The noiseless sunbeam, the silent dewdrop, the unheard chemical processes in nature which are unfolding the germs of great future possibilities are infinitely more powerful and beneficial in their ultimate results than the tornado or the lightning.
The mightiest force in the world is the silent power of love.
The scolding woman, who is forever nagging and finding fault, has not a tithe of the power over man or in the home as the sweet-tempered, patient, amiable, loving one, for the latter transforms the brute forces in the entire family into sweet humanities.
One bad-tempered girl or woman has ruined not only the peace and comfort of many a home, but that of an entire neighborhood. If there is any pitiable person in the world it is the possessor of an uncontrolled temper. If a young man marries a girl with a bad temper, he doesn't know what he is bringing upon himself.
The woman of calm, sweet self-possession, who has perfect control of herself, no matter how plain in feature or form she may be, is infinitely more desirable for a wife than the most brainy and fascinating girl with an ugly temper.
Amiability means harmony in the home, in society, everywhere; and harmony is health, is longevity, is happiness.
Every physician knows that irritability, an uncontrolled temper, not only shortens life, sometimes by many years, but soon becomes outlined upon the body.
Nothing seems more out of place or more incongruous than the presence of hard, ugly lines — temper wrinkles, — on a woman's face, where men look for the serene, the lovely, the divine.
A bad temper is a beauty-killer in which no woman can afford to indulge. It will soon transform the most charming face, making it ugly and repulsive. Sweetness and beauty will not long live with a bad temper. Some great physicians now assert that a single fit of temper has been known to take more than a year from a woman's life. Of course, the same argument is true of men, although the disastrous effects are much more noticeable in women, for we naturally look to them for beauty and amiability. A woman naturally prizes youth and beauty above almost everything else, and does not always realize that, every time she indulges in a fit of temper, or irritability, or fault-finding, or cutting sarcasm, she deepens the tell-tale lines around her mouth, and traces a little deeper the crow-tracks about her eyes, which will be perpetual reminders, long after her beauty has flown, of the cause of its departure.
Physiologists and physicians say that the sensitive face is the first to record any disturbance or irritation in the nervous system. Nerve energy is spent in every such indulgence in ill temper.
The eyes betray it in the loss of lustre. The flabby muscles show it. The tell-tale wrinkles reveal the internal conditions which cause them.
If there is one thing that a man prizes more than anything else it is the love of harmony, — physical and mental comfort. Permanent peace makes the ideal home for the average man, and a bad temper, which is likely to explode at the slightest irritation, is almost as dangerous to the safety of the household as the presence of gunpowder would be.
It seems unfortunate that the schools do not emphasize the power of amiability in producing harmony, health, longevity, happiness.
We all know remarkable people who have the wonderful faculty of turning the common water of life into the most delicious wine. Some people turn everything they touch into vinegar, others into honey. There is something in the mechanism of some minds which seems to transmute the most sombre hues into the most gorgeous tints.
Their very presence is a tonic, which invigorates the system and helps one to bear his burdens. Their very coming into the home seems like the coming of the sun after a long, dark, Arctic night. They seem to bring the whole system into harmony. Their smile acts upon one like magic, and dispels all the fog of gloom and despair. They seem to raise manhood and womanhood to a higher power. They unlock the tongue, and one speaks with a gift of prophecy. They are health promoters. They are death to dyspepsia, and increase the appetite.
Others have just the opposite effect. Their very presence depresses. One feels cold perspiration while in their company. Everything about them is chill and forbidding. They dry up thought. We cannot think or be natural when with them. Their sarcasm, irony, detractions, and pessimism repel, and one shrinks from them.
We knew a girl who, when she grew to full consciousness of her ugliness of body, her unattractiveness of person, resolved to make herself so beautiful in character, in manner, so cultivated in all that makes life worth living, that people would forget her physical handicaps. She had the most irregular features, a turned-up nose, was cross-eyed, had a very large mouth, a very unattractive figure and yet this lady has so completely overcome what most girls consider a fatal handicap that they would probably become morose, pessimistic, disagreeable, and drag out a most unhappy existence, that everybody who knows her loves her. Nobody looks at What she thought would be the great barrier to her popularity. By the cultivation of a gracious, sweet manner, by her patience and discipline she has so transformed herself that you utterly forget her plainness. The moment she speaks you are charmed, there is an inexplainable something about her manner which captivates you. It is more than a match for beauty, it's an expression of a kindly heart. She makes you feel that she has a real interest in you, that she sees a great many beautiful things in life which most people never notice. She makes you feel that she has a personal interest in what you do. She will question you about your ambition, what you long to do and to become. She captivates you by her gracious manner, her vivacious spirit, her evidences of a broadened mind and rare experience.
Here is a real beauty which is not evident for a few attractive years and then leaves one empty and unattractive. It will not fade with years; it is not ephemeral as mere physical beauty is, and is attainable to a large degree by the plainest girl. It is a beauty which you can carry with you into old age, or rather, it's a beauty which will drive away old age. For a sunny heart, a mind which is always cheerful and hopeful and sympathetic, age has little in common. No matter how plain you are, cultivate soul beauty, beauty that is more than skin deep. It's an expression of spirit which time cannot tarnish or erase. It's a beauty which enriches everybody that comes in contact with you.
