High Noon
very woman who passes thirty
ought
to keep her brain, heart and mind
alive and warm with human sym-
pathy and emotion. She ought to
interest herself in the lives of others,
and make her friendship valuable
to the young.
She should keep her body supple, and avoid los-
ing the lines of grace: and she should select some
study or work to occupy her spare hours and to
lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman
in the comfortable walks in life can find time for
such a study. No woman of tact, charm, refine-
ment and feeling need ever let her husband, unless
she has married a clod, become indifferent or com-
monplace in his treatment of her. Man reflects
to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for
him.
Keep sentiment alive in your own heart,
madam, and in the heart of your husband. If he
sees that other men admire you he will be more
alert to the necessity of remaining your lover.
Take the happy, safe, medium path between
a gray and a gay life by keeping it radiant and
bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful,
hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip,
and be careful in your criticism of neighbors.
Sometimes we must criticise, but speak to people
whose faults you feel a word of counsel may
amend, not of them to others.
Make your life after it reaches its noon, glorious
with sunlight, rich with harvests, and bright with
color. Be alive in mind, heart and body. Be
joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness,
attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to
others' needs without being officious, and instruc-
tive without too great a display of erudition.
Be a noble, loving, lovable woman.
It is never too late in life to make a new start.
No matter how small a beginning may be, it is
so much begun for a new incarnation if it is cut
off here by death.
If I were one hundred years old, and in pos-
session of my faculties, I would not hesitate to
undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope
of bettering my condition.
Thought is eternal in its effects, and every
hopeful thought which enters the mind sets
vibrations in motion, which shall help minds
millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn.
It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide
opportunities and luxuries for children. We have
only to look at the children of the rich, to see
how little enduring happiness money gives, and
how seldom great advantages result in great
characters. The majority of the really great
people of the world, in all lines of achievement,
have sprung from poverty. I do not mean from
pauper homes, but from the homes where only the
mere necessities of life could be obtained, and
where early in their youth the children felt it
necessary to go into the world and make their
own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, energy,
ambition, were all developed in this way.
How rarely do we find these qualities in the
children of wealth. How rarely do great phil-
osophers, great statesman, great thinkers and
great characters develop from the wealthy classes.
Pauperism--infant labor--the wage-earning
women--are all evils I believe the worst thing
possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth.
It is an obstacle to greatness which few are strong
enough to surmount, and it rarely results in
happiness to the recipient.
The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Chicago : The Psychic Research Company, c1902.
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