SKETCH XXIX
OUR FAIR DAUGHTERS
To the girls of Norfolk who, in this year of our Lord 1897, are anticipating the time when they shall preside over homes of their own, this sketch is especially dedicated. These daughters of ours will be the future mothers of “glorious old Norfolk”—not the wild, unbroken, forest-laden, beast-haunted Norfolk of a hundred years ago, but the cultivated, refined garden-strewn and home-dotted Norfolk of to-day. As their great-grandmothers were the pioneer mothers of the first century, so will they become the pioneer mothers of the second century of our history. The forces of evolution are not spent. Wonderful as have been the fruits of inventive genius during the past century, human thought has not yet reached its limit. On the contrary, it has but just awakened from a long dark night of profound sleep, and the marvellous inventions and discoveries of the last half-century which have revolutionized the conditions of life and given us so many comforts and conveniences are but the first visible signs of this awakening; and yet, when we compare the conditions of life a hundred years ago with those of to-day, it would seem that a point has been reached where further improvements are impossible. But the fact is, the era of thought is only beginning to dawn upon us, and what the result will be when the sun of the new day reaches high meridian is as far, or perhaps farther, from the scope of our imagination as were the present realities from the wildest imagination of our fore-fathers a century ago. Therefore, our daughters who will take up the solemn duties of wives and mothers at the beginning of the second century of our history will be the pioneers of that century; and when it , in turn, shall have passed away, young people will look back and wonder at the great changes which have taken place since the crude old times of their great-grandmothers, just as the young people now do. May God help these prospective wives and mothers to hold sacred the remembrance of these grand old pioneer mothers whose lives were devoid of so many of the comforts and conveniences which have been reserved for them, and may they fully appreciate the greater advantages which it is their blessed privilege to enjoy, and avail themselves of the grander and more varied opportunities for the development of a higher type of womanhood. If they do this they will prove true to their day and generation, and although the most advanced and latest improved means within their reach will appear as mere crudities in the brighter light which is to come, their great-grandsons will look back through the years and exclaim: “All honor to our brave old grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who toiled under so many disadvantages, and yet by persevering industry, trust in an overruling Providence and an unflinching fidelity to duty accomplished so much, and who, with all their hardships and inconveniences, were brave enough to make the best of their surroundings and be content with the possibilities that confronted them.
Every person must be viewed in the light of his or her surroundings, and be judged accordingly. This rule is not always observed. Sometimes we do our fair daughters a great injustice by judging them in the light of other days. We create in our imagination an environment for them, and then censure them for not being what it is impossible for them to be. In other words, we condemn them sometimes because they are not what other girls have been whose advantages or disadvantages were altogether different. We remind them of what their mothers or grandmothers did when they were girls, and we leave the disheartening impression upon their young minds that, somehow, there is a degenerating tendency in the family. This is all wrong. God bless our girls; they do not live in the days of their grandmothers, they live in their own days, and by the light of their own times they must stand or fall. Because they do not perform in the same kind of duties their grandmothers did, or because they perform the same duties in an easier, more expeditious, or different manner, is no evidence that they are made of poorer stuff, morally or otherwise. If God in His infinite wisdom had ordained that these refined, poetical, music-loving and music-making daughters who add beauty, dignity and grace to our homes, had been called into being at the same time and under the same circumstances as their grandmothers were, they would have been as brave, as true and as self-sacrificing as their grandmothers were; and if these dear old grandmothers had been held in reserve by the mysterious forces of nature for the times in which we live, they would have been as refined and cultured, and as graceful and charming as their granddaughters.
Purity of motive and action, persevering industry, patient and cheerful resignation to the inevitable, and a firm determination to grapple with the possible, are the four cardinal principles involved in the development of a true and noble womanhood. Let us see what this means.
