What makes us blame the weather so much for our moods, girls? The day is gray everywhere,—in the skies, on the trees, in the air, on the ground,—and gray in us therefore. Ah! but these gray colors are beautiful, even in November and December. In their variety they are soft and shimmering on the tree branches, a slightly ruddy gray on the branchlets, and a serener gray on the tree trunks. Overhead, even when a storm is gathering in the sky, there are the colors of the moonstone tinting into silver, and shading into pearl and blue. On the ground are delicate wood-colors,—umbers, siennas, greens toned down to gray. The atmosphere, from its lack of sunlight, only sets off the more visibly beautiful forms of trees and branches.
No, the day is not moody: we are. We are not in harmony with her, but have arrayed our-selves against her. "When we are at one with Nature we have great peace; when fretted and unmindful of her presence, we are irritated, and out of our true element." In our megrims we have found something whose defenceless condition we think ought to bear the burden of our misery.
Well for you the weather affords a chance for an excuse; for a moody girl on a bright June morning, when all Nature is radiant with beauty, is the veriest parody on life,—worse than that, a sad mockery.
If you are very sensitive, do not censure yourselves too severely, nor foster distrust; for the latter is worse for you than self-conceit.
Be sure to make the blues as dangerous as possible; be always mindful of their direful attacks.
Some one asks me, just here, if she is never to feel serious? Of course she is to have very thoughtful hours! The merely gay, happy-go-lucky kind of a girl is not the most helpful, nor the most valuable. There is very deep happiness sometimes in thoughtfulness,—do you not know it? What makes you quiet when you row in and out of the shadow-filled coves along the river-border, or when you drift among the islands purple with sunset light? What makes you want to shut your eyes, and to throw away the mask of seeming, when some one sings the song you love? and what makes you feel a kind of dead, low, dreadful pause, when the reader's voice ceases, and the story conies to an end? Are you moody? No; only resting. Your being is suspended in thought,—thought so serious yet so delicate, so subtle, you cannot weave it into words. Sometimes, to be sure, a girl who is determined to be morbid will distort such serene feelings into moodiness; but, then, these sudden spells of dejection are only distantly related to the real blue urchins.
Perhaps, girls, it will be better for you if you make up your minds early in life that your lot will probably be about like that of the average girl,—that trouble must come, and even a skeleton must hang and gibber behind your door; but that, be the skeleton what it may, you will nail the door back on the unsightly thing, clothe it in some decent garments, and make it as respectable as possible in its niche, since it must stay with you. Events, decrees, circumstances, will not change for just you and me; but we can change ourselves, and so defeat them. Do not mind untoward circumstances. "Seize hold of God's hand, and look full in the face of His creation, and there is nothing He will not enable you to achieve." A crust with contentment is better than a pudding with the bitter sauce of discontent.
Oh, I know, girls, it sounds very much like dull preaching. But, really, do we enjoy moods? Do we have any respect for ourselves while in them? Aren't we always trying to blame some one else? Shocking business, hunting up scape-goats!
Just see how you look when you have given place to these evils. You respect beauty: you would resent any criticism on your personal appearance at a party; but if one should truly describe how careless, how unmindful of beauty in looks or beauty in disposition, how ugly you are, when in this deplorably moody state, you would shun your very self, and want to get out of your body somehow. You watch a girl who has an attack of the megrims. She seems to hang from her shoulders, or thereabouts; her nimbleness is gone; her muscles seem flabby; she reels more than she walks; she picks up a book to let it fall down; she will not look her neighbor in the face; the meaning has all gone out of her eyes; her mouth is the only expressive feature; her lips are either tightly pressed or curled in scorn; there is a don't-care look all over her, and it lurks in the folds of her dress, in her slouching hat, her unbuttoned coat, and in her shambling gait.
Sometimes the picture is quite the reverse. The muscles seem tense and powerful. The eye is set and firm, ferocious in fullness. The step is quick and heavy. The strength is doubled, and every object has to yield to the ugliness which attacks it. The form appears to gather passion more and more with each hour, till, at last, full of violence, the human frame sways, heaves, and the girl breaks her mood into a flood of scalding tears. The contest is fierce while it lasts. It is dreadful to see beauty put on such deformity, but let us be thankful it is soon over. If the lightning does not strike anywhere, perhaps all will be clearer after the storm.