By the help of G.o.d, I"ll be a man;" and now I"ve a happy wife and a comfortable home. G.o.d bless you, sir! I would stick my head in any hole under the heavens if it would do you any good."
"Let"s find the sunny side of men, Or be believers in it; A light there is in every soul That takes the pains to win it.
Oh! there"s a slumbering good in all, And we perchance may wake it; Our hands contain the magic wand: This life is what we make it."
He indeed is getting the most out of life who does most to elevate mankind. How happy were those Little Sisters of the Poor at Tours, who took scissors to divide their last remnant of bedclothing with an old woman who came to them at night, craving hospitality! And how happy was that American school-teacher who gave up the best room in the house, which she had engaged long before the season opened, at a mountain sanitarium, during the late war, taking instead of it the poorest room in the house, that she might give good quarters to a soldier just out of his camp hospital!
"Teach self-denial," said Walter Scott, "and make its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."
Yet how many there are, ready to make some great sacrifice, who neglect those little acts of kindness which make so many lives brighter and happier.
"I say, Jim, it"s the first time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and it kind o" took me off my feet." A young lady had knocked him down in hastily turning a corner. She stopped and said to the ragged crossing-boy: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorry I ran against you." He took off the piece of a cap he had on his skull, made a low bow, and said with a broad smile: "You have my parding, Miss, and welcome; and the next time you run agin me, you can knock me clean down and I won"t say a word."
One of the greatest mistakes of life is to save our smiles and pleasant words and sympathy for those of "our set," or for those not now with us, and for other times than the present.
"If a word or two will render a man happy," said a Frenchman, "he must be a wretch indeed who will not give it. It is like lighting another man"s candle with your own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the other gains."
Sydney Smith recommends us to make at least one person happy every day: "Take ten years, and you will make thirty-six hundred and fifty persons happy; or brighten a small town by your contribution to the fund of general joy." One who is cheerful is preeminently useful.
Dr. Raffles once said: "I have made it a rule never to be with a person ten minutes without trying to make him happier." It was a remark of Dr.
Dwight, that "one who makes a little child happier for half an hour is a fellow-worker with G.o.d."
A little boy said to his mother: "I couldn"t make little sister happy, nohow I could fix it. But I made myself happy trying to make her happy."
"I make Jim happy, and he laughs," said another boy, speaking of his invalid brother; "and that makes me happy, and I laugh."
There was once a king who loved his little boy very much, and took a great deal of pains to please him. So he gave him a pony to ride, beautiful rooms to live in, pictures, books, toys without number, teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity devise; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have.
At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy"s face, and said to the king: "I can make your son happy, and turn his frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him this secret." "All right," said the king; "whatever you ask I will give." The magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something with a white substance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a candle, and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and then see what he could read. Then the magician went away. The boy did as he had been told, and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed these words: "Do a kindness to some one every day." The prince followed the advice, and became the happiest boy in the realm.