Parker's Second Reader: National Series of Selections for Reading, Designed For The Younger Classes In Schools, Academies, &C.Parker, Richard Green
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Parker's Second Reader: National Series of Selections for Reading, Designed For The Younger Classes In Schools, Academies, &C.
Parker, Richard Green
Readers (Elementary); Recitations -- Juvenile literature
4. But you cannot receive affection, unless you will also give it. You
cannot find others to love you, unless you will also love them. Love is
only to be obtained by giving love in return. Hence the importance of
cultivating a cheerful and obliging disposition. You cannot be happy