Rambles in Womanland Part 26

Great hearts understand this so well that many of them, like the late Henry Ward Beecher, desire in their wills that none of their relatives should wear mourning at their death. There is a great difference between being in mourning and being in black, and I often suspect that the more in black a person is the less in mourning he or she is.

To be able to attend minutely to all the details of a most correct mourning attire almost shows signs of recovery from the depth of the sorrow.

But even when our sorrow is deeply felt and perfectly sincere is it not an act of selfishness on our part to impose it, to intrude it, on others--even on our nearest relatives?

I admire the Quaker who, quietly, without attracting the attention of anyone at table, silently says grace before taking his meal.

How favourably he compares with the host who invites every one of his guests to bend their heads, and to listen to him while he delivers a long recital of all the favours he has received from a merciful G.o.d, and of all the favours he expects to receive in the future!

The first is a Christian, the second a conceited Pharisee. There is as much selfishness in an exaggerated display of sorrow as there is in any act that is indulged in in order to more or less command admiration.

The truly brave and courageous people are modest in their countenance; the truly religious are tolerant and forgiving; the truly great are forbearing, simple, and unaffected; the truly sorrowful remember that their griefs are personal; before strangers they are natural and even cheerful, and before their children they are careful to appear with cheerful and smiling faces.

After all, the greatest virtue, the greatest act of unselfishness, is self-control. Sorrow gives man the best opportunity for the display of this virtue.

CHAPTER V

THE RIGHT OF CHANGING ONE'S MIND

A woman's prerogative, it is said, is the right of changing her mind.

How is it that she so rarely avails herself of it when she is wrong?

It should be the prerogative of a man also. 'What is a mugwump?' once asked an American of a Democrat. 'It's a Republican who becomes a Democrat,' was the answer. 'But when a Democrat becomes a Republican, what do you call him?' 'Oh, a d---- fool!' quickly rejoined the Democrat.

We forgive people for changing their opinions only when they do so to espouse our views, otherwise they are, in our eyes, fools, scoundrels, renegades, and traitors.

To my mind the most dignified, praiseworthy, manly act of a man is to change his opinions the moment he has become persuaded that they are wrong. To acknowledge to be in the wrong is an act of magnanimity. To persist in holding views that one knows to be wrong is an act of cowardice. To try to impose them on others is an act of indelicacy. The successful man is the opportunist who does what he thinks to be right at the moment, whatever views he may have held on the subject before.

When, in full Parliament, Victor Hugo and Lamartine declared that they ceased to be Royalists, and immediately went to take their seats on the Opposition benches, their honesty and manliness deserved the applause they received.

Gladstone, who died the greatest leader of the Liberal party, began his political life as a Tory Member of Parliament. Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, who for years was the chief of the Tory party, began his public career as Radical member for Maidstone.

Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, to-day practically the leader of the Conservative party, not only was an advanced Radical, but a Republican.

Up to about eighteen years ago, the comic papers never failed to represent him with a Phrygian cap on.

Every man can be mistaken in politics as well as in science, just as he can for a long time be mistaken in his friends.

The more you study, the more independence of mind you acquire. Events take a new aspect, and strike you in a different light. With age, judgment becomes more sober: you weigh more carefully the _pros_ and _cons _of all questions, and you often arrive at the conclusion that what you honestly believed to be right is absolutely wrong. And it is your duty to abide by your conclusions.

The greatest crimes in history were committed by irreconcilable men who lacked moral courage and dared not admit that they were not infallible.

Philip II. of Spain was one.

That irreconcilable Imperialist, M. Paul de Ca.s.sagnac, wrote the other day: 'When a statesman, a leader of men, perceives that he has made a mistake, he has only one thing left for him to do: disappear altogether from the scene, for, having deceived himself, he has been guilty of deceiving others.'

The aim of man--of the leader of men especially--is to seek truth at any price.

Some men proudly say at the top of their voices: 'I swear by the faith of my ancestors, what I thought at twenty I think now. I have never changed my opinions, and, with G.o.d's help, will never change them.'

Those men believe themselves to be heroes; they are a.s.ses, and if they are leaders of men, they are most dangerous a.s.ses.

