Chapter 7 THE COMMONPLACE.

Commonplace! Why, what is commonplace? Were it not better to call all things ordinary, or else nothing common? I suppose the pyramids are commonplace to the Egyptians, and St. Peter's to the Romans, drawing forth no words of wonder unless on special occasions; just as the stars, in their thronging pilgrimage across the sky, elicit no remarks from us, unless one falls out of the procession; and just as the dawn comes to us unfolding the new day without our ever greeting it, unless it be heralded with pomp of crimson and gold.

Travel over the world, make your path a belt around the earth, visit all that is wonderful, and see all races of people,-do this without ever thinking deeply on the objects presented to sight or mind, and all things will become commonplace, unsatisfactory, dull, dronish.

Believe me, girls, there is nothing commonplace that is worth thinking about. And, pray, has God made any object which is not worth a thought?

Are you living in a city, girls, surrounded by opportunities for improving your mental faculties; blessed by association with persons of refinement; favored with that peculiar culture which only great cities can freely offer in their art-galleries, their museums, their lecture-rooms; and stimulated to do good to the poor about your streets? You are, indeed, favored: your lot is an enviable one.

Do you live out of town, and quite removed from the attractions of a metropolis? Ah! your home, then, is under clearer skies, which the city artists can only imitate; you live amidst the decorations which highest Nature imparts but to country landscapes. Without the especial occupations of city life, you escape its rush and tumult. You are being taught by slower, yet as attractive, methods, the grand lessons of life. The instruction which comes from woods and streams and hills, and the intercourse which arises among hearty country people, are more thorough and more cordial than the brick walls and hurrying crowds of a city can afford. Your chances for even aesthetic culture are not to be despised. Though you see fewer objects of art, listen to fewer men of genius, perhaps are obliged to be less among books, you learn to know the artistic works more truly, you appreciate the lecture more fully, and you remember the books you read longer.

Is your home by the ocean, on some sterile length of sand or rock, and amongst sea-faring people? Still, you are girls to be envied; for the sea has grand thoughts to tell you, and the rocks are full of meaning. The bracing air, the salt breeze, the impetuous beat of the sea, must arouse energy within you which even the heat of summer cannot wholly allay. Surely, the hospitable, the generous-hearted, people of your town must prove to you the worth of intercourse with them.

Considering, now, the position of a girl in her home, in society, in the world, I suppose we must make the confession that a large part of the discontent we have found among girls has arisen from dissatisfaction with their positions. Her resources, her industries, her pleasures, are all too narrow for her, the girl complains. Now, my dear girls, just think one moment! Isn't it rather your ignorance of your surroundings, your lack of effort to find out everything good and joyful in them, which have made you discontented? Don't you think you may be looking for something above your heads which really lies under your hands? Have you made the most of what you already possess? When one has seen England and France, then one is seized with an ardent desire to visit Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain. When a girl has a watch, she feels a great longing for a diamond. The means of gratifying one wish are the surest passports to another wish. Oh, yes! it is well to be dissatisfied sometimes. It is never quite right to be fully contented, after a noble endeavor; but do let us stop, now and then, to see if our present condition, and what it brings to us, have not something in them as good as the future can offer.

Would it not be a good rule to make, never to get a new book till we have read the last one we bought; not to look at the second picture in the gallery till we have some idea of the first we see; not to climb Mount Washington till we have had the view from the hills in our own neighborhood?

But I suppose you think that persons, rather than objects, are commonplace,-that even some girls are so? Well, it may be you have the truth on your side; but I should as soon think of commonplace flowers, or gems, or rainbows, as of commonplace girls. You remark, "Oh, she is very ordinary, is not at all interesting! She is neither cultured, rich, stylish, nor pretty. She is stupid!" Ah, girls, girls, do you really know what she is, or what she may become? A girl commonplace! Suppose she is not lively, is not fond of parties, does not use slang appropriately at all, is utterly ignorant of the last freak of fashion, and hardly knows whether her skirt is draped or plain; suppose she has, on the whole, a rather forlorn appearance, being pitifully unconscious of what is unbecoming in dress, or gait, or habit; suppose, in fact, she does not at once show you she has any special faculty,- well, I have seen such a girl win a prejudiced person completely, and show that, though it cost patience to get acquainted with her, the acquaintance was worth every effort. A girl of this kind often takes us by surprise, and proves reliable in an emergency. Something remarkable is done, and we want to know who did it! We are amazed when we hear in answer the name of some quiet girl of whom we had never thought much, and we exclaim, "Why, I did not know she could do any thing! Where did she ever get the courage? I didn't know she had a speck of brains, or heart, or any kind of faculty,-no brilliancy to her!"

