The Colored Girl Beautiful Part 8

She should not push or try to climb; she should bide her time. In the meantime she might improve herself; she might study the piano, elocution or singing, and prepare for the day when opportunity will open the long-closed social door.

The Colored Woman Beautiful.

In spite of everything to be said on the subject the womanly woman is always the strongest magnet whether she is called beautiful or not.

If the colored girl has not been taught by her mother or guardian to train herself for a beautiful maturity even after she has pa.s.sed girlhood, it is not too late to train herself.

Good begets good, so she will exert herself to make a wide circle of friends altho she will be careful not to grow too intimate with any. She may be a real friend without undue intimacy.

It is conceded that most women "must talk" to someone but too much intimacy means too much freedom and this often destroys friendship.

One cannot argue, quarrel, or criticize and still expect real friendship. One definition of a friend is, "One you know all about and still like." One should not try to "make her friends over" and one never says disagreeable things to her friends nor does she make unfavorable comments about their personal attire or weaknesses. She lets her friends learn all unpleasant things from others. "The links of the chain of friendship are held by a very delicate thread." The tiniest word, doubt or action may sever the links.

The colored woman beautiful will try to love that she may be loved. She believes that "man is his brother's keeper" and she has ideals and visions for the race. She has a moral obligation; she reaches out a helping hand to others. She can mix without being mixed. We can not help others unless we mix. There must be close contact--touch to lift up others.

The colored woman beautiful believes that everyone who gets up must pull up, or else she will be kept down by the weight of the racial burden.

Each one's welfare is closely bound with that of the ma.s.ses. The race as a whole must progress and prosper, or else no unit may prosper. The colored woman beautiful gives the best in her for race advancement. She works, thinks, and reads to be ready for the need of the tomorrow and its problems.

The colored woman beautiful will not carry "chips on her shoulder,"

looking for slights and insults. If she carries the thought too strongly it becomes catching and someone will take up the idea. She will set into motion lesser vibrations in the minds and bodies of others and the things she imagines will happen.

She should resist thoughts of suspicion. She must not think about the things she wishes to keep secret, for thoughts are contagious.

The colored woman beautiful does not call another woman "bad" just because she does not measure up to her ethical code. She must be so persistent in being good herself that everyone else seems to look and act good. If G.o.d loves the lowest, she can afford to do likewise. She follows the rule, "Judge not that ye be not judged." She does not make the mistake of criticising those who have not her strong will power, lest having stronger projection this unkindness may return swift and sure to her. To permit the absent to be disparaged or depreciated in her presence is almost as harmful to herself as if she had said things.

What is "good" in (another) woman? What is "bad" in (another) woman?

These are two difficult questions to answer and a woman must not judge by her own standard for herself. Women are inclined to be too narrow in their viewpoint in judging other women. While one may boast of her virtue of virtues some women may have a bundle of lesser virtues of which to boast. It takes more than one virtue to make a good woman.

Many women are unduly vain of their escape from the "sin of sins" and some of these may have known no temptation.

When one notes how many good friends a so-called "bad" woman may have, one wonders why it is. Those who understand the law of vibrations recognize that the woman has projected something of herself which has brought her a rich return in spite of her one weakness.

It is a terrible thing to be a bad example along any line to young girls, so every colored woman should try to conquer herself and live down any weakness or error. She should give out the best that is in her that she may be a good example to younger women. She lets the light of love and purity shine in her face and transform it, and it will reflect in the faces of others and make her own soul the happier.

The Colored Wife Beautiful.

Married life is a co-partnership and the wife and husband pledge to mutual help, when they enter into the marriage contract.

If in their girlhood wives had only studied men instead of giving up all their time to so-called "loving and courting," there would not be so much dissatisfaction, heart-ache and complaint after marriage. A girl should try to select a man with control over himself, over his voice, his emotions, even the angle of his hat, and then she should practice control herself, until the two dispositions have become adjusted to each other.

The ignorant girl who marries is full of trust and inexperienced notions. The disillusionments of life seem to come too fast to suit the majority. Many young wives immediately become discouraged or desperate and fall out of the ranks by the wayside of the matrimonial highway, without trying to live up to their end of the contract, or even respecting their own vows at the altar.

"True loving is giving the best within us." When we have company we give to them the best food, the best linen, the best china and silver-ware that we own. Yet to those we are pledged to love and cherish we give anything, and wonder why in return we have failed in receiving love and all that goes with it.

A divorce is a terrible "something." It is a blight to children and often means their ruin or the blasting of their future. If a woman has children she should try to endure her lot until they are grown. In the meantime she may prepare herself for a beautiful maturity and an entrance into the commercial world or another field of activity.

Of course, if one's husband deserts her there is nothing else to do but let him go, but if he clings to her and the home, she should use the protection that his name gives to her until she is sure that she can buffet the world alone.

In the larger field of public life a woman without the protection of a husband's name has a hard lot if she has physical or other attractions.

Widows of both kinds are always under suspicion. If one is lighthearted and enjoys even innocent pleasure, she may be called a "good timer," or "fast," and this may injure her advancement in the arena of business life.

The protection of the name of any kind of a man, bad, no account, or cruel, is better than the suffering from cruel suspicions which often blight the efforts of a sensitive woman, who perhaps in her loneliness has turned for sympathy this way and that way, until she concludes that if she suffers in name she may as well be "in the game," and chooses the wrong way.

If a woman has money it is quite different. People fawn upon her and she is less liable to snubbing if Dame Gossip should a.s.sail her.

The first duty of a wife is to keep healthy. Even if she is ailing she must not complain unless through mental suggestion she desires to increase her ailments, real or imaginary. She must earnestly endeavor to discover the cause of the alleged ailment and remove it.

The colored wife beautiful of today must be a composite woman because the colored man of today is many sided. They call woman a "creature of moods" but most men may easily be called susceptible and changeable creatures, when it comes to the attractions of the opposite s.e.x.

Today it may be a pretty face which allures him; tomorrow a fine conversationalist, or a musical person may attract. The next day a woman with tremendous vitality may charm him. So he wanders, but he does not intend to stray. One or several streaks in his make-up have been satisfied, but his wife still stands upon her pedestal as the woman who bears his name.

The up-to-date wife realizes his susceptibility (as a man) and is prepared. She bides her time when like the prodigal, he will surely return, perhaps mentally and morally purified and a wiser, if a sadder man.

If a woman loves her husband and desires to keep him for herself and family, she must train herself for her many varied duties including attractiveness, which is a real duty.

If she thinks that some other woman has her husband's affection, her thoughts help her to make this so. If she voices the suspicion she fertilizes the soil and aids the growth or she may crystallize and give form to rumor.

Even if there is ground for such a suspicion the up-to-date wife would not admit it to herself or voice the fact.

"Man's love is of man's life a part, 'tis woman's whole existence."

The inexperienced wives forget that they cannot satisfy every mood of a man without study or effort, unless they are remarkably gifted. Many a wife has neglected her mind, body and powers and when some woman with developed powers enters her marriage orbit, she flies off at a tangent, admits defeat and gets a divorce without putting forth an effort to win back the husband who is often worth saving.

It is humiliating to admit, "I have lost my husband!" A wife should never admit it, even in thought.

Many a man does not intend to stray and loves his wife but he has been carried off his feet just for the moment.

There are Keeley cures to save men, why not husband cures to save homes, especially those with children whose futures are at stake.

I know several colored women who have had good ground for doubting their husband's fidelity who have never allowed the men to know that they have doubted them.

One wife made a study of "the woman in the case" and threw her and her husband together in her home until the man was satiated. In the meantime she studied herself and the woman to see what it was that attracted her husband. Then she went into training for the match--war--if it should come to that--in attractiveness, and she won without telling her secret.

If a wife will give a man time and will play the attractive game as she did before marriage, her husband will soon turn his face homeward, and will wonder what the other charm was.

Many men are attracted by youth alone and after youth has flown they are not interested. A wife should study the fancies of her husband if she desires to hold him, and then begin work upon herself, to hold her youthful looks.

Wives must prepare for the dangerous age which they say comes to a woman between thirty-five and forty-five, and to a man from forty to fifty, when both are accused of being attracted to younger faces, and when they do foolish things. A wife must strengthen herself, lest she stray, and cultivate her own attractive powers lest her husband should incline to stray.

A man does not age as quickly as a woman. At fifty a woman is supposed to be on her decline while a man is in his prime at fifty.