She had few companions even then, and did not seem to cultivate them.
“Honestly, I wish the child would laugh once in a while,” Mrs. Theddon told a friend, calling one afternoon. “But somehow it doesn’t occur to her to laugh. She acts as if the world were too big, wonderful and mystic to contain such a thing as humor.”
“Then you’re satisfied with her?” the caller suggested.
“Satisfied? My dear woman, there are times when I’m afraid I’ll be unable to satisfy her! That sounds strange, doesn’t it? But the girl’s faith in every one and everything is so absolute and her ideals so quaint that I almost fear to have her grow further. I try to tell her, to pave the way for disillusion, but I don’t seem to get results. She looks at me so hurt and incredulous that I feel as though I were defiling Eden.”
This incredulity of Madelaine’s worried her mother far more than the latter cared to admit. Likewise the girl’s instinctive estheticism and reserve. One summer evening, as they strolled the length of Sumner Avenue, Mrs. Theddon expounded her philosophy of life for the first time aggressively, to her daughter.
“Madelaine, dear,” she declared, “I want you to think of this world and look upon life as a long, long, series of interesting and constructive experiences. All of them may not be pleasant. But always they must be constructive. Whether you make them interesting depends entirely upon yourself, your capacity for participation in them.”
“Participation!” repeated the girl. “What do you mean by participation?”
“I mean plunging in and enjoying them for all they’re worth, taking part in everything—your own accorded part—to the utmost, regardless of how small that part may be. Don’t shrink from anything. Never be that most distressing and unfinished product—a “wallflower” or spectator. Plunge in—taste, feel, enjoy, laugh and love. Be in the center of things, never on the edge. Of course, I don’t meant perverted things, activities or pursuits that offend decency or violate self-respect. And there is never excuse for stirring a sewer, in order to prove it’s foul.”
“I understand, mother dear.”
“What I want to impress upon you, and the greatest heritage a parent can pass on to any child, is this: It’s your world, yours to enjoy, yours to live in, play in, work in, get the most from. Every healthy activity exists to be experienced and not to be watched while others experience. Every social accomplishment, every art, every science, every hobby, has come about and is enjoyed because normal, healthy people in the past have found pleasure, enjoyment and improvement in them. If they have done so—you may likewise. Life has been given to you to get your portion. But Life can’t seize you by the shoulders and drag you in. You must go in for yourself. The deepest wrong I can conceive a grown person doing to a younger is implanting within his or her subconscious mind that horrible ‘You mustn’t!’ It’s the blackest handicap a child can acquire. My creed is ‘Do!’ Never doubt yourself. Never believe you’re any different from any girl or woman who has ever lived on earth. Because you’re not. Yet you’re not commonplace, either! The greatest self-crime is self-depreciation. Remember that all people believe in you unless you doubt yourself. They take you not at somebody else’s appraisal but solely at the estimate you place upon yourself. Timid people are only those with half-developed souls. I don’t mean by not being timid that you should be noisy or obstreperous. A child’s home influences should curb or counteract hoydenism. But hold up your head, be positive, never fear to look at life courageously, to see it clearly and see it whole. The world is yours, my dear, and all the men and women in it—for your enjoyment and boon companions.”