The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms

by John A. Cone

If your minister has preached a sermon that interested and helped you, tell him so. It will encourage and cheer him, and he will try to give you still better sermons in the future. Remember that the preacher is much more human than most people think, and that no man more highly prizes the genuine, manly word of good cheer, sympathy and affection. If your grocer has sold you something that was particularly good, tell him so. No doubt you have often found fault with the tea and the flour and the meat; then why not surprise him by letting him know that you appreciate a good thing when you get it.

Perhaps you have children who are attending the public schools. Perhaps their teacher by patience, tact, and the expenditure of much nerve force, has succeeded in interesting them in their studies as they have never been before. Don't you think it would stimulate her to still greater effort if you should say to her when you meet: "My children are doing well at school this term. They like you and are interested in their work." No doubt you have often severely criticised teachers, methods, and school management, and you have been very free with your words of condemnation. Why not help a little by some expression of approval if you can honestly do so.

Give pleasure to your wife, if you have one. Notice her painstaking efforts to make home comfortable; compliment her dinner and show that you appreciate the thousand things she does for your comfort. There is no greater exhibition of heroic fortitude than is seen in one who dwells in a cheerless home she does her best to brighten, and who wears away the years in an unsatisfied desire for words and tokens of love and sympathy which never come to her.

Do not be afraid of giving something of yourself, of letting yourself out a little; and do not fear that your heart will run away with your head. Do not confound sentiment with sentimentalism, and do not hesitate to praise a thing or an act if it is really worthy of it. You need to do this for your own sake as well as for the sake of making others happy.

"For my own sake," you say. "In what way will it help me if I bestow praise upon another?" Praise, when it is deserved, is of more importance to the giver than the receiver.

"Praise does not immediately affect the merit of him to whom it is awarded," said a writer recently, "but it does immediately affect the merit of him to whom its awarding belongs. If a man deserves praise he is quite as much of a man without it as with it; but no man can be so much of a man, nor seem so much of a man, while withholding just praise as while bestowing it."

In little matters as well as in large ones, to acknowledge the merit of others is a duty, the performance of which is even more important to the one who owes it, than to the one to whom it is owed. We do not fail to express our appreciation of heroic deeds, but it is in the common, everyday life that the words of appreciation are most sorely needed, and too seldom spoken. Many a woman would have been greatly cheered and helped over many hard places, if, while living, she could have heard half as many nice things said to her by those she loved, as were put into her funeral sermon and obituary notice.

There is, of course, a great difference between the expression of a due and delicate appreciation of merit, and that false and exaggerated praise which is dictated by the desire to flatter. The former is always received with pleasure, but the latter wounds the susceptibility of those on whom it is lavished. To a mind rightly constituted, there are few things more painful than undeserved, or even excessive commendation. Flattery is never excusable; deserved praise should never be withheld.

Do not be a grumbler. Is there any person more unwelcome than the chronic growler? When we meet him he begins by growling about the weather; then you are entertained with a long account of his aches and pains, his trials and his losses. Nothing pleases him. His neighbors are dishonest, church members are hypocrites, public officials are, in his estimation, all rascals, law makers are corrupt, and the country is going to the dogs. If you speak in commendation of an individual, he at once attempts to belittle him in your estimation. If you praise a cause or an institution, he is sure to find fault with what you say. He wishes your sympathy for his troubles, but he has none to give.

We all crave sympathy, but, if we are not careful, we may exhaust the patience, even of our best friends, with the recital of our troubles. If your aches and pains are ever so bad, the best advice for you is "grin and bear it." It is all very well to be an interesting invalid for a short time. Your neighbors will bring you in good things to eat, and your friends will bring you pretty flowers to look at, and books to read, but do not remain too long in bed if you can help it, and do not wear too long and sad a face when you are recovering. It will not relieve your pain at all to tell everyone you meet how much you suffer, and when your friends have sympathized with you a dozen times they become a little tired of it. This advice is worthy of practice, not for the sake of your friends only, but for your own. The burden cheerfully borne becomes light, and any physician knows that the hopeful, cheerful patient has many more chances of recovery than the despondent one. In the lives of us all there are hours of anxiety, disappointment, pain and vexation; seasons of trial that are to be met only with stubborn patience. Greatness of soul is tested by the serenity with which these inevitable ills are borne and finally overcome. The little mind will fret and chafe and fume over little things, even as the petty stream over its narrow, pebbly bed, while the deep, strong river moves swiftly and silently over the boulders that lie at its bottom.