To Clarence St. Claire
Regarding His Sister's Betrothal
Your request, my dear Clarence, that I try to influence your sister to change her determination in this matter, calls for some very plain statements from me.
I have known you and Elise since you were playing with marbles and rattles, and your mother and I have been very good acquaintances (scarcely intimate enough to be called friends) for more than a score of years. You are very much like your mother, both in exterior appearance and in mind. Elise is the image of her father at the time he captured your mother's romantic fancy, and as I recollect him when he died.
You were five years old, Elise three, at that time. Your mother lived with your father six years in months, an eternity in experience. You know that she was unhappy, and that he disillusioned her with love, and almost with life. He married your mother solely for her fortune. She was a sweet and beautiful girl, of excellent family, but your father had no qualities of mind or soul which enabled him to appreciate or care for any woman, save as she could be of use to him, socially and financially.
In six years he managed to dispose of all but a mere pittance of her fortune, and humiliated her in a thousand ways besides. His only decent act was to die and leave her undisturbed for the remainder of her life. Your uncle assisted in her support and saved the remnant of her property, so that she has, by careful and rigorous economy, been able to educate you and Elise, and keep up a respectable appearance in a quiet way.
Of course it was impossible to retain her place among the associates of her better days, and you know how bitter this fact has always made Elise. Your sister has the physical beauty and the overwhelming love of money and power which characterized your father. She has a modicum of your mother's sense of honour, but has been reared in a way not calculated to develop much strength of character. Your mother has been a slave to your sister. Elise is incapable of a deep, intense love for any man, and your mother's pessimistic ideas of love and marriage have still further acted upon her brain cells and atrophied whatever impulses may have been latent in her nature, to love and be loved. These qualities might have been developed had Elise been under the tutelage of some one versed in the science of brain building, but your mother, like most mothers, was not aware of the tremendous possibilities within her grasp, or of the effect of the ideas she expressed in the hearing of her children. Neither did she seem to recognize the father's traits in Elise, and undertake the work of eliminating them, as she might have done. She has been an unselfish and devoted mother, and has made too many sacrifices for Elise. At the same time, she has awakened the mind of your sister to ideals of principle and honour which will help her to be a better woman than her inheritance from your father would otherwise permit. But now, at the age of twenty-one, it is impossible to hope that she will develop into a self-sacrificing, loving, womanly woman, whose happiness can be found in a peaceful domestic life. She has seen your mother sad and despondent, under the yoke of genteel poverty, and heard her bemoan her lost privileges of wealth and station. This, added to her natural craving for money and place, renders a wealthy marriage her only hope of happiness on earth.
Mr. Volney has an enormous fortune. He is, as you say, a senile old man in his dotage. As you say again, such a marriage is a travesty. But Elise is incapable of feeling the love which alone renders marriage a holy institution. She has undesirable qualities which ought not to be transmitted to children, and she is absolutely devoid of maternal instincts.
I have heard her say she would consider motherhood the greatest disaster which could befall her. But she is unfitted for a self-supporting career, and she wants a home and position.
She has beauty, kind and generous impulses, and a love of playing Lady Bountiful. It is not so much that she wants to benefit the needy, as that she likes to place people under obligations and to have them look up to her as a superior being.
Old Mr. Volney is a miser, and his money is doing no one good. He has only distant relatives, and by taking Elise for a wife (according to law) he will wrong no one, and she will make much better use of his fortune than his heirs would make.
Your mother will be relieved of worry and care. Many worthy poor people and charities will receive help, and Elise will have her heart's desire—fine apparel, jewels, a social position, and no one to bother her. The valet and nurse will look after Mr. Volney, and his simple old heart will bask in the pride of an old man—the possession of a pretty young wife.
Had he full use of his mental faculties, and did he long for love and devotion, I would try and dissuade Elise from the marriage, but solely on his account, not on hers.
The young man you mention, as your choice of a suitor for the hand of your sister, might better go up in a balloon to seek for Eutopia than to expect happiness as her husband. He has a sweet, gentle, loving nature, a taste for quiet home joys, fondness for children, and he has two thousand a year, with small prospects of more in the near future.
