INDIVIDUAL HELP
A flavor of even greater grace and delicacy must go into the gift offered by the rich friend to the poor one. It is one of the privileges of the generous rich, not only to feed the starving body but sometimes to feed the starving soul, not only to provide bread and butter but to minister to a starved sense of beauty and of joy. To give pictures and books to those who love them but can not buy, to give a year at college to some nice young fellow whose parents can not do for him, to give pretty trinkets to a pretty young girl who lives in a house where there is no money to spare for such things—these gifts of friendship are one of the greatest privileges of a large income. Though not counted commonly as charity, they come under the head of charity in its biblical significance of love and sympathy.
CHAPTER XXXVI
COURTESY FROM THE YOUNG TO THE OLD
THE pessimist, reading the heading of this chapter, would be inclined to ask if one writes nowadays of a lost quantity. While we do not consider the grace of courtesy as entirely lost, we are at times tempted to think that it has “gone before,” and so far before that it is lost sight of by the rising generation.
The days have passed when the hoary head was a crown of glory, as the royal preacher declares. It is certain that if it is a crown, it is one before which the youth of the twentieth century do not always bow.
Before we condemn the young unsparingly for their lack of reverence, we must look at the other side of the question. To-day there are few old people. First, there is youth. That lasts almost until one is a grandparent; then one is middle-aged. No one is old,—at least few will acknowledge it. The woman of forty-five is on “the shady side of thirty,” she of sixty-five, is “on the down slope from fifty.” And, even when the age is announced, one is reminded that “a woman is only as old as she feels.” There is sound common sense in all this. Can not we afford to snap our fingers at Father Time and his laws, when the law within ourselves tells us that we are young in heart, in feeling, in aims? So the principle that bids us shut our eyes at the figure on the mile-stone we are passing is a good one. As long as we feel fresh still for the journey, as long as every step is a pleasure, what difference if the walk has been five miles long or fifteen? We judge of the strain by the effect it has had on us. If we feel unwearied and ready for miles and miles ahead of us, who shall say that the walk has been ten miles long, when we are conscious in our energetic limbs that it has only been two delightful miles?
NO ONE IS OLD NOW
The fact that no one is now old has its effect on the Young Person in our midst. She hesitates to say to the matron, “Take this seat, please!” when she knows that in her soul the matron will resent the insinuation that she is on the downward grade. Not long ago I witnessed the chagrin of a woman of thirty-five who rose and gave her seat in a stage to a woman who was, if one may judge by the false standard of appearances, at least fifteen years her senior. The elderly woman flushed indignantly: