17. A Good Rule.
When you rise in the morning, form the resolution to make the day a happy one to a fellow-creature. It is easily done: a left-off garment to the man who needs it; a kind word to the sorrowful; an encouraging word to the striving; trifles, in themselves as light as air, will do at least for the twenty-four hours. And if you are old, rest assured it will send you gently and happily down the stream of time to eternity. By the most simple arithmetical sum look at the result. If you send only one person happily through the day, that is three hundred and sixty-five in the course of a year. And suppose you live forty years after you begin that course, you have made fourteen thousand six hundred persons happy, at all events, for a time.
18. Character.
Nothing can compensate for the lack of manliness in a man, and womanliness in a woman. The man may be a capable business man, an eloquent speaker, and accomplished scholar; but if he lacks manliness, he remains only half a man. The woman may be intelligent, accomplished, refined; but if she lacks womanliness, she lacks everything. In some of the Old-World universities there are courses in “Humanity.” It is a pity that the teaching of humanity in the wider sense of that which makes man man, and woman woman, does not occupy a larger place in the catalogues of our schools and colleges.—Dr. Trumbull.
19. Honor.
Mr. Smiles in one of his admirable books says that Wellington was once offered half a million for a State secret, not of any special value to the government, but the keeping of which was a matter of honor. “It appears you are capable of keeping a secret,” he said to the official. “Certainly,” he replied. “And so am I,” said the general, and bowed him out.
20. Consideration for Others.
Sir Ralph Abercrombie, when mortally wounded, found under his head the blanket of a private soldier, placed there to ease his dying pains. “Whose blanket is this?” “Duncan Roy’s.” “See that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night,” said Sir Ralph, and died without its comfort.
21. Truthfulness.
Calvert says, “A gentleman may brush his own shoes or clothes, or mend or make them, or roughen his hands with the helve, or foul them with dye-work or iron-work; but he must not foul his mouth with a lie.”