Yes, girls, it must be charming to be brilliant, to be apt at repartee, to scatter bright remarks among a company as a queen scatters largess among the throngs on coronation day, to have a following in society who are like ladies in waiting. Oh, it must be delightful, for a while, to be a society heroine! You know just such a girl. She leads a dozen in her steps, and her remarks are quoted whenever the dozen are together. Ah, she is so much admired! The way in which she lets a stray look hang down over her forehead, the becoming toss of her head, the coquettish raising of her eyes, the shrug of her shoulders, the ring of her laugh,-the way she does every thing with her pretty face, her graceful form,-is so lovely! She is such a very "bright" girl too! Yes, "bright" is the word now used to distinguish one who is in appearance somewhat more than the average person.

But, girls, why not say that your friend is pretty, graceful, good-natured; that she dresses becomingly, is rather cultivated in her tastes; that she is confident of herself, and a little conceited and imperious; that she is quick, and ready with somewhat pert answers; and that she is seen at her best in society?

In spite of frowns and closed ears, girls, I am going to insist that all the attractions of a brilliant, or outwardly beautiful, girl are as nothing compared with the attractions of character which spring from many a plain, modest, quiet girl. Are you to wear your choicest attributes as you do your clothes? A sure, strong arm in danger, a gentle word in sorrow, an honest bit of counsel in doubt, courage in times of trial, hearty praise in periods of endeavor,-all qualities which have their origin in noble character,-you will come to feel are infinitely better than brilliancy. You will appreciate them in those from whom external beauty has departed, or you will recognize the loveliness of these characteristics in the ever-living beauty which the soul draws upon faces otherwise plain and homely. Cultivate that power of insight which will enable you to look beyond eyes and nose and mouth into the heart and soul of your friends: then you will see beauty indeed, then you will know how precious and how beautiful a woman's mind and a woman's character is. Then you will understand how the poet writes her song, how the artist paints her rose, how the musician meets out harmonies, how the teacher makes truth attractive. More than this-much more than this-will come from insight. When you have learned to look for inner beauty you will learn to make it your own. Behind your lovely faces and your beautiful forms there will be nourished the loftiest ideality of womanhood, which will make you not only comprehend the worth of another, but will help you to interpret all that is best and loveliest everywhere. It's very sweet to us to recall that such women as Alice and Phoebe Cary, Helen Hunt, Mrs. Browning, and Jean Ingelow were able to express in words such beautiful thoughts as could arise only from beautiful souls; but it is dearer yet to remember that women, whose numbers cannot be counted, are living those thoughts by daily acts. Learn to lift the cover from the casket of a woman's soul and you shall see jewels that never yet have been exposed to the glance of one who looks for them in sparkling eyes, in glowing cheeks, and radiant hair. If there is any thing most sweet and lovely, any thing which ought to distinguish one girl from another, it is character.

I wish, as a favor to your friend who now talks with you in print, since she cannot speak with you face to face,-I wish you would read an essay on "The Beautiful," to be found among the prose works of Whittier. There is such delicate admiration of womanliness in it; there is so much encouragement, so much love of that beauty which shows itself in character, rather than in form and presence; there is such an emphasis put to the truth that from the purity of our own minds and hearts come our knowledge of the beautiful, and our ability to find the beautiful everywhere. "'Handsome is that handsome does!-hold up your heads, girls!'... Be good, be womanly, be gentle, generous in your sympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not lack kind words of admiration. ... Every mother's daughter of you can be beautiful. You can envelop yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smoke-stained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs, and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words of compassion. Lovely to the homesick heart of Park seemed the dark maids of Sego, as they sung their low and simple song of welcome beside his bed, and sought to comfort the white stranger who had 'no mother to bring him milk, and no wife to grind him corn.' Oh, talk as we may of beauty as a thing to be chiselled from marble, or wrought out on canvas!... what is it but an intellectual abstraction, after all? The heart feels a beauty of another kind. Looking through the outward environment, it discovers a deeper and more real loveliness."

Girls are so often afraid of the commonplace in people that they will not marry unless some one, with a true or false claim to distinction, offers himself. We have seen quite a company of girls charmed with the "de" or the "von" attached to a man's name. Every foreign capital can show its scores of American girls who have made themselves ridiculous by giving up property, home, American ideas, and American ways,-alas! by giving up much that stands for character,-for the sake of marrying a "pendant to a moustache," said moustache belonging to a worn-out title, and being in need of money to keep its ends waxed. Why, girls, just think! a hundred thousand dollars for the privilege of being called the wife of Monsieur le Comte de Rien, and of living, eventually, in an attic on the outskirts of Paris!

Why is it that if a young man has not certain points of distinction in the way he combs his hair, wears his collar, or affects the English gentleman, some of the girls hesitate about receiving his attentions?

If they do finally accept his kindness, they feel obliged to excuse his commonplace appearance, and exclaim to their friends apologetically, "But, then, he is really good at heart, you know, and very agreeable!" Oh, pride is a valuable characteristic sometimes, but is one of the worst of evils when it tries to despise the ordinary.