He should marry a modest, domestic girl, with tastes similar to his own, and with no overweening ambitions. Elise would simply drive him mad in a year's time, with her restless discontent, her extravagance, and her desire for the expensive pleasures of earth. It is useless to reason with her, or to expect her to model her ideas to suit her circumstances. Inheritance and twenty-one years of wrong education must be taken into consideration. What would mean happiness for many women would mean misery for her. I can imagine no more dreadful destiny than to be tied to a senile old man by a legal ceremony, even were I given his millions in payment. But that will mean happiness to Elise.
I think we should let people seek their own ideals of happiness, when they break no law, and injure no other life by it.
I shall congratulate Elise by this post on having made so fortunate an alliance. I could not congratulate her were she to marry her young suitor. I shall congratulate your mother on having nothing to worry about, regarding the future of Elise.
And I advise you to take a philosophical view of the situation, and to remember that, in judging the actions of our fellow beings, we must take their temperaments, characteristics, and environment into consideration, not our own.
You have made the very common error of thinking, because Elise is a handsome young girl, that love, and home, and children would mean happiness to her.
Women vary as greatly as do plants and flowers in their needs. The horticulturist knows that he cannot treat them all alike, and he studies their different requirements.
To some he gives moisture and sun, to some shade, and to some dry, sandy soil. The thistle pushes forth a gorgeous bloom from an arid bed. It would die in the pond where the lily thrives.
Too much sentiment is wasted in this world and too much effort expended in trying to make all people happy in some one way.
When I was a little girl, a Sunday-school superintendent presented every girl in the class with a doll, and each doll was exactly the same. Most little girls like dolls, but I never played with one, as they were always so hopelessly inanimate. If the good man had given me a sled, or a book, or a picture, I would have been happy. As it was, his gift was a failure. You want to present your sister with a devoted young husband, a cottage, and several children, because you think every woman should possess these things. Your sister happens to be one who prefers a wealthy old invalid.
Let her have what she wants, my dear Clarence, and let her work out her destiny in her own way. She will do less harm in the world than if you forced her into your way. Now you must remember that you asked me to help you in this matter, and I could only write you the absolute facts of the situation, as I knew it to be. I feel fairly confident that you will accept my point of view, and act as best man at your sister's wedding.
To Miss Margaret Riley
Shop Girl, Concerning Her Oppressors
Your letter has been destroyed, as you requested, and you need not fear my betraying your confidence.
Your mother was so long in my employ that I feel almost like a foster-mother to you, having seen you grow up from the cradle to self-supporting young womanhood.
The troubles and evils which you mention as existing about you, I know to be quite universal in all large shops, factories, and department stores, indeed in all houses where the two sexes are employed.
I know that a certain order of men in power use that power to lower the ideals and standards of womanhood when they can.
A pretty young girl once in my service related to me the cold-blooded suggestions made to her by her employer to increase the miserable wage paid her in a sweat-shop.
The sacrifice of her virtue seemed no more to this man than the sale of an old garment.
The girl did not make the sacrifice, however, and she did not starve, freeze, or die. She managed to exist and to better her condition by doing domestic work and saving her money to fit herself for more congenial employment. When I last saw her she was planning to become a trained nurse, and had paid for a course of instruction in massage. I tell you this merely to illustrate a fact I fully believe, that any girl who is determined to live an honourable life and retain her self-respect can make her way in the world and rise from lesser to higher positions, if she is patient and willing to do what is termed menial work as a stepping-stone. You tell me that scores of girls are kept in poorly paying, inferior positions when capable of filling better places, simply because they will not accept the dishonourable attentions of some of the men in authority.
You beg me to arouse the good women of America to a crusade against what you say is a growing evil and to boycott such shops and stores.
But you ask me to do what is an impracticable thing.
You would not like to be called as a witness were this matter brought before the courts. Were all the good women of America to begin such a crusade, where would they obtain the proofs of their accusations?
And even if the witnesses were ready, there is not a newspaper in the land that would dare champion the reform. And no great reform can be made without the aid of the press. The daily papers, as you say, give columns to protests against lesser evils, but you must know that these newspapers are largely supported by the profitable advertisements of manufactories and dry-goods houses. Glance over the columns of any of our large dailies and see how much space such advertising occupies.
