We cannot understand such waits,
such slow progress. On the contrary, the fact that most impresses the
mind of a foreigner in our own streets is the hurry, impatience, rush
and scramble of American life. The people walk along the narrow streets
of Boston with such hurried steps, such deeply-seamed faces, such
infinite anxieties, as if they were about to adjust the foundations of
the earth, and had about two minutes to spare before applying the lever.
Go slowly, girls, and your work will last the longer.
Do not expect to complete your line of reading or study in one winter.
Do not await a large salary for the first year's work. Do not hope
to more than initiate a charitable society in one autumn. Then try
to remember the necessity of concentrating forces, and of bringing
your heaviest action to bear on one point: too many undertakings
dissipate strength and prostrate work. There is a great deal of poor
work done now; and it is said to have been somewhat mediocre so far
through the nineteenth century, because time enough has not been taken
to do thorough work. The strong desire is to get to the end of toil. We
have hardly time to think what to get for dinner or what to wear; but we
get something to eat when we are hungry, and go out into the cold
wearing a spring jacket.
Now, one good, strong word more for work. We are born to enjoy and
use it; civilization depends upon it, our womanhood is strengthened
by it, our talents increased, our chances of happiness multiplied,
and our service in every department of life is made worthier by the
doing with our might just what lies before us.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73