Do you not think we should all be happier, girls, if we took more time to appreciate the commonplace? I have observed in the lives of great naturalists, that not only the stone which all other builders had rejected became the head of the corner in their temple of knowledge, but that the most patient observation of simplest things was the material out of which the edifice was made. Thoreau wanted to account for the fact that when a pine grove is cut down an oak forest often grows up; so he went, each year, to visit a pine lot in Concord. In his earliest observations he could see nothing except pines; but, burrowing around in the leaf-mould, he found, at last, tiny oaks an inch or two high. Year after year he visited the grove; still he could observe no special growth of the oaks. Finally the grove was cut down. Up sprang the tiny oaks, and flourished in the light and sunshine now freely admitted to them. Thick and tall, they grew into a very forest, and the pines had never a chance to rise up and crowd them out. Do you think the naturalist's search stopped then? Oh, no! He next found out how the tiny oaks came among the pines; he inquired into the habits of squirrels as planters, into the character of winds and birds as farmers and bundle-boys; and was at length able to account for the succession of our forest trees.

The commonplace will never advance to meet us; but have faith in its intrinsic merit, look for beauty, and you will find it. Could you predict that from the plants lying in the stagnant pool such a perfect flower as a lily would spring? If you were passing a low, thatched cottage made of rough stone, its only pretence being a coat of whitewash, would you guess it held a poet? And, if you were riding along in a horse-car, interested only in the foreign-looking faces and the remarkable clothes, would you be likely to know that a great philanthropist sat beside you? No, not unless you had learned to observe more wisely than most girls; and not unless you had found out the noble worth of certain ordinary men and women whose faces are not pictured in books, nor raised on medallions.

How cautious we ought to be in forming our judgments! Have you never made the mistake of replying carelessly to one whom you thought was stupid, but whom you discovered to be a person of marked ability? The older we grow, the more we are amazed at our lack of good sense in framing an opinion of those whom we meet. We are so frequently surprised at what persons do or become, we feel we can never be sure that any one is common, or of the every-day sort. We almost believe Novalis speaks the truth when he says, "We touch Heaven when we touch a human body." Let us remember then, girls, not to trust our first impressions. In forming our judgments let us be very sure our knowledge is sufficient to tell which are the sheep and which are the goats, before we begin to separate them.

Just once more let me insist on the necessity of training the observation for enjoyment of the commonplace. We call things stupid, dronish, monotonous, because our faculties are not sufficiently exercised to see any other qualities in them. Do you not suppose an artist sees more in a birch swamp than we do? Is not even he likelier to be successful in painting new wonders in the commonplace than in trying to show objects we seldom see?

Have you never noticed Albrecht Durer's drawing of Praying Hands? Look at a photograph of it, please. Is it not wonderful? We cannot describe all the feeling those hands suggest. If you had passed them on the street, you would not have noticed them, unless to remark that they were grimy, perhaps, or lean. The great German artist saw them folded in prayer, and heard all the language of a despairing soul as it came out in the expression of those hands,-wonderful hands, "instinct with spirit." Look at them again, girls.

We talked about commonplace duties when we spoke of work. Let me repeat here that life is made up of commonplace deeds. We do not have great national disturbances every day; and the surest proof that we have greater need of common events rather than startling ones, ordinary duties rather than extraordinary, is, that the moment we scorn an ordinary occurrence, or omit a daily duty, we find ourselves and every one else miserable, for a while, at least. We are stopping a part of the machinery necessary to human happiness. Let us not despise the lowliest duties. George Macdonald, the writer who has given strength to the souls of so many people, was contented to write, "If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God."

Do you begin to think, girls, I would have you always prosaic, plodding, self-satisfied, unambitious? Oh, no! do not understand me so. Why, I believe that even dreaming about doing, and seeing, and having things is sometimes very helpful, and not at all inconsistent with the commonplace. It is almost necessary for some people to build air-castles. They get more real pleasure in them than they would from real castles on the Rhine, the Danube, or along the rivers of sunny France. Have you never read Curtis's "Prue and I"?

Ah, how beautiful it is to be dreaming about a future, though it may never come true!-to be floating on the sunset tide of Venice; to be journeying over the passes of the Alps in summer, and always approaching Mount Blanc; to be resting by the fountain in Alhambra's Court of Lions; to be gazing at the Sistine Madonna in Dresden, or at the Ascension in the Vatican; to be dosing in an orange grove in southern California; to be awed by the deep canons of the Colorado, or to be filled with the sublimity of the Yosemite!

How glorious to be dreaming of what we will do when we are women with wills and purses all our own!-with long rows of books in our libraries, elegant pictures in our drawing-rooms, and oh! such beautiful boudoirs, all, all of our own; or, at least, a room which shall be a sanctum sanctorum, where the fire on the hearth never smoulders, and where loving friends, beautiful mementos, and peaceful thoughts make us always happy. How fine to fancy longings achieved, and present desires gratified!

All dreams, yes; but they do sometimes come out better than true. The only thing wiser than dreaming is doing,-working in such a way as to bring the distant near, and getting out of the veriest commonplaces the joy we fancied lay only in the future, in other lands, or only in dreams.

Build castles and dwellings out of the commonplace, and you shall see them shine with splendor, and glow with beauties which can never be exhausted. She alone is rich who has estates in her soul.