Imagine what it would mean to lose all this high-priced patronage. Therefore, even if the most moral of editors knew that these establishments were undermining our social conditions and invading our homes, I doubt if he could be induced to make a protest. It is a curious thing to see how many are the kinds of victims caught and held in the clutches of the money-devil-fish in our wonderful land of freedom.
Even clergymen who are preaching morality and brotherly love are compelled to keep their mouths shut on certain evils and abuses, lest they offend the pillars of the church and deprive the treasury of its income.
In a certain New England town famous for its educational institution, a clergyman denounced a corporation which had swindled the poor and deceived scores of citizens. He was requested to discontinue further references to the matter, as the church treasury was supplied by the money which accrued from this monopoly.
The most powerful members of the church were officers in the corporation.
The young clergyman sent in his resignation and gave up an assured salary to follow the light of his own conscience. But there are few with his bravery and, therefore, the strongholds of selfishness and self-indulgence remain impregnable. While we admire the splendid character which makes a man capable of refusing a salary which means hush-money, we can at the same time understand the difficult position of a clergyman with a hungry brood of children to support, who hesitates at such a move. We can understand how he argues with himself, that by taking the money of the monopolists, he is able to do more good for humanity than by refusing it, and losing both influence and income. It is a false argument, yet the worn and weary mind of the average orthodox minister will accept it as the advisable course to pursue. So you will see how difficult is the task you suggest my undertaking. You tell me that it is useless for you to leave one shop and go to another, as all are more or less conducted on the same lines; and that it is mere chance if a girl finds herself in a position where she can advance on her merits. Even then a sudden change in heads of departments some day may destroy all her hopes.
You say I have no idea how many girls go wrong just through the persecution and tyranny of these men—forced to fall in order to keep herself fed and clothed. I repeat what I said already in this connection,—that I am certain any girl determined to keep herself above reproach and ambitious to rise in the world can do so. She may have to endure many privations and sorrows for a time, and that time may seem long and weary, but a change will come for the better as surely as spring follows winter, if she does not waver.
If you will look carefully into the facts of the cases which fall under your observation, I am confident you will see that it is vanity and indolence, not hunger and oppression, which cause the majority of the girls you mention to go astray. They desire to make as good an appearance, and to be given the same privileges of leisure, as the favourite who has been promoted through unworthy methods.
You tell me you would rather jump from Brooklyn Bridge and end the struggle at once than lose your self-respect, but that you are weary of seeing the girls with less conscience, and lesser capabilities, pushed ahead of you and your worthy associates. Yet I am certain from the tone of your letter that you will never forget your self-respect, and I have faith that you can make your way in the world in spite of all the designing masculine oppressors in existence.
So will any woman, who sets her mark high, and believes in the invincible power of her own spirit to conquer all the demons of earth.
Do not imagine your position is one of unusual trial and temptation. A young actress of my acquaintance has been obliged to fight her way slowly to partial recognition because she would not accept the conditions offered, with leading rôles and fine wardrobe, by two polygamous-minded managers.
She is making her way, however, and the very battle she is fighting with life has strengthened her powers as an artist. A young stenographer has been compelled to give up two positions because she would not allow the loverlike attentions of married employers. She was called a silly prude and discharged. Yet she is occupying an excellent position with a clean high-class business house to-day.
Domestics are sometimes driven from private homes by the same pursuit of the employer. Men are only in a state of evolution, and the animal instincts are still strong in them. The world has allowed them so much license, and society has been so lenient with their misdeeds, that it has been difficult for them to practise self-control and aspire to a higher standard. You must be sorry for them and do what you can to help them understand the worth and value of true womanhood. Never for one instant believe that you can be hindered by the machinations of a few unworthy men, from reaching any goal you set.
One good, intelligently virtuous woman, determined to make the most of her capabilities by fair methods, can overcome a whole army of self-indulgent, sensual men, and compel them to doff their hats to her. I am always deeply sympathetic toward the girl who is tempted through her emotions, or her affections, to forget herself. But I have no great pity for the woman who sells herself. There are always charitable societies, and there are always menial labours to do, and either door of escape from the sale of honour would be sought by the girl of right ideals. It is a bitter experience to see the woman who has stepped down into the soil of life flaunting her finery and her power in the face of virtue. But look about you and see how soon the finery becomes tatters—how soon the power is transferred to another.
