... These are sound steps in life, set down by a singular woman's pen, which we are delighted to see return, after a long absence, to contribute to the editing of this magazine ...
Life is the great school and the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge. It delivers its varied lessons to all creatures: some profit from them and take heed, and some pay no mind and give no care — and perhaps the second group receives a larger share of ease and contentment... Yet we were created to suffer much and be happy little, and it is well known that the intelligent man suffers by his mind, for the wider his knowledge spreads and the more his learning grows, the more numerous his thoughts become and the greater his worries and problems. If a person takes lessons from life, acts upon them, and takes heed from what befalls others, he will have spared himself long toil and gained a benefit that helps him face life itself and solve its various problems.
Life has taught me, ever since I began trying to understand this strange life, important things which I came to believe in after experience, and which I have come to reckon with and keep before my eyes. Among these things is that we were created to taste, in turn, ease and contentment, misery and hardship — and the scale of hardship most often tips heavier in a person's life. This is nothing strange, for the constitution of nature proceeds on this very pattern: our days are half night and half day, half darkness and half light, and the serenity of the days is often clouded, so that they lose their light and their contentment. So the person who wants peace of mind and soul must not expect prosperity and contentment on every day of his life, but must stand ready for emergencies and surprises, however varied and different their forms. If the scale of contentment tips in his favor, he receives it then with thanks and acceptance; and if the scale of misery tips against him, he receives it likewise with thanks and acceptance — and thereby he will have spared himself much hardship.
Life has taught me that victory and success in it seldom come to a person spontaneously, by way of chance; rather, the attainment of
one's aim in individual endeavors, and success for groups, is most often the child of continuous diligence and long effort. How
many a scholar has spent long years of his life — decades, even — studying, analyzing, and keeping vigil through the nights, until he arrived at a new invention or the discovery of a modern medicine. There is no better proof of what I say than the example of the weak drop of water, which can bore through a great rock and crumble it to pieces if it keeps falling upon it for a long time, drop after drop...
Life has taught me that there is absolutely no use in complaint and grumbling when facing difficulties and falling into all manner of crises — and how many there are in every person's life! Grumbling avails nothing at all in such a case; rather, it adds distress to a person's distress and grief to his grief. Likewise, complaining to people does more harm than good: it may lighten the soul a little, but at times
it brings humiliation and gloating and many troubles afterward... The best way we can follow to overcome the difficulties we meet is to accept them with contentment, patience, and breadth of heart, and to consider them a natural matter in our lives, for no human being can escape tasting them. And the worry that clouds our serenity may weigh lighter upon us if we measure it against the kinds of worries that befall others.
Life has taught me that a person's safety lies in guarding the tongue. How often do disputes among people, and enmities among nations, arise from an unbalanced phrase or a hurtful word! If a person watches his tongue, he will have averted many problems he could well do without. How often a gentle word makes peace between two estranged hearts or two distant individuals — indeed, how many a soft, gentle phrase has turned a fierce, harsh creature into a meek lamb. I am certain that every person, with a little attention, can watch his tongue and train it to utter what pleases others and softens their sharpness, instead of uttering what wounds their dignity and pains them.
Life has taught me that the mother alone bears the first responsibility for the upbringing of her child, be it boy or girl. She can make of it a merciful, good human being, just as she can make of it a selfish, wicked creature — for the child is a pure white page in the mother's arms, and she is the first to inscribe upon it the lines of that child's inclinations, feelings, and morals. If the mother raises her child well — restraining it and turning it away from every vice, whatever its kind, and encouraging it to perform every virtue, however small its import, from its tenderest years — then she will have understood the importance of the role she plays and the gravity of the mission she carries out. And this requires exceeding care for the child and constant watchfulness over it. So I warn
mothers against neglecting their little ones' affairs, if they wish to be counted among the virtuous mothers, and not among the criminal mothers who hand over the reins of upbringing and guidance to servant girls and to alleys and streets!! The examples of what I say are very