Don't, Girls!

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 6, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 10.

Don't think it absolutely necessary to your happiness that every afternoon be spent in making calls, or on the street, or shopping. Home is not a mere hotel, wherein to eat and sleep—too dreary to be endured without company from abroad; home work is not mere drudgery, but useful ministration to those we love.

Don't mistake giggling for cheerfulness, slang phrases for wit, boisterous rudeness for frank gayety, impertinent speeches for bright repartees. On the other hand, don't be prim, formal, stiff; nor assume a "company face," eloquent of "prunes, potatoes, prisms;" nor sit bolt upright in a corner, hands, feet, eyes, and lips carefully posed for effect. An effect will be produced, but not the one you wish. Nor yet sit scornfully reserved, criticising mentally the dress, manners, looks, etc., of those around you. Make up your mind that your companions are, on the whole, a pretty nice set of people (if they are not, you had no business to come among them); that there is something to respect and like in each of them, something to learn of all of them. Determine to have a nice time anyhow; then do your part to make it so. Be genial, cordial, frank. If you can play and sing ordinarily well, do not refuse to take your share in entertaining your companions in that way. You are not expected to be a Nilsson or Kellogg. If you cannot play or sing, say so frankly, and do not feel humiliated. You probably excel in some other accomplishment. Even if you do not, you can possess that one grand accomplishment to which all others are but accessories, that of being "a lady"—"a true woman, gentle and gracious, modest and lovable."

If God has favored you with the good gift of wit, of bright speech and clever repartee, use it freely, only keep back the sarcastic shaft that stings as well as shines. Let your wit brighten, but never burn.

If not so endowed, be content to listen and appreciate. Listeners are as needful as speakers. Your quick apprehension and pleased response will make you as welcome and valuable a member of society as the more lively girl.

Don't be vain! If God gives you the blessing of beauty, accept it as his gift, not your merit. You may take a sincere and innocent pleasure in it, and in properly adorning it, without vanity, if you but remember always that it is not the best thing nor the main thing; and strive rather for spiritual and mental beauty, which will abide when physical charms pass away.

Don't flirt. There is danger in playing with edged tools—to your own pretty fingers and careless heart as well as to ruder masculine ones. Don't be forward, bold, careless. Men laugh, vote you "jolly, smart," etc.; but their real respect and admiration are for the modest girl, who needs no excuses made for her conduct. How often we see one after another of the quiet, gentle girls of a community led to the altar by worthy men—girls who never were considered "anything very special, simply nice girls" (recommendation enough)—while the saucy, reckless young belle, who was the observed of all observers wherever she went, and drew a circle of laughing men around her at every social gathering, gradually fades into a dissatisfied, neglected old maid. Some of the "nice girls" make old maids, too, but they make very nice ones.—Sel.