Woman's position in the world is growing better, brighter, and more independent with each year. There are more avenues open to her—larger opportunities waiting for the employment of her abilities. She has tried a thorny path for centuries, but she has small reason to despair of her outlook to-day.
Each woman must fight her battle alone, and walk by the light from within.
The world gives her only a superficial protection, either through its courts or its society.
Men demand virtue from woman and endeavour in every way to lead her away from its path.
But the divinity within her can carry her to the heights, if she will not be lured by the voice of the senses, or frightened by the demands of the appetite, or debased by the mercenary spirit of the age.
Go on in your brave determination to lead a sensible and moral life, my dear girl, and let your example be a guide to others, and prove that woman may succeed on the right basis if she will, in spite of temptations and oppressions.
To Miss Gladys Weston
After Three Years as a Teacher
The way you took my frank criticisms and doubts of your ability to make a good school-teacher, proves you to be a girl of much character. Your success proves, too, that given the general qualifications of a fairly capable and educated human being, add concentration and will, and we can achieve wonders in any line of work we undertake. I am still of the opinion that no woman of my acquaintance was more wholly unfit to teach young children, as they should be taught, than your fair self as I last knew you.
I take pride in believing that my heroic methods were what brought out the undeveloped qualities you needed to ensure such success.
There are certain natures that need to be antagonized before they do their best. Others are prostrated and robbed of all strength by a criticism or a doubt.
You have realized this, I am sure, in your experiences with pupils. "You cannot do it" is a more stimulating war-cry to some people than "You can." And to such the sneer of the foe does more good, than the smile of the friend. A phrenologist would tell us that strongly developed organs of self-esteem and love of approbation accompanied this trait of character.
I am sure it proves to be the case with you.
Brought up as you were, the only child of indulgent parents, and given admiration and praise by all your associates, you could hardly reach the age of twenty-two without having developed self-esteem and love of praise. You were naturally brighter than most of your companions. (They were also children of fortune, as the term goes, but to my idea the children reared in wealth, are usually children of misfortune. For the real fortune of life is to encounter the discipline which brings out our strongest qualities.)
Your father was a poor boy, who fought his way up to wealth and power before you were born; but he unfortunately wanted the earth beside, and so died in poverty after staking all he had, which was enough, to make more, which he did not need.
You inherit much of his force of character, and that is what gave you the reputation of extreme cleverness among your more commonplace companions. Compared with the really brilliant and talented people of earth, you are not clever. That is why I found you so companionable and charming, no doubt; for the brilliant people—especially women—are rarely companionable for more than a few hours at a time. I gave you that supreme test of friendship—the companionship of travel for a period of months. And I loved you better at the end of the time than at the beginning.
I have often thought how much less occupation there would be for the divorce courts and how many more "indefinitely postponed" announcements of engagements would result from an established custom of a pre-betrothal trip!
If a young man and woman who were enamoured could travel for two or three months, with a chaperon (in the shape of a mother-in-law or two), the lawyers would lose much profit; but I fear race suicide might ensue. Nothing, unless it is the sick-room or the card-table, brings out the real characteristics of human beings like travel.
The irritating delays of boats and trains, and the still more irritating unresponsiveness of officials, when asked the cause, will test the temper and the patience of even a pair of lovers. It is not surprising if the traveller does lose both at times, but it is admirable if he does not. I remember how adorable you were, while I was a bundle of dynamite, ready to explode and send the stolid, uncommunicative conductor and brakemen into a journey through space, when we suffered that long delay coming from California. It is due the travelling public to explain such delays, but the railroads of America have grown to feel that they owe no explanation to any one, even to God, for what they do or do not. While I lost vitality and composure by such idle reflections, you were amusing the nervous travellers by your bright bits of narrative and ready repartee. That fortunate fellow you have promised to marry at the end of two years has no idea what a charming companion he will find in you for travel.
It is interesting to have you say you feel that you need two more years as a teacher, before you are fully developed enough to take up the responsibilities of marriage. You will be twenty-seven then:—that is the age at which the average American girl begins to be most interesting, and the age when she is first physically mature.
And your children will be more fully endowed mentally than if you had become a mother in your teens.
As a rule the brainy people of the world are not born of very youthful parents; you will find youth gives physique, maturity gives brains to offspring.
I did not quite finish my train of reasoning about your self-esteem.
It was because you had always believed yourself to be capable of doing anything you undertook to do, that you were roused by my assertion that you could not make a good school-teacher, to attempt it. I hurt your pride a bit, and you were determined to prove me wrong. Had you been self-depreciating and oversensitive, what I said would have turned you from that field of effort. And that would have been a desirable result, since one who can be turned from any undertaking ought to be.
I still think the world has lost a wonderful artist by your not entering the lists of designers and dressmakers. But since my recital of the faults which would prevent your success as a teacher led you to overcome them, I am proud and glad, that you have gone on in the work you contemplated. Good teachers are more needed than good dressmakers.
And you are sweet and charming as usual, to tell me that your popularity with children and parents, is greatly due to that letter of mine.
What you write me of the young girl who is making you so much trouble by her jealousy of all other pupils, interests and saddens me. Her devotion to you is of that morbid type, so unwholesome and so dangerous to her peace, and the peace of all her associates. It is a misfortune that mothers do not take such traits in early babyhood, and eradicate them by patient, practical methods. Instead, this mother, like many others, seems to think her little girl should be favoured and flattered because of her morbid tendency.
She mistakes selfishness, envy, greediness, and hysteria for a loving nature.
I can imagine your feelings when this mother told you with a proud smile, "Allie always wants the whole attention of any one she loves, and cannot stand sharing her friends. She was always that way at home. We never could pet her little brother without her going into a spasm. And you must be careful about showing the other children attention before her. It just breaks her heart—she is so sensitive."
Oh, mothers, mothers, what are you thinking about, to be so blind to the work put in your hands to do?
You have little time comparatively to work upon this perverted young mind: but under no conditions favour her, and, no matter what scenes she makes, continue to give praise and affection to the other children when it is their due. The prominence of her parents in the neighbourhood, and the power her father wields in the school board, need not worry you. Go ahead and do what is best for the child and for the school at large. Never deviate one inch from your convictions. Take Allie some day to a garden where there are many flowers, and talk to her about them. Speak of all their different charms, and gather a bouquet. Then say to her, "Now, Allie, you and I love each of these pretty flowers, and see how sweetly they nestle together in your hand. Not one is jealous of the other. Each has its place, and would be missed were it not there. The bouquet needs them all. Just so I need all the dear children in my school, and just so I would miss any one. It makes me ashamed to think any little girl is more selfish and unreasonable than a plant, for little girls are a higher order of creation, and we expect more of them than we expect of plants or of animals. All are parts of God, but the human kingdom is the highest expression of the Creator.
"When you show such jealousy of other children I lose respect for you, and cannot love you as much as I love them. When you are gentle and good, and take your share of my love and attention, and let others have their share, then I am proud of you and fond of you. Suppose one plant said to the sunlight that it must have all the sun, would not that be ridiculous and selfish?"
I would make frequent references to this idea when alone with her, and indeed it would serve as an excellent subject for a talk to all your pupils some day. Then try and make Allie understand how unbecoming and unlovable jealousy is, and how it renders a man or woman an object of pity and ridicule to others.
Praise the people you know who are liberal and broad, and absolutely ignore her moods when in school.
Perhaps in time you can do a little toward awakening her mind to a more wholesome outlook.
What you tell me of her hysterical devotion to one of her classmates, makes me realize that the girl needs careful guidance.
You should talk to her mother, and warn her against encouraging such conditions of mind in her child.
Urge her to keep the girl occupied, and to give her much out-door life, and to teach her that pronounced demonstrations of affection are not good form between young girls. The mother should be careful what books she reads, and should see that she makes no long visits to other homes and receives no guests for a continued time. The child needs to cultivate universal love, not individual devotion.
Ideals, principles, ambitions, should be given the girl, not close companions, for her nature is like a rank, weedy flower that needs refining and cultivating into a perfected blossom.
All this needs a mother's constant care and tact and watchfulness. It is work she should have begun when her little girl first indicated her unfortunate tendencies.
It is late for you to undertake a reconstruction of the misshapen character, but you may be able to begin an improvement, and if you can obtain the mother's cooperation the full formation may be accomplished.
And do not fail to use mental suggestion constantly, and to help the child by your assertions to be what you want her to become. Dwell in conversation with her and in her presence, upon the lovableness and charm of generosity of spirit in general, rather than on the selfishness you observe in herself.
At her least indication of an improvement, give her warm praise. Be careful about bestowing caresses upon her, as she needs to be guarded against hysteria, I should judge from your description. To some children they are the sunlight, to others miasma.
Think of yourself as God's agent, given charge of his unfinished work, and recognize the unseen influences ready to aid you with suggestion and courage when you appeal to them.
To a Young Friend
Who Has Become Interested in the Metaphysical Thoughts of the Day
Your letter bubbled with enthusiasm, and steamed with optimism. I am rejoiced that you have come into so healthful a line of thought, for I know of no one who was in more immediate need of it than you, when we last met.
As your hostess, I could not tell you how wearing to the nerves your continual reverting to your physical ills became: and I hope I did not seem wholly unsympathetic to you when I so frequently made the effort to change the conversation to more cheerful topics.
And now you tell me that you are astounded to find how universal is this topic with all classes, and on all occasions when one or two human beings gather together even in "His name." Your recital of the church sewing-bee, where all the good Christian women described their diseases and the different operations they and their friends had undergone, is as amusing as it is distressingly realistic.
What a pity that the old theology fostered the idea that God especially loved the people he afflicted with illness and poverty and trouble! It has filled the world with egotistical and selfish invalids and idlers, who have believed they were "God's chosen ones," instead of realizing that they were the natural results of broken laws, which might be mended by the aid of the God-power in themselves, once they understood it.
How Christians have reconciled the idea of a God of love with a God who wanted his chosen ones to be sick and poor, is a problem I cannot solve.
Of course you are well, and growing stronger daily, now that you realize the fact that God made only health, wealth, and love, and that he intended all his children to share his opulence.
As soon as the mind is filled with a dominating idea, no lesser ones can find lodgment therein.
A woman of my acquaintance suffered agonies from seasickness.
She crossed the ocean twice each year, yet seemed unable to accustom herself to the experience.
On her last voyage her child fell dangerously sick with typhoid fever on the second day out at sea.
So wrought up was the mother, and so filled with the thought of her child, that she never felt one moment's seasickness. Her mind was otherwise occupied.
Now you have filled your mind with a consciousness of your divine right to health and happiness, and the thought of sickness and disease has no room.
Yet do not be discouraged if you feel the old ailments and indispositions returning at times. A complete change in mental habits, is difficult to obtain in a moment.
Be satisfied to grow slowly. A wise philosopher has said, "It is not in never falling that we show our strength, but in our ability to rise after repeated falls, and to continue our journey in triumph."
Avoid talking your belief to every individual you meet. It will be breaking your string of pearls for the feet of swine to tread upon. Those who are ready for these truths will indicate the fact to you, and then will be your time for speech. And when you do speak, say little, and say it briefly and to the point.
Leave some things for other minds to study out alone. The people who are not ready for higher ideals of religion and life, will only ridicule or combat your theories and beliefs, if you force them to listen.
Wait until you have fully illustrated by your own conduct of life, that you have something beside vague theories to prove your statements of the power of the mind to conquer circumstance. The world is full to-day of bedraggled and haggard men and women, who are talking loudly of the power of mind to restore youth and health, and bestow riches and success.
Do not add yourself to the unlovely and tiresome army of talkers, until you prove yourself a doer.
And even after you have shown a record of health and prosperity and usefulness, let your silent influence speak louder than your uttered words.
The moment a philosopher becomes a bore, he ceases to be a philosopher.
To Wilfred Clayborn
Concerning His Education and His Profession
My Dear Nephew:—I have considered your request from all sides, and have resolved to disappoint you. This seems to me the kindest thing I can do under the circumstances.
You have gone through two years of college life, and I am sure you are not an ignoramus. Most of the great men of the world's history have enjoyed no fuller educational advantages. To lend you money to finish the college course, would be to help you to start life at the age of twenty-two under the burden of debt. If you are determined to finish a college course, and feel that only by so doing will you equip yourself for the duties of life, I would advise you to drop out for a year and teach, or go into any kind of work which will enable you to earn enough to proceed with your studies. However hard and however disappointing this advice seems to you, I know it suggests a course which will do more for your character than all the money I could lend you.
Aside from the fact that you would begin life with a debt, is the possibility of your contracting the debt habit.
One man in a thousand who borrows money to help himself along in early life is benefited by it.
The other 999 are harmed.
To do anything on another's money is to lean on the shoulder of another instead of walking upright. It is not good calisthenic exercise.
A few years ago I would have acceded to your request.
But each year I live I realize more and more that lending money is the last method to be used in helping people to better themselves. In almost every case where I have lent money, I have lived to regret it. Not because I lost my money (which has usually been the fact), but because I lost respect for my friends.
I remember the case of a young newspaper man and author, who came to me for the loan of five dollars. I had never seen him before, but I knew his brother, a brilliant playwright, in a social way.
The young man told me he had met with a series of disasters on the voyage to New York, and was stranded there absolutely penniless, although money would come at almost any hour from his brother.
Besides this, he showed me letters from editors who had taken work which would be paid for on publication.
"I do not know any one here," the young man said, "and to-day, when I used my last twenty-five cents, I thought of you in desperation.
"Your acquaintance with my brother would serve as an introduction, I felt, and I was confident you would realize my straits when I told you my errand."
Of course I lent the young man five dollars. "I am sure it must be a great humiliation for you to ask for this," I said, "and I am certain you will repay it, though many former experiences have made me question the memory of friends and strangers to whom I have been of similar assistance."
One week later the young man called to tell me he had not been able to do more than keep himself sustained at lunch-counters since he called, but hoped soon to obtain a position on a daily newspaper.
That was ten years ago. The young man sat in an orchestra chair the other night at the theatre directly in front of me, and his attire was faultlessly up to date. From the costume of his companion, I should judge their carriage waited outside.
The young man did not seem to recognize me, and no doubt the incident I mention has escaped his memory.
In all probability I was but one of a score of people who helped him with small loans. Had the young man had been forced to appeal to the society organized in every city for aiding the deserving poor, by being sent disappointed from my door, the ordeal would have so hurt his pride, that he might not have become the professional borrower he undoubtedly is.
I could relate innumerable cases of a similar nature. One man, who was a fashionable teacher of French among the millionaires of New York for several seasons, appealed to me at a time of year when all his patrons were out of the city for a loan to enable him to give his wife medical treatment.
He was to repay it in the autumn. Instead, he came to me then with a much more distressing story of immediate need and seeming proof of money coming to him in a few months. To my chagrin, the loan I advanced was employed in giving a feast to friends at his daughter's wedding, after which he obliterated himself from my vision.
Financial aid lent a woman who soon afterward circled Europe, brought no reimbursement. Her handsomely engraved card, with the "Russell Square Hotel, London," as address, reached me instead of the interest money which perhaps paid the engraver.
Money lent a young man to start a small business, was used for his wedding expenses, and an interval of five years brings no word from him. Poor and despicable beings indeed, become the victims of the borrowing habit. It is the shattered faith in humanity, and the heart hurts that I regret, rather than the loss of what can be replaced. I tell you these incidents that you may realize how I have come to regard money-lending, as a species of unkindness to a friend or relative.
It is only one step removed from giving a sick or overtaxed man or woman a morphine powder.
Sleep and rest ensue, but ten to one the habit is formed for life.
The happy experiences of my life in money-lending, have been two instances where I offered loans which were not asked, and which proved to be bridges over the chasm of temporary misfortune, to the success awaiting a worthy woman and man. The really deserving rarely ask for loans.
I can imagine with what pleasure you would take a cheque from this letter, for the amount which would carry you through college.
Yet when you had finished your course, you would find so many things you wanted to do, and must do, the debt would become too heavy to lift, save by borrowing from some one else.
If not that, then you would impose upon the fact of our relationship, and on your belief that I had plenty of means without the amount you owed me: and so you would join the great army of good-for-nothings in the world.
There is one thing you must always remember:
No matter how close the blood tie between two beings, even twins, each soul comes into the world alone, and with a separate life destiny to work out.
If I have worked out my destiny to financial independence, that does not entitle you to a share of it. If it seems best for me to aid you, it is not because a blood tie makes it a duty. I grow to believe there is a sort of curse on money which is not earned, even when it is bestowed by father, on son or daughter.
It cripples individual development. Only when money is earned is it blest.
Regarding your future profession, I cannot agree with your idea that because you feel no particular love for any one calling, and have a halfway tendency toward several, that you will never be a success. Great geniuses are often consumed with a passion for some one line of study or employment, but there have been many great men who did not know what they were fitted to do until accident or necessity gave them an opportunity.
Success means simply concentration and perseverance.
Whether you decide to be a mechanic, a lawyer, a doctor, or a merchant, the one thing to do is to fix all your mental powers upon the goal you select, and then call all the forces from within and from without, to aid you to reach it.
It would, of course, be folly for you to select a profession which requires special talent. No matter how you might concentrate and apply yourself, you could never be a great poet, a great artist, or a great musician.
You have not the creative genius.
But law, medicine, mechanics, or mercantile matters, with your good brain and fair education, you could conquer.
You say you vacillate from one to another, like the wind which goes to the four points of the compass in twenty-four hours.
But you are very young, and this should not discourage you.
It would be well to think the four vocations over quietly, when alone, and sit down by yourself early in the morning asking for guidance. Then, when you feel you have made a decision, let nothing turn you from it.
Direct all your studies and thoughts to further that decision.
Think of yourself as achieving the very highest success in your chosen field, and work for that end.
You cannot fail.
If you desire light from without upon the best path to pursue, I would advise you to find a good phrenologist, and have a careful reading made of your head. Its formation and the development of its organs would indicate in what direction lay your greatest strength, and where you needed to be especially watchful.
But remember if your phrenologist tells you that you have a weak will, it does not mean that you must necessarily always have a weak will. It means that you are to strengthen it, by concentration. There is a great truth underlying phrenology, palmistry, and astrology; but it is ridiculous to accept their verdicts as final and unchangeable, and it is unwise to ignore the good they may do, rightly applied and understood.
I recall the fact that you were born in early June. I know enough about the influence of the planets upon a child born at that period to assert that you are particularly inclined to a Gemini nature—the twin nature, which wants to do two things at one time. You want to stay in and go out, to read a book and play tennis, to swim and sit on the sand. Later in life, you will want to remain single and marry, and travel and remain at home, unless you begin now to select one course of the two which are for ever presenting themselves to you, in small and large matters.
Whenever you feel yourself vacillating between two impulses, take yourself at once in hand, decide upon the preferable course, and go ahead. Dominate your astrological tendencies, do not be dominated by them. Dominate your weaknesses as exhibited by your phrenological chart, and build up the brain cells which need strengthening, and lessen the power of the undesirable qualities by giving them no food or indulgence.
It is a great thing to understand yourself as you are, and then to go ahead and make yourself what you desire to be.
When a carpenter starts to build a house, he knows just what tools and what materials to work with are his. If there is a broken implement, he replaces it with another, and if he is short of material he supplies it. But young men set forth to make futures and fortunes, with no knowledge of their own equipment.
They do not know their own strongest or weakest traits, and are unprepared for the temptations and obstacles that await them.
I would advise you to call in the aid of all the occult sciences, to help you in forming an estimate of your own higher and lower tendencies, and in deciding for what line of occupation you were best fitted. Then, after you have compared the statistics so gathered with your own idea of yourself, you should proceed to make your character what you wish it to be.
This work will be ten thousand times more profitable to you than a mere routine of college studies, gained by running in debt.
To know yourself is far better knowledge than to know Virgil. And to make yourself is a million times better than to have any one else make you.