Girls and Women

r more than to acquirements, though a person of culture usually has certain acquirements, fo

e best. She must have been patient and energetic, and she must have been willing to practice fine music. I knew a girl so brilliant that she was able to play a Beethoven

uld everywhere be recognized at once as a cultivated young lady. The simplicity, gentleness, and sweetness of her manners, her truthfulness, modesty, and dignity count for far more than French or music or literature even with those who lay most stress on accomplishments. Such manners as hers are rare, and yet they are likely to be found running through whole families. Her mother and her sister, both of whom are cleverer than she, have almost equally fine manners, though they miss the last touch of grace. Such manners come from the choice of generation after generation. One woman after another has chosen to be sincere, good-tempered, kind, and noble. The women who so choose also choose the best in other ways. They read

neration after generation choose the best things, including the best husbands and wives, some of the sources of poverty are removed, and although such families are seldom very rich, the

for generations. A line of ministers where each has chosen to do the highest work he knew, careless of money,

an herself, and no trace of them can be found in an earlier generation. She chooses alon

th other sets of less highly cultivated girls, I think, on the whole, the standard of truth is higher among the first, though it has never been my misfortune to find a low standard among girls. Unhappily, however, these girls have

to look at things in a broad way, and if I am right in calling culture the result of choice, the fair

s tedious to him. His services to the world were so great, and the spirit in which he worked was so noble, that we can hardly regret his course; but he said himself that if he could begin life again he would read some po

t women; but whatever they are, it is essential that a balance should be kept between beauty and truth. Music, art, or poetry on the one hand, and science or history on the other, seem to me to give what is most needed. In Elizabeth Shepherd's books the formula Tonkunst und Arznei-music and medicine-is often quoted, and so we should get the proper balance. I do not think that an ardent girl who loves music art, and poetry, and who hates history and science and mathematics, will ever q

eems to me a good thing to choose some of our hobbies at least from among the subjects for which we have most taste and talent. Now where the opportunities for culture have been great, it often happens that girls grow discouraged. They see how far awa

story as the study for a life-time, take as a companion study something new every year,-first a science, then art, then literature, then mathematics, then a language, etc., etc. For the fruit of culture is to be and not to do; and what we are, intellectually at least, depends even more on the breadth of knowledge which helps us to balance conflicting judgme

nd gives clothing to ragged children. Another rich woman says the same thing, and studies history and poetry and comes silently to just conclusions about the relative value of clothes and thought. She cannot be unjust to her smartly dressed maid, and her daily life lifts her maid into

the scene in "William Tell" where the wife of the hero tries to prevent him from going out with his bow and arrow while Gessler is in the neighborhood. With one accord the girls thought Tell should have yielded to his wife's wish. It is true she was right in regard to the danger, but Tell's carelessness about it was so clearly the result of his high-minded freedom from suspicion that it seemed as though ever

ective that the bloom shall be brushed off the beauty of every action? Perhaps Emerson's suggestio

lectures in private parlors for those who are too delicate to go to a public hall-elementary lectures, and advanced lectures and readings. But no one ever became cultivated by going to lectures. If a girl would choose a single course and study the subject between times by hers

l do no harm to insert a few

study too many

ghly, even if you do not get b

be in a

ed that the soil could not be exhausted with age. How good it was that she was still fresh enough to respond to new thoughts! She might have learned as much botany in a course of lectures when she was twenty, and have listened to a dozen other co

letters, and yet she has already made wonderful progress. She will probably never become a great player, though her fingers are

f seventy who went abroad for the s

e begun before we are thirty lest we may not have a chance to

ry people are not distracted with opportunities for culture. Indeed, they often t

ert. She learned mathematics so well in the public school that when she began to think she would like to see something of the world outside her corner, she was able to get good places to teach. First, she went to a seaside village and there she learned a thousand new things. Then she spent a few years at the West, varying her route in going and coming till she had seen a large part of her own country. By this time she had saved enough money to go abroad and study quietly for a year. Now, she had her French and German, and she saw pictures and heard music and visited cathedrals and discovered how other people lived. But by and by her sisters d

expected no intellectual companionship. Then it proved that she had read more thoughtfully than they had. They belonged to a dozen literary societies, but the one little village Shakespeare Club had done good work. The sisters always went to the theatre every week in the winter, but the bride who could count on her fingers the plays she had heard, had selected these so carefully that her taste was already well formed. Then she proved to be musical. Small as the village was, there had be

sections of the United States. And she had planned her trips so thoughtfully that she had been alive to everything which was to be seen. Once she had even taken the accumulations of several years and spent her summer abroad. The sisters looked scornful at this. How could anybody see anything worth see

rs she had become familiar with some of the masterpieces of its literature. But the sisters were most astonished when they found her reading Italian one day-Dante, too, which was too hard f

arned, yet by choosing the best within reach at all times she had bec

nd has not the student temperament, though she is gifted in every direction. She has a love of beauty which has led her to make everything beautiful around her. She has had little musical training, yet her playing and singing have always had the indefinabl

blic occasion in the village she decorates the Town Hall exquisitely. She has added wonderfully to the happiness of the place by always

ers need to use more sagacity than others not to let their work crowd out everything else. They have one advantage. Nobody can be really cultivated without learning some one

least all at once, and if they try and so crowd out all their little leisure, they miss the b

ot, suspend your judgment. That will show true culture. For instance, do not be a violent partisan either for or against the tariff unless you have carefully examined the arguments on both sides. Few perhaps have time to do that. You will still have an opinion. The few arguments you have

hurried and careless of the trifles which add so much to the beauty and dignity of life. Of course my injunctio

u can and the best that you can. And you can always look at beauty. There is always a strip of blue sky with its stars at night. And there are few who could not see a beautiful sunset almost every d