Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! | Page 8

bounds of the English language are leapt, but truth is
unconsciously set at nought. We always allow for the words of some
persons, for with them a scratch is a wound; a wind, a hurricane; one
dollar, a thousand; and all they do in life, a big, big bluster. The only
way to bring back English to a state of purity--for it has been outraged
by slang, imitation, technical expressions, a straining after long words,
and a regular system of exaggeration--is to speak simple words, using
all necessary force and emphasis in the voice instead of in the number
of syllables, saying what you mean by just the words that will convey
the meaning. Of course the dictionary must be frequently used. There is
no help so sure as that which it affords to one who would use language
properly.
Do not be troubled if you hesitate in conversation, and cannot
immediately find the proper word. Search in your mind till you get the
expression, then next time it will come more rapidly. One of the best
ways to increase fluency of speech is to avoid repetition of words as
much as possible. Turn the name of an object or of an idea into a phrase,
or substitute a synonym, and in this way you add variety and words to
your vocabulary. Do not use foreign words when English will do as
well. There are times when it will not, though it is a very copious
language. Never think English inferior. Hear its music in Tennyson and
Longfellow, De Quincey and Ruskin. See its beauty in the pages of
Hawthorne and Irving. Do not use technical terms with those
unacquainted with science or art. It shows a lack of good sense.
I want once more to insist on the value of good conversation, more
particularly because of its suggestiveness. I believe there are few things
really great and good which have not this power of suggestion. The
picture is not wonderful that can be appreciated at a glance, the book is
not remarkable which will not bear a second reading, music is not good

unless it awakes harmonies, a thought is not valuable unless it suggests
another thought.
The graces of conversation none can wear as well as woman. They are
most becoming to you, my dear girls,--even brighter and richer and
dearer than any jewels with which you may adorn yourselves. They
consist mostly of pleasant, well-chosen words, sympathetic, hearty
tones, sprightliness, and certain winsome modulations of voice.
When every other accomplishment fails to entertain, there is always left
the resource of good talk, pleasing to old and young. We cannot sit at
Luther's table, and hear him utter life-giving words, "If a man could
make a single rose, we should give him an empire; yet roses, and
flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in profusion over the world, and
no one regards them." We cannot listen to Coleridge, "with his head
among the clouds." We, alas! cannot even catch the energetic flash of
Margaret Fuller's words. But every one of us can improve her
conversation by persevering effort in the ways indicated, and can listen
still to the best of talk.
Somewhere Emerson writes, "Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is
the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer
us,--a cup for the gods, which has no repentance."

II.
HOW TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH NATURE.
My dear girls, I want to talk to you to-day about one of your very best
friends,--one so altogether lovely, from first to last, that we can never
exhaust her attractions.
Nature is, indeed, among the most loving and constant friends a girl can
have, and not by any means the imaginary acquaintance so many
suppose she is. She lives and breathes, and has a form and spirit. Are
you looking about to see where she is? No need of that. Come right
here, and sit down beside me under this great pine-tree. How strong and
comfortable its back feels against yours! Do you see all those soft green
points looking down on you while the tasselled branches gently sway?
Just look at the deep blue patches of sky away up and up among the
green arches. How cool and smooth and restful! how unending the
color is in which the leaves lie! How hardy and brave the branches look!
See the lines of beauty in them,--long, aspiring, slightly curving

lines,--which meet and terminate in cathedral spires. What grace in the
motion of every spray of greenness! what a healing odor in the breath
of the tree! And, hark! a little breeze has touched it, and tuned its
language into a plaintive song,--a sound like the surf washing upon a
distant shore. Do you know why the pine is so