"There is no end to the sufficiency of character. It can afford to wait; it can do without what it calls success; it cannot but succeed. To a well-principled man existence is victory. He defends himself against failure in his main design by making every inch of the road to it pleasant. There is no trifle and no obscurity to him: he feels the immensity of the chain whose last link he holds in his hand, and is led by it."
Perhaps no other every-day virtue counts for so much in the general welfare of the world as the adapting of one's self to, and the making the most of, one's immediate surroundings. It is in the hundreds of little, unrecorded deeds of kindness and goodness that we lay the foundations of character. And because these humble lives, that mean so much to the other humble lives with which they come into touch, are never specifically named and shouted by the multitudinous tongues of type, that many fail to see in them the elements of true and noble achievement with which they are crowned. "The most inspiring tales," it has been truly said, "are those that have not been written; the most heroic deeds are those that have not been told; the world's greatest successes have been won in the quiet of men's hearts, the noblest heroes are the countless thousands who have struggled and triumphed, rising on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things."
Since it is these humbler every-day virtues that one is called upon oftenest to exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent that the one who possesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestly has the greatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration of others. It is of a girl possessing this fine adaptability to the world's workaday surroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture: "Shall I tell the kind of girl that I especially adore? Well, first of all, let us take the working girl. She is not a 'lady' in the acceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of this latter day's hybrid democracy. She is just a blithe, cheery, sweet-tempered young woman. She may have a father rich enough to support her at home, but for all that she is a working girl. She is never idle. She is studying or sewing or helping about the home part of the day. She is romping or playing or swinging out of doors the other part. She is never frowsy or untidy or lazy. She is never rude or slangy or bold. And yet she is always full of fun and ready for frolic. She does not depend upon a servant to do what she can do for herself. She is considerate toward all who serve her. She is reverent to the old and thoughtful of the feeble. She never criticises when criticism can wound, and she is ready with a helpful, loving word for every one. Sometimes she has no father, or her parents are too poor to support her. Then she goes out and earns her living by whatever her hands find to do. She clerks in a store, or she counts out change at a cashier's desk, or she teaches school, or she clicks a typewriter, or rather a telegrapher's key, but always and everywhere she is modest and willing and sweet.