She had once spent six weeks at a summer school of languages, and had devoted herself so energetically to German that she had been able to go on reading it by herself, and thus in a few years she had become familiar with some of the masterpieces of its literature. But the sisters were most astonished when they found her reading Italian one day—Dante, too, which was too hard for them. The explanation of this was that for some years the Catholic priest in her native village had been a good-natured Tuscan who had been glad to exchange Italian for English with her.
You see, she had had no regular education and no money but what she earned, yet by choosing the best within reach at all times she had become as cultivated as her sisters-in-law who had had every opportunity.
All women are not so fond of study; but they may be cultivated, nevertheless. The finest manners I have ever seen belong to a woman who has lived all her life in the house where she was born in a little town in New England. She never went away to school, and has not the student temperament, though she is gifted in every direction. She has a love of beauty which has led her to make everything beautiful around her. She has had little musical training, yet her playing and singing have always had the indefinable musical quality. She has read a good deal, especially of the best novels and poetry, but "All for love and nothing for reward." She has traveled from time to time a little when she could spare the money, but always for pleasure and not to improve her mind.
She has had no artistic training, but with meagre materials she arranges tableaux which are famed throughout the county, and on every public occasion in the village she decorates the Town Hall exquisitely. She has added wonderfully to the happiness of the place by always following her love of beauty, making everything she touches beautiful without any pretense or even any consciousness of having a mission.
So women may be cultivated in the country as well as in the city. But some one may say that the hard workers have no time for culture. It does seem to be true that hard workers need to use more sagacity than others not to let their work crowd out everything else. They have one advantage. Nobody can be really cultivated without learning some one thing thoroughly. This their work compels workers to do. And the building is more important than its decoration, though without the decoration it may be a sombre structure.
Now, hard workers obviously cannot study French and German and Italian and music and art, at least all at once, and if they try and so crowd out all their little leisure, they miss the better culture which is within their reach. What must you who are hard workers take time to do?
1. Take a little time to think. Especially try to judge fairly in every-day matters. Culture, demands balance of mind; but is not that as good when it comes from thought as from study? If the subject in hand is one of which you do not know enough to judge, study it, if you have time. If not, suspend your judgment. That will show true culture. For instance, do not be a violent partisan either for or against the tariff unless you have carefully examined the arguments on both sides. Few perhaps have time to do that. You will still have an opinion. The few arguments you have studied all point in one direction. The people you trust most believe in one measure. Very well, keep your opinion. If you were a voter you might even vote in the way you believe to be best; but do not allow yourself to be violent or to denounce everybody whose judgment differs from yours.
2. Try to be enough at leisure to observe little courtesies. Hard workers are in danger of being irritable and hurried and careless of the trifles which add so much to the beauty and dignity of life. Of course my injunction includes some social life. We get much of our best intellectual as well as moral life from contact with others.
3. Keep open every avenue to beauty. You have no time to study, but read a few beautiful and noble sentences every day. You have no time to practice music; then it is doubly necessary to hear all you can and the best that you can. And you can always look at beauty. There is always a strip of blue sky with its stars at night. And there are few who could not see a beautiful sunset almost every day in the year if they made it a happy duty to look at it. I have often thought that any one who would persist in seeing this one vision every day would be lifted up above most of the turmoil of life.