There should be a new beatitude, and it should read, “Blessed is the man who hath the courage of his convictions.”  It should apply to poor, long-suffering women as well.  We have plenty of the sort of courage that will lead a man to step in front of a runaway horse, or dash into a burning house, or throw himself off a dock to rescue a perishing wretch, but there is a dearth of the kind of bravery that will enable either man or woman to face a laugh in defense of a principle, or succor a losing cause despite a sneer.  How the best of us will retreat trailing our banner in the dust, when the hot shot of ridicule confronts us from the enemy’s camp, or when some merry sentinel challenges us with the opprobrious epithet, “crank.”  Why, I believe there is hardly a man or woman to-day who would have the courage to march up to a half-grown boy and knock the cigarette out of his mouth, or tackle the omnipresent, from everlasting to everlasting expectorator and buffet him into decency, or drive the “nose-bag” and the “head-check” fiend at the point of an umbrella from all future molestation of the noble horse he persecutes!  We all believe in the extermination of public nuisances, but we have not the courage of our convictions to enable us to fight the fight of the just to overthrow the rampancy of the evil doer.

XXII.

Blessed be bashfulness.

Like the presence of a fresh clover in a meadow of sun-scorched grasses, or the sound of a singing lark in a council of crows, is the sight of a bashful child.  In this age of juvenile precocity and pinafore wisdom I would rather run across a downright timid boy or girl than drink Arctic soda in dog days.  Never be distressed, then, when “johnnie” hangs his head and blushes like a girl, or when his little sister stands on one foot and fairly writhes with embarrassment in the presence of strangers.  Count it rather the very crown of joy that you are the parent of a fresh and innocent child, rather than the superfluous attendant of a blase infant, who discounts a circus herald in “cheek” and outdistances a drummer in politic address and unabashed effrontery.  If I had my way I would put half the little mannikins and pattern dolls of our latter day nurseries into a big corn-popper and see if I couldn’t evolve something sweeter and more wholesome out of the hard, round, compact little kernels of their present individuality.  I would utterly do away with children’s parties and “butterfly balls” and kirmess dissipations.  There should be a new deal of bread and milk all around.  Every boy in the land should go to bed at sundown, and every girl should wear a sunbonnet.  There should be no carrying of canes, or eating of candy, or wearing of jewelry, or talking of beaux, and I would dig up from the grave of the long ago the quaint old custom of courtesying to strangers, of keeping silent until spoken to, and of universal respect for the aged.  This world would brighten up like a rose garden after a shower with the presence of so many modest little girls and bashful boys of the good old-fashioned sort.