1. Purity of motive and action. In our great-grandfathers’ days many foolish,
superstitious notions prevailed, which have been driven back into the regions of darkness whence they came by the dawning of the era of reason. These notions influenced the minds of our grandmothers to a greater or less extent in the regulation of their conduct and in the management of their household duties. For instance, they were averse to giving their daughters in marriage on a Friday, or the commencing of a new undertaking of any kind on that day. They were governed by the phases of the moon and the signs of the zodiac in pretty much everything they did. They made soap when the moon was in a proper phase, and to plant “cowcumber” seed when the moon “wasn’t” right was considered an act of gross ignorance on the part of anyone who desired a good supply of “pickles.” The unfortunate babe that was so thoughtless as to “cut its teeth” when the “sign wasn’t right” was expected to have a “harder time” of it, and cause its mother an extra amount of trouble. Roots, barks and herbs must be gathered in the “right of the moon,” and if “my ole man” killed the hogs in the “wrong of the moon” the “dickens” would be to pay in the “fryin’ of the fat.” But all these vagaries did not make the motives which prompted their acts one whit less pure. They lived in the days of the tallow candle, and they could not see as clearly as their granddaughters now see; and the duty of the latter is to walk in the brighter light as faithfully and as conscientiously as the former did in their lesser light.
2. Persevering industry. What young woman in Norfolk to-day can read the story of our
grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ lives in this old Long Point settlement without breathing out a prayer of thankfulness for the pleasanter places in which her lot is cast? How laboriously they toiled! With what perseverance they struggled right in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles and under the most trying difficulties; and what a wonderful work they accomplished by their persevering industry! When we read the story we are doubly impressed with the truthfulness of the old saying that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Our girls will not burn brush, spin, weave or cook on a crane, but they will have their duties just the same; and if the time not required in the care of the home be given to modern society work instead of “hetcheling” flax, they must remember that great achievements in this world of action are won only by determined perseverance.
3. Patient and cheerful resignation to the inevitable. Where this principle is not
imbedded in the very concrete of individual character, any degree of happiness or contentment is out of the question. To be content with our lot may be, and may not be, praiseworthy. If by the term “lot” we mean our surroundings, and these surroundings are bad, and the remedy for their improvement lies within our reach, then we should not be content with our lot. This would be indolence—a something not compatible with intelligible happiness. To be cheerfully resigned to the inevitable is simply to fret not and worry not over matters and things which are quite beyond our reach. To worry and fret over what we cannot help is to rob life of its sweetest joys; and why shouldn’t it? God has given us reasoning faculties, and it is His design that we shall make use of them for our own good; and when we worry and fret over the inevitable we throw aside our reasoning faculties, thereby transgressing the divine laws which govern our being, and we are made to suffer the penalty—and, surely, the withholding of happiness is the most terrible penalty that could possibly be inflicted upon us.
4. A firm determination to grapple with the possible. This is the secret of all true success in life. Cheerful resignation to the inevitable, and a firm determination to grapple with the possible, will lead to ultimate success. Hope is the mainspring of a busy life. The young woman who is about to assume the cares and responsibilities of a wife and mother in this prosaic life, and who is devoid of the heavenly gift of ideality, is an object of pity. Every girl should set up an ideal, and this ideal should be placed at the highest point within the limits of the possible, and reason must be the sole guide in fixing these limits. The ideal, therefore, should always come within the apparently possible, although in this short and fitful life it may be seldom, if ever, attained. To this firmly planted ideal is attached the beacon star of hope. The happiest and most useful lives are led by those who keep the signal-fires of hope ever aglow, and who are constantly striving to reach their ideal. Indeed, so much depends upon this daily striving that it would seem as though the ideal ought to be placed a little beyond the practicably possible, just within the confines of heaven itself, so as to make it utterly unattainable in this life. Then the star of hope would ever beckon us onward and upward, bringing us nearer and nearer to our cherished ideal until we reach the end of the boisterous journey of life—and then while we wait for the grim ferryman to row us over the turbulent stream that separates the impossible from the possible, we might behold, just across on the shining shore, our long-sought-for ideal. When the ideal is reached in this life hope is extinguished, and the sun of happiness goes down for ever. May the future wives and mothers of “glorious old Norfolk” place their ideals sufficiently high to enable them to make the best of this life and lead them across the border into the “perfect life that is to come.”