Girls and Women | Page 4

she would have needed all the moral
power of our little book-keeper to save her from misery. Her own
happier life required some moral power, how much it is hard to say. A
woman might do all she did and be little the better for it. It would
depend on the aim she cherished in her heart. If she had no higher aim
than to be a good actress her life did not avail much. But if her acting
was only the minor aim, then her life was thoroughly noble as well as
successful. Her choice of a minor aim makes it probable that she also
had the highest aim. Otherwise she would have been either more or less
humble. She would either have wished to be a star actress or have been
contented with any trifling parts which brought her money and
admiration.

The best happiness comes from our perseverance in following the
grand aim of life. But "the kind of happiness which we all recognize as
such" is generally that which comes from the successful pursuit of our
minor aim. Herbert Spencer says that every creature is happy when he
is fully using his powers. I have known a girl with a magnificent voice
who endured great hardships for a musical education, and who finally
accomplished her purpose and enchanted the world with her singing.
She was happy. Of course everybody expected her to be. But I have
known another girl, equally happy, carefully working in the laboratory
to find the water-tubes of a star-fish or the nerves of a clam. This girl
said to me with a face bright with enthusiasm, "When I first began to
work with Professor ---- in the laboratory it was as if I had been
traveling all my life in a desert land, and had suddenly come upon
fountains of fresh water." She was as poor and obscure as my singer
was rich and famous, but she was using her powers and was happy.
Of course the kind of happiness to be found even in secondary success
depends on the great aim of any life. In some cases it almost seems as if
the minor aim were the only one. The happiness it brings cannot go
very high, yet so far as a looker-on may judge it feels like happiness.
But most people--perhaps all, if we only knew it--do acknowledge the
grand aim in life, even though they make very little effort to reach it.
When they consciously neglect this for the minor aim, they are uneasy
and not thoroughly happy; but when the minor aim is good in itself and
is always made subservient to the higher, success there does prove a
well-spring of delight.
Spencer's remark is also true in the best sense, for no powers crave
exercise so much as the higher powers. If my singer had done a sinful
deed no applause could have made her happy. And, on a lower plane, if
she had lost the husband she dearly loved, even her art would not have
satisfied her.
It may seem as if I am choosing all my illustrations from among people
who have special gifts, and that nothing I say applies to the great army
of girls who will never be distinguished, and who are all the dearer for
not wishing to be so. I have not forgotten this, but I began with striking

illustrations because they are easiest to understand.
The grand aim of life should be the same for all, whether gifted or not.
But the particular aim must vary with the individual. Probably with five
girls out of ten the particular aim is to have a happy home. Once we
might have said nine girls out of ten, but the present tendency of
thought is to make girls ambitious,--too ambitious, it sometimes seems,
for the very best of life.
Of course selfishness shows itself in various ways, and the girl who
wishes to have a happy home without thinking how she shall make a
happy home may be more selfish than the girl who dreams of fame, but
with the understanding that the price of fame is, and ought to be, the
giving of some blessing to the world.
I know a delightful girl who seems to think of nothing but making
others happy from the moment when she meets her maid with a
cheerful "Good-morning," till she contrives that some less attractive
girl shall have the most desirable partner in the ball-room in the
evening. She gives her money and her time and her thought to the
service of other people. This is so natural to her that no one thinks of
her as making it a conscious aim, but the result is so beautiful as to
suggest that it would be the best