The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-03-24
THE. HOME CORNER.


about genius. believe in its powers
and possibilities as earnestly as any
one can, but L think it is unfortunate
that young people get such an ex-
allied idea Of it. They learn to think
that without genius no one can ac-
complish anything, and with genius
it is not necessary to work at all. AS
for me, l am believer in the genius
of work. 1t is faithful, everyday per-
sistency that wins thousand battles
whose brilliant attachments alone win
q single one. The youth who gets an
idea that nature has made an orator
or a poet of him and that he need ex-
ert himself no further is on the high
road to dismal failure, which all his
friends will resent. Nature finishes
no piece of human work. The best
qualities she ever gives are given IN
the rough" and nothing. but hard
and persistent work will develop
them into anything worth having.
This is the very reason that dull per-
sistency, plodding away in its corner
of the schoolroom, and known
to the short sighted Dominic as
"the great blockhead," came after
wards to be known as "the Great
Magician. while the bright boy at
the head of his classes in that same
school is utterly swallowed up of OBJ
livion. 1t was not John Millions
genius alone that has given the world
cause to remember him, but he is re-
membered because he had the genius
of work, too; the endurance
ITO sit by the lone hearth and think the long
thought"
brilliant, but erratic' is comment
you hear only too frequently, on peo--
pie who might accomplish great
things, but VINO somehow never do.
Wherefore, if there are any bright
young people in your family, do not
start them out on the high road to-
ward being brilliant but cratic.
Teach them that the only true genius
is that of hard work.
~
Everybody expects mothers to be
self-sacrificing. That is mere mat
ter of course, too universal to excite
comment. The mothers that you and
know who are always at home and
always at work that their daughters
may be pretty and well-dressed and
have gay time-what a long list they
would make! But isn't it strange that
no one ever hears of a self-sacriticing
daughter Do you know of one who
makes it her business to tighten her
mothers cares; who ''stays by the
stuff while her mother goes out in
company and has a pleasant time;
who does not mind soiling her hands
little that her mother may nave
"resting spell,n after so many years of
toll? Is it not true that the number
of such girls you know is very small
indeed, even if there is one? The
melancholy truth is that these daught-
ers accept the sacrifice without muir
muir, and do not even see it or think OF
it. 1t never occurs to them that they
owe any duty to the mother at home.
1t is a pleasure to look at these pretty,
graceful girls, with the flush of health
on their cheeks and the fire of youth
full happiness in their eyes. 1t is
pleasure to see how soft and white
their hands are. how refined their
manners, how elegant their clothing.
But if the beholder could look beyond
these beautiful and attractive girls
to the homes they have left behind
them and the mothers in those homes
why that would give a truer picture
of the girls themselves than any artist
could take with the most improved
camera. A neglected mother, doing
servants work for her board and
clothes, winning not even gratitude
i'm return-earth has few sadder sights
than this. Scarcely once a year does
her daughter think to kiss the lips OF
the mother that has grown pale with
caring for her. The mother knows
that she is not welcome in the parlor
among her daughters guests The
daughter has not told her so, but she
has made her feel it; and the plain,
middle-aged woman sees that she is
out of place where youth and beauty
and elegance are all at their best.
Poor little mother! The days and
nights she has worn away caring for
that daughter in her helpless baby
hood; the long hours of sickness
through which she has nursed her;
the tender motherlove she has poured
out upon her, all her life long-and all
for this! Is it wonder that mothers
fade early?
~
This as an extreme case, you
say. Perhaps so. 1t should be
not only extreme but impossible.
There is no just cause
why any mother should so utterly
efface herself, and take the place of a
hireling in the house where she
should be mother. 1t is not best for
any girl that she should come to con-
slider herself as everything and her
mother as nothing. A course of train
ing like this will not only make her
an ungrateful and inconsiderate
daughter but will fit her to be sell
fish and exacting wife. There is no
reason why she should not share with
her mother the toll and the RESPONSE
bilities which that mother has borne