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.
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