Vesper Talks to Girls. Laura A. Knott

Life is full of opportunities for new beginnings. Courage and hope go out of a person only when he ceases to believe that for him there is one more chance to retrieve the mistakes of the past. George Eliot says, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Such a conviction is necessary if we would live lives of power. There is a sonnet by Senator Ingalls in which Opportunity is represented as saying—

“Soon or late

I knock, unbidden, once at every gate!

· · · · · · ·

… those who doubt or hesitate,

Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore.

I answer not, and I return no more!“

One who saw life from a different point of view^[1] replied by a poem on the same subject in which Opportunity says—

“They do me wrong who say I come no more

When once I knock and fail to find you in;

For every day I stand outside your door

And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.”

The latter view is surely the truer and more inspiring one.

To the person with the forward look and genuine enthusiasm there are ever-recurring opportunities for a fresh beginning. Indeed, there ought to be no one for whom each day does not commence the world anew. A well-known woman, noted for the inspiring and cheer-bringing quality of her life, used to say upon awakening each morning, “Another great, rich day!” There is no reason why every one of us should not hail each returning morning in this spirit.

New Year’s Day is proverbially the time for “turning over a new leaf.” The thought of the clean, fresh pages of another year so soon to be written upon has proved a stimulus and an inspiration in many a life; and, in spite of all the broken resolutions, the world is on the whole much better because of a certain fresh impulse to right living which this day always brings.

Nature has her New Year in the lovely springtime, the time of budding leaf and blossoming flower and nesting bird. Yet for us human beings the real New Year’s Day of work is neither the first of January nor the twenty-first of March, but the early autumn. At that time activities of all sorts that have been dormant throughout the summer take on renewed life. The stores and shops have a new air of briskness and prosperity; churches that have languished during the vacation season now settle down to their wonted usefulness; benevolent organizations open up their year’s campaign; the great army of teachers and students return to their work rested, freshened and recreated by the long vacation and ready for new tasks. There is a feeling of joy and strength in the very air.

There is possible at this time, for every student and teacher, a very real “new start in life.” I myself never get over a strange sense of exhilaration as I realize that another volume of the book of life has closed and that I am just opening a new one. Never do I cease to be strangely moved by the thought of the great opportunity that is mine, the opportunity to retrieve the mistakes of the past. Never do I fail to be grateful for the privilege of leaving behind me all the blunders and failures of former years and of beginning life anew.

The student who goes back to the school where other years have been spent finds much that is different. There are always some new studies, and no two years ever see quite the same combination of teachers and pupils. Here, then, are opportunities which may be fraught with momentous consequences. Some fresh subject may awaken dormant powers, some new teacher may call forth undreamed-of possibilities, some friend not yet discovered may add new meaning to life.

But the greatest changes are likely to come to the student who, for the first time, goes away from home to school or college. Such an event has been the turning-point in the lives of thousands of men and women. From that time date their most precious experiences. It was then that they really began to live. Dull and spiritless, indeed, must be the student who under such circumstances does not feel his soul stirred within him with wonder and with expectation. I have always appreciated the feelings of a young friend of mine, who was hardly able to close her eyes in sleep the night before she went away to school, so filled was she with joyful anticipation.

In going away to school among strangers, perhaps the most coveted opportunity you have is the privilege of taking only your best self with you. When we live and work with the same people day after day and month after month, they often get so used to us that they do not recognize the springing-up of new desires within us and the putting-forth of new effort, but remember only the faults and failings of the past. When we go away among those who do not know us, however, our shortcomings will never be discovered unless they manifest themselves anew. Have you made mistakes in the past? Have you blundered and have you failed, not once, but over and over again? Have you been selfish and inconsiderate of the rights of others? Let no one guess from your conduct now that such has ever been the case. Have you been indolent, wasting your time, and placing too high a value upon things not worth while? Among strangers these faults may be buried, never to come to life again. You will be judged by what you are, not by what you have been.

It is well to cultivate the habit

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