To live and learn should be the object of every intelligent man whose eyes are not blinded by conceit or obstinacy.

CHAPTER VI

WHAT WE OWE TO CHANCE

Pascal once said that if Cleopatra's nose had been half an inch shorter the face of the world would have been changed. If we read history, or even only use our own recollections, we can get up an interesting and sometimes amusing record of more or less important events which are entirely due to chance or most insignificant incidents.

To begin with my n.o.ble self. On August 30, 1872, I went to the St.

Lazare station in Paris to catch a train to Versailles. At the foot of the stairs I met a friend whom I had not seen for a long time. He took me to the cafe, and there, over a cup of coffee, we chatted for half an hour. I missed my train; but fortunately for me I did, for that train which I was to have caught was a total wreck, and thirty lives were lost in the accident.

A lady whom I knew many years ago once eloped with a young man she had fallen in love with. Now, this was very wicked, because she was married.

It was on a cold December day. When both arrived at the hotel where they were going to stay, they found no fire in their apartment, and ordered one to be made at once. While this was going on they both caught a cold, and were seized with an endless fit of sneezing. They thought that they looked so ridiculous--well, the lady did, at any rate--that she ordered her trunk to be taken to the station immediately. She caught the next train to Paris, and never did I hear that she was guilty of any escapade ever after. But for that fire that was not lit, all would have been lost.

At the inquest which a few days ago was held over the body of Mrs. Gore, the American lady who was shot accidentally while in the room of her Russian friend, it was discovered that the bullet had struck the eye without even grazing the eyelid. The experts came to the conclusion that if she had been murdered, or had committed suicide, she would have blinked, and her eyelids would have been touched by the bullet. But for this marvellous occurrence, the young Russian would have been tried for murder, and perhaps found guilty.

An Australian of my acquaintance some years ago wrote to his broker ordering him to sell 500 shares in the Broken Hill Mining Company. The servant to whom the letter was given mislaid it, and only screwed up his courage to tell his master two days later. In the meantime the shares had gone up, and, so seeing, the Australian waited a little longer before selling. Then came the boom. Two months after the day on which he had ordered his broker to sell the 500 shares at 40s. apiece these shares were worth 96. He sold, and through the carelessness of his servant became a rich man. This is luck, if you like.

The late Edmond About, the famous French novelist, came out first of the Normale Superieure School. As such he was ent.i.tled to be sent to the French school at Athens for two years before being appointed professor in some French Faculty. About had a humorous turn of mind. Instead of studying ancient Greece at Athens, he studied the modern Greeks. After his two years he returned with the ma.n.u.scripts of two books, 'Contemporary Greece' and 'The Mountain King,' which were such successes that he immediately resigned his professors.h.i.+p to devote his time to literature. If, instead of coming out first, he had come out second, he would never have been sent to Athens, and About would probably have spent his life as a learned Professor of Greek or Latin at one of our Universities.

CHAPTER VII

WE NEEDN'T GET OLD

'When my next birthday comes,' once said to me Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'I shall be eighty years young.' And he looked it--young, cheerful, with a kind, merry twinkle in his eyes.

'And,' I said to him, 'to what in particular do you attribute your youth? To good health and careful living, I suppose?'

'Well, yes,' he replied, 'to a certain extent, but chiefly to a cheerful disposition and invariable contentment, in every period of my life, with what I was. I have never felt the pangs of ambition.'

'You needn't,' I remarked. 'The most ambitious man would have been content with being what you have been--what you are.'

'Happiness, which has contentment for its invariable cause, is within the reach of practically everyone,' the amiable doctor a.s.serted. 'It is restlessness, ambition, discontent, and disquietude that make us grow old prematurely by carving wrinkles on our faces. Wrinkles do not appear on faces that have constantly smiled. Smiling is the best possible ma.s.sage. Contentment is the Fountain of Youth.'

That same evening he was the guest at a banquet given by a Boston club, to which I had been kindly invited. When he rose to make a speech, they cheered and applauded to the echo. His face was radiant, beautiful.

After he sat down, I said to him: