Vesper Talks to Girls

Part 1

VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS

LAURA A. KNOTT

Principal of Bradford Academy

Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company

The Riverside Press Cambridge 1916

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright, 1916, by Laura A. Knott

All Rights Reserved

Published March 1916

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO THE STUDENTS OF BRADFORD ACADEMY PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PREFACE

This volume contains a few of many talks which the author has given on Sunday afternoons to the students of Bradford Academy. At their request and for their convenience the volume is published. While hundreds of addresses to young women of college age have found their way into print, the books that deal with the problems and needs of younger girls and that look at life from their point of view are few. Though these talks were inspired by the needs of a definite group, the author will be glad if the book finds a wider audience.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

I. NEW STARTS IN LIFE II. SCHOOL FRIENDSHIPS III. THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS IV. ENDURING HARDNESS V. THE RHYTHM OF LIFE VI. THE USES OF TROUBLE VII. SCHOOL SPIRIT VIII. MAKING THE BEST OF THINGS IX. CONFLICTING LOYALTIES X. THE VALUE OF DISCIPLINE XI. THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE XII. THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN XIII. SOURCES OF HAPPINESS XIV. AFTER GRADUATION

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VESPER TALKS TO GIRLS

NEW STARTS IN LIFE

Life is full of opportunities for new beginnings. Courage and hope go out of a person only when he ceases to believe that for him there is one more chance to retrieve the mistakes of the past. George Eliot says, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." Such a conviction is necessary if we would live lives of power. There is a sonnet by Senator Ingalls in which Opportunity is represented as saying,--

"Soon or late I knock, unbidden, once at every gate! · · · · · · · ... those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury, and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore. I answer not, and I return no more!"

One who saw life from a different point of view replied by a poem on the same subject in which Opportunity says,--

"They do me wrong who say I come no more When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win."

The latter view is surely the truer and more inspiring one.

To the person with the forward look and genuine enthusiasm there are ever-recurring opportunities for a fresh beginning. Indeed, there ought to be no one for whom each day does not commence the world anew. A well-known woman, noted for the inspiring and cheer-bringing quality of her life, used to say upon awakening each morning, "Another great, rich day!" There is no reason why every one of us should not hail each returning morning in this spirit.

New Year's Day is proverbially the time for "turning over a new leaf." The thought of the clean, fresh pages of another year so soon to be written upon has proved a stimulus and an inspiration in many a life; and, in spite of all the broken resolutions, the world is on the whole much better because of a certain fresh impulse to right living which this day always brings.

Nature has her New Year in the lovely springtime, the time of budding leaf and blossoming flower and nesting bird. Yet for us human beings the real New Year's Day of work is neither the first of January nor the twenty-first of March, but the early autumn. At that time activities of all sorts that have been dormant throughout the summer take on renewed life. The stores and shops have a new air of briskness and prosperity; churches that have languished during the vacation season now settle down to their wonted usefulness; benevolent organizations open up their year's campaign; the great army of teachers and students return to their work rested, freshened and recreated by the long vacation and ready for new tasks. There is a feeling of joy and strength in the very air.

Part 2

There is possible at this time, for every student and teacher, a very real "new start in life." I myself never get over a strange sense of exhilaration as I realize that another volume of the book of life has closed and that I am just opening a new one. Never do I cease to be strangely moved by the thought of the great opportunity that is mine, the opportunity to retrieve the mistakes of the past. Never do I fail to be grateful for the privilege of leaving behind me all the blunders and failures of former years and of beginning life anew.

The student who goes back to the school where other years have been spent finds much that is different. There are always some new studies, and no two years ever see quite the same combination of teachers and pupils. Here, then, are opportunities which may be fraught with momentous consequences. Some fresh subject may awaken dormant powers, some new teacher may call forth undreamed-of possibilities, some friend not yet discovered may add new meaning to life.

But the greatest changes are likely to come to the student who, for the first time, goes away from home to school or college. Such an event has been the turning-point in the lives of thousands of men and women. From that time date their most precious experiences. It was then that they really began to live. Dull and spiritless, indeed, must be the student who under such circumstances does not feel his soul stirred within him with wonder and with expectation. I have always appreciated the feelings of a young friend of mine, who was hardly able to close her eyes in sleep the night before she went away to school, so filled was she with joyful anticipation.

In going away to school among strangers, perhaps the most coveted opportunity you have is the privilege of taking only your best self with you. When we live and work with the same people day after day and month after month, they often get so used to us that they do not recognize the springing-up of new desires within us and the putting-forth of new effort, but remember only the faults and failings of the past. When we go away among those who do not know us, however, our shortcomings will never be discovered unless they manifest themselves anew. Have you made mistakes in the past? Have you blundered and have you failed, not once, but over and over again? Have you been selfish and inconsiderate of the rights of others? Let no one guess from your conduct now that such has ever been the case. Have you been indolent, wasting your time, and placing too high a value upon things not worth while? Among strangers these faults may be buried, never to come to life again. You will be judged by what you are, not by what you have been.

It is well to cultivate the habit of mind which lets the dead past bury its dead. This was St. Paul's attitude toward the things of the past. "Forgetting the things which are behind, I press forward." There are, of course, many memories of the past that one would never wish to forget, memories of uplifting associations and of victories over weaknesses that give courage and strength for the future. Along with these, however, there are memories of mistakes and failures now irremediable but which, though they cannot be effaced, can, in a measure, be atoned for by the future. Constantly to look backward with pain and regret only paralyzes one's energy. The fact that much is expected of you for the future should put you on your mettle and call forth your highest powers.

Your duties and obligations to yourself and to others may, for the most part, be placed in four classes. You have an intellectual life, a moral and spiritual life, a social life, and a physical life. Your problem will be to adjust to one another the various claims upon you from these different sources. This is not an easy task. It is so difficult, that, because of inability to make the adjustment, many make shipwreck of what seemed to be a promising career. Indeed, he is a wise person who at any age has his life so harmoniously balanced that none of these different claims unduly crowd the others. Most of us are more or less one-sided. The best that we can say is that we are working toward the goal of perfect adjustment. Few reach it.

There are in so-called "society," for example, thousands of women who have so emphasized one side of their nature, the social, that all other sides are dwarfed. Life is one constant round of balls and dinners and social gayeties. What ought to be the spice of life, or its dessert, has become the main dish of the feast. So in school and college there are always some who make social pleasures the main issue, forgetting all higher claims.

Continue reading Vesper Talks to Girls free in the Wunder reader →