The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-02-28
Leaving Undone the Things
We Should Have Done.

If society has between" season
and there be those who say that 1t
hasnt-this is undoubtedly 1t. The
Lenten hour has arrived and fair peni-
tents there are a plenty, ready to re-
pent of the social sins of the winter
some going south to the American
Riviera, and clad in fine linen and sum
mer frills, while others are a-journey-
ing northward to the alluring realms
of Atlantic City, where ermine and
velvet and rolling chairs constitute
most luxurious penance. This power
full impulse to still view the pomp and
vanity of this sometime wicked world,
rather than the over-zealous who re-
main at home in the proverbial sack
cloth and ashes"
There is hardly a woman of fashion
who has been going the pace during
the season, who has not put aside the
thousand and one things till Lent"
when worlds of things left undone
would be accomplished.
My friend Bettina has been talking
ever since November when the rush
of social duties formally began about
what she was going to do during Lent.
Says she; 81 am going to set to work
Immediately to finish embroidering that
set of under waists I have had on hand
for oh so long.
81 am going to do all of my reading
that has been neglected during this
Rwfully busy season.
II am going to do all my charity
errands, visit the sick, minister to the
poor, and help the needy-things I have
been fearfully neglectful of all during
the winter.
Il am going to walk miles every day
and get myself In good physical con
dition so that after Easter 1 will feel
equal to the social duties required of
me.
Il am going to call on all mothers
nice old lady friends who scold me con-
tinuously for neglecting them and get
that well off my mind.
Il am going to answer every letter I
owe, and thank the rest of the people
I haven't been polite to, for the Christ
mas presents they sent me-
Il am going to bed early every night
and get some beauty sleep and try TO i'm
prove my health and my looks thereby"
Il am going to attend all the Lenten
services every day in the week and as
many times on Sunday
am not one of the IT told you So
kind. Heaven deliver us from this
bromide commonplace, but I am specu-
lating as to how many of these things
my good friend will accomplish during
what she terms vacation, socially speak
ing l fear that Bettina is over ambitious
and that at the end of the 40 days the
heroine OF this little story will find her
self still deferring many of these reso-
. buttons 70 future time.
y Let me see. Do we not credit the fact
that the fires of ambition which grew
Unto a holocaust of concurring purpose
were lit in the breast of the great Bona
parte by reading "Plutarchs Lives? The
old Greek fascinating brochures of Cicero
and Demosth have set many tongues
IL Id IA hi fifaf4g Asa-,
of many hearts-but isn't there such
thing as being too ambitious?
To my humble mind one thing well
accomplished and pursued. is worth 50
half done, half wrought, plans that only
a giant mind could surmount.
Instead of resolving that myriads of
things will be done during the Lenten
season isn't it far worthier of comment
that women chose some one thing left
undone and do it at this time?
The reading of one book intelligently,
the daily attendance of one service in a
devout frame of mind, the making of one
call on a friend with good cheer and hap
piness radiating from every fiber the do
ing of one piece of needle work careful
ly and perfectly-are not these things far
more to be approved than multitudinous
duties half performed?
The truth of the matter is, we all try to
do too much. It's what We call for want
of better name "Americanitis." It's
rush and hustle and confusion. and try
ing to get ahead. and confusion to keep
up with the procession, and thereby leay-
Ing undone many of the things that we
ought to do. and more frequently doing
the things that we ought not to do
OF course l am not trying T. argue
my friend Bettina out of her obsessions
for / only hope she may be able to ac-
complish all the things that she has re-