We know an old lady who has always been extremely plain, and yet, although in her eighties, there is a marvelous lustre in her eyes, a sweet expression which captivates you every time she speaks. She was determined in her girlhood to compensate for her plainness. Her handicap was such a spur to her to redeem her very ugliness that she has succeeded in a marvelous degree, so that when at an age when physical beauty usually vanishes, she has attained a beauty which does not fade, a sweetness which is perennial, a loveliness which never leaves her face. A fine culture, serenity, dignity, repose speak in her face and look out of her manner. In fact, she has robbed old age of its ugliness and made it extremely attractive.
Oh, who can estimate the real wealth which inheres in a fine character, a life which flings out its exquisite perfume on every side, which brings joy and gladness into every home it enters, into every life it touches! These fine characters carry sunshine wherever they go. No gloom or discouragement can ever exist in their presence. Everything coarse and brutal flees before it as darkness and gloom flee before the rising sun. The greatest achievement possible to mortals is the sweetness in life which radiates from a fine and exquisite personality. How base and mean money and huge estates look in comparison! All other things fade before it. Its touch is like magic to win friendship, influence, and power.
The man who refuses to give, to share what he has received, is as foolish as the farmer who was so wrought upon by the conviction of a coming season of drought and the probable destruction of crops that he refused to plant his corn. He said that he would keep it in the crib, that he would not risk putting it into the ground lest it might rot and he be left without provisions for the winter. The drought did not come, however, and the result was that he went hungry, while his neighbors who had planted generously reaped an abundant harvest.
A great philanthropist said that he had saved only what he had given away, that the rest of his fortune seemed lost. What we give away has a wonderful power of doubling and quadrupling itself on the return bound. It is the greatest investment in the world. It comes back in geometrical progression. Give! give!! give!!! It is the only way to keep from drying up, from becoming like a sucked orange, — juiceless, insipid.
Selfishness is self-destruction. The man who never helps anybody, who tightly shuts his purse when there is a request to give, who says that all he can do is to attend to his own affairs, who never gives a thought to his neighbor, who hugs all his resources to himself, who wants to get all and give nothing in return, is the man who shrivels and dries up like the rosebud, who becomes small and mean and contemptible.
We all know those poor dwarfed souls who never give, who close the petals of their helpfulness, withhold the fragrance of their love and sympathy, and in the end lose all they tried to hoard for: themselves. They are cold, lifeless, apathetic; all their sympathies have dried up; they cannot enter into the joys and sorrows, the higher and nobler emotions of human life. Their souls have been frozen by selfishness and greed. They have become so narrow and stingy that they fear to give even a kind word or smile lest they may rob themselves of something. They have rendered themselves incapable of radiating sunshine or happiness, and, by the working of an immutable law, they receive none.
A strong man, watching one who was delicate and undeveloped exercising in a gymnasium, said to him: "My dear young man, how foolish you are to waste your energy on those parallel bars and dumb-bells. You are weak, physically, and ought to save what strength you have for your day's work. You cannot afford to squander your vitality that way."
"Oh, but, my good sir," replied the other, "you don't see the philosophy underlying this exercise. The only way I can increase my power is by first giving out what I have. I give my strength to this apparatus, but it returns what I give it with compound interest. My muscles grow by giving it out in effort, in exercise."
Give and increase; hoard and lose! It is the universal law of growth.
“I will roll up my petals of beauty; I will withhold this precious fragrance, this love-incense of sun and dew for myself," said the selfish rosebud. “It is wasteful extravagance to give it away to careless passers-by." But, behold, the moment it tries to store up, to withhold its riches from others, they vanish! It shrivels and dies!
"I will give myself out," said the generous rose; "I will bestow my beauty and fragrance on everybody who passes my way," and, lo, it blossoms into a riot of sweetness and loveliness of which it never dreamed. It had only a tiny bit of fragrance until it tried to give that little to the world. Then, to its astonishment, it was flooded with sweet odors that came from somewhere, — evolved from the chemistry of the sunlight, the moisture in the air and the chemical forces in the soil.
The habit of doing good, of helping somebody every day, of dropping a little word of encouragement here and there, to a newsboy, a waiter in a restaurant or a hotel, a conductor on a car, an elevator boy, a toiler in your home or your office, a poor unfortunate man or woman in a wretched home, or on a seat in the park, — this is what broadens and ennobles life, makes character beautiful and fragrant as the rose; this is the sort of giving that returns to us with compound interest.
Everywhere we go we find opportunities for this sort of giving. Everywhere we find someone who needs encouragement, someone whose heart is breaking under a heavy load, someone who needs sympathy, someone who needs a lift. We never can tell what glorious fruitage the seed of the most trivial act of kindness may produce. Many a heart has been cheered simply by a smile from a stranger. A look of sympathy, an expression of a desire to help, a warm grasp of the hand has brought back hope and courage to many a disheartened soul. A kind letter, a word of encouragement has been the turning-point in the career of many a person on the verge of despair.
There are gifts more precious than anything money can buy, which are in the power of all to bestow. The little girl who spent all her pennies in buying paper and a postage stamp to write to her grandmother at Christmas and say, "I love you, I love you, dear grandmamma," teaches us a splendid lesson.
Give, give, give, of whatever you have; but give yourself with your gift. It is love for which the world is hungering. "Scatter your flowers as you go, for you will not pass this way again."