Girls and Women

by Harriet E. Paine

I remember another brilliant girl who did win her way. She was poor and plain and friendless, but she won wealth and fame and friends, and then, with all this success, she blossomed into beauty. She had a struggle, but she came out victorious. I think she was happy. She was glad to be beautiful and to be loved. She had music and pictures and travel in abundance, and she appreciated these things. She liked to give to the poor, and she did give bountifully and with a grace and sweetness better than the gift.

She painted pictures which everybody admired, and that pleased her. She had dreamed of all this when a child. She had genius and she had perseverance. Her aim was to be a famous artist, and she did not flinch from any work or sacrifice which would help her to that end. So far all was well, and she reached the goal. As there was nothing to prevent her carrying out secondary plans at the same time, she could be cultivated and charitable without giving up her great object.

She wanted to be good besides. She never deliberately decided for the wrong against the right. And yet a noble life was not first in her thoughts. When she was a school-girl she had a lover who was like a better self. By and by he chose to study for the ministry, while she went to the city to try her fortune. So far they shared every thought and feeling and hope. She knew she was a better woman with him than with any one else. But at last he was called to a remote country parish, and for himself was satisfied with it. But she—how then could she be his wife? Her heart was torn in the strife. Some women whose vision was less keen would have married him, hoping that in some way they might still carry out their own ambition. But she was at a critical point in her career and she knew it. She had just begun to be known personally to influential people, and her name was beginning to be known to the public. She dared not risk leaving her post. She wrote her lover a charming letter,—for she did love him,—and told him how it was. "When I have won my victory," said she, "I shall be a free woman. And you will love me just as much when I have more to give you than I have now. But now I have my little talent confided to me, and I dare not fold it away in a napkin." Her lover agreed to this, though it was hard for him. They worked apart year after year. At last she was a free woman, with money enough to live without work at all, and with fame enough to work when and where she pleased. But gradually she cared less and less for the objects of her lover's life. She would not own to herself that she had failed in constancy to him. She always thought she was glad to see him when he came to the city. But he felt the difference in her, though he tried not to see it. She was far more beautiful than when he had first loved her; but in the days when she was so plain and had worn shabby dresses there had been an expression about her mouth which he missed now. The lovely face was still eager with longing, but it had lost the look of aspiration. Reluctantly, he admitted the change in her. At last he told her what he felt, that she had ceased to love him. She had deceived herself so far that she had not realized how idle her excuses were for putting off the marriage from year to year. When the separation came she felt a sharp pang—as much of mortification at her own failure as of wounded love. Yet she consented to the separation, and she seemed to be happy after it. She thought her life had been tragic, and that she had made a heroic sacrifice of her love to the necessity which her genius laid upon her to do a certain work in the world.

I should be afraid to say that she was altogether wrong. There are, no doubt, some women who are meant to serve the whole world rather than the little domestic circle. And yet she did give up what she had believed the best part of herself. And her pictures, though they were admired, lacked an indescribable something of which her first crude sketches had given promise. I do not think that, after all, they did very much to interpret beauty to the world. She had two aims in life, both good, but she placed the first second, and the second first. Perhaps, on the whole, she was happier for the choice she made. But she missed something better than happiness which is always missed by those who make the lower aim their object—she missed the aspiration for higher happiness.

I have seen many successful lives led by women who as girls showed very moderate abilities, simply because they had one definite aim. I knew a girl who became an excellent actress. She was a pretty girl with a little talent. She was not poor, but she had an ambition to be on the stage. She had the good sense to see that she was not a genius, but she also had courage enough to persevere in using the ability she had. For the first ten years she made so little apparent headway that even among her acquaintances many people did not know she had ever acted at all. In the mean time she had studied hard. She knew many popular plays by heart, and had carefully watched other actresses. She was acquainted with a number of theatrical people. She had always been at hand when a manager wanted an extra peasant girl, or when a waiting maid was ill. She had joined a small troupe traveling through the bleakest and roughest parts of the Northwest in midwinter. By and by she was fitted to be of use in a stock company. Then, after a few more years, she achieved what she had been striving for. She was able to take the slighter characters in the plays of Shakespeare. No one excelled her here. No great actress would take so small a part, and no small actress was willing to take such pains. Her power was unique and she was indispensable. Her name was seldom on the play-bills, but she added something to the culture of the world by making the interpretation of Shakespeare more complete.

Her success came first from having a definite aim, and second, from understanding herself sufficiently to aim at something within her power; but happily it was also the highest thing within her power. She was both humble and aspiring. She showed her humility in shrinking from no drudgery, and satisfied her cravings for the ideal by doing the smallest thing in the best way possible to her. She enjoyed even her drudgery because she put the best of herself into it, but, more than that, she knew it was leading her exactly in the direction she wanted to go. If the drudgery had led to nothing 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.