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The Girl Wanted: A Book of Friendly Thoughts
Language: en2,684 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Children & Young Adult Reading·Essays, Letters & Speeches
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #26683.
About this book
The work opens as a sweeping essay on the art of living, framing life as a series of moments that, when tended to with right thought, accumulate into a well‑ordered whole. Waterman‑Nixon’s opening lines argue that the “great problem” of how to conduct one’s future is solved by focusing on the present minute, then scaling that habit through hours, days, and years. The author weaves together arithmetic metaphors, biblical‑sounding proverbs, and anecdotes, from a shepherd’s contented song to quotations from Wordsworth, Helen Keller, and Emile Zola, to illustrate how wholesome thoughts become wholesome deeds, especially for girls whose early “seed” determines the harvest of their later character.
The voice is earnest and didactic, echoing late‑Victorian moral literature that blends self‑help with genteel domestic counsel. Its style is dense, rich with rhetorical flourishes, and peppered with classical and contemporary citations, giving it a scholarly yet accessible tone. Readers who enjoy reflective, philosophic treatises on character, especially those interested in historical perspectives on women’s education and conduct, will find this book’s blend of moral guidance and literary allusion engaging.
The opening · free to read
At first thought it seems like a great problem, does this having to decide how we are going to live out all the great future that is before us. Yet, when we come to think it over, we see that it is not so difficult after all; for, fortunate mortals that we are, we shall never have to live it but one moment at a time. And, better still, that one moment is always to be the one that is right here and just now where we can see it and study it and shape it and do with it as we will.
Just this minute!
Surely it will not require a great deal of effort on the part of any one of us to live the next sixty seconds as they should be lived. And having lived one moment properly, it ought to be still easier for us to live the next one as well, and then the next, and the next until, finally, we continue to live them rightly, just as a matter of habit.
When we come to understand clearly that time is the thing of which lives are made, and that time is divided into a certain number of units, we can then pretty closely figure out, by simple processes in arithmetic, how much life is going to be worth to us.
What we are doing this minute, multiplied by sixty, tells us what we are likely to accomplish in an hour.
What we do in an hour, multiplied by the number of working hours in every twenty-four, tells us what we may expect to achieve in a day.
What we do in a day, multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five, shows us what it is probable we shall accomplish in a year.
What we do in a year, when multiplied by the number of years of youth and health and strength, we have reason to believe are yet before us, sets forth the result we may hope to secure in a lifetime. For it is not hard for us to comprehend that.
If, ever, while this minute's here, We use it circumspectly, We'll live this hour, this day, this year, Yes, all our lives, correctly.
As the work of the builder is preceded by the plans of the architect, so the deeds we do in life are preceded by the thoughts we think. The thought is the plan; the deed is the structure.
"As the twig is bent the tree is inclined." Wordsworth tells us: "The child is father of the man." Which means, also, that the child is mother of the woman. That which we dream to-day we may do to-morrow. The toys of childhood become the tools of our maturer years.
So it follows that an important part of the work and occupation of one's early years should be to learn to have right thoughts, which, later on in life, are to become right actions.
The pleasant, helpful girl is most likely to become the pleasant, helpful woman. The seed that is sown in the springtime of life determines the character of the harvest that must be reaped in the autumn.
The cultivation of the right point of view means so much in determining one's attitude toward all that the years may bring. Three centuries ago it was written: "What is one man's poison is another's meat or drink." So there are many things in life that bring pleasure to some and distress to others.
There is a beautiful little story about a shepherd boy who was keeping his sheep in a flowery meadow, and because his heart was happy, he sang so loudly that the surrounding hills echoed back his song. One morning the king, who was out hunting, spoke to him and said: "Why are you so happy, my boy?"
"Why should I not be happy?" answered the boy. "Our king is not richer than I."
"Indeed," said the king, "pray tell me of your great possessions."
The shepherd boy answered: "The sun in the bright blue sky shines as brightly upon me as upon the king. The flowers upon the mountain and the grass in the valley grow and bloom to gladden my sight as well as his. I would not take a fortune for my hands; my eyes are of more value than all the precious stones in the world. I have food and clothing, too. Am I not, therefore, as rich as the king?"
"You are right," said the king, with a smile, "but your greatest treasure is your contented heart. Keep it so, and you will always be happy."
So much of life's happiness depends upon one's immediate surroundings that wherever it is a matter of choice they should be made to conform as nearly as possible to the thoughts and tastes one wishes to cultivate. As a matter of course but few persons can have just the surroundings they would like, but it is possible that by pleasant thinking all of us can make the surroundings we have more likable. We can, at least, be thoughtful of the character of the friends and companions we choose to have with us, and it is they who are the most vital and influential part of our
Environment
Shine or shadow, flame or frost, Zephyr-kissed or tempest-tossed, Night or day, or dusk or dawn, We are strangely lived upon.
Mystic builders in the brain-- Mirth and sorrow, joy and pain, Grief and gladness, gloom and light-- Build, oh, build my heart aright!
O ye friends, with pleasant smiles, Help me build my precious whiles; Bring me blocks of gold to make Strength that wrong shall never shake.
Day by day I gather from All you give me. I become Yet a part of all I meet In the fields and in the street.
Bring me songs of hope and youth, Bring me bands of steel and truth, Bring me love wherein to find Charity for all mankind.
Place within my hands the tools And the Master Builder's rules, That the walls we fashion may Stand forever and a day.
Help me build a palace where All is wonderfully fair-- Built of truth, the while, above, Shines the pinnacle of love.
If we are to receive help and strength from our friends we must lend them help and strength in return. And since the deeds of others inspire us we should not deem it impossible to make our deeds inspire them.
Helen Keller, who, though deaf and blind, has achieved so many wonderful and beautiful victories over the barriers that have beset her, says: "My share in the work of the world may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.... Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yet in many diligent half-hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy.... Green, the historian, tells us that the world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."
In the same spirit the great French savant, Emile Zola, penned these words: "Let each one accept his task, a task which should fill his life. It may be very humble; it will not be the less useful. Never mind what it is, so long as it exists and keeps you erect! When you have regulated it, without excess--just the quantity you are able to accomplish each day--it will cause you to live in health and in joy."
Some wise observer has said that one of the chief aims of life should be to learn how to grow old gracefully. This knowledge is deemed by many to be a great secret and a most valuable one. Yet it can hardly be called a secret since every girl and boy as well as every person of maturer years must know that it is but the working out of the laws of cause and effect. When character-building is begun on the right lines and those lines are followed to the end the result is as certain as it is beautiful. When we see a grandmother whose life has been lived on the happy plane of pure thoughts and kind deeds we ought not to wonder that her old age is as exquisite as was the perfect bloom of her youth. We need not marvel how it has come about that her life has been a long and happy one. Here is the "secret:"
She knew how to forget disagreeable things.
She kept her nerves well in hand and inflicted them on no one.
She mastered the art of saying pleasant things.
She did not expect too much from her friends.
She made whatever work came to her congenial.
She retained her faith in others and did not believe all the world wicked and unkind.
She relieved the miserable and sympathized with the sorrowful.
She never forgot that kind words and a smile cost nothing, but are priceless treasures to the discouraged.
She did unto others as she would be done by, and now that old age has come to her, and there is a halo of white hair about her brow, she is loved and considered. This is the "secret" of a long life and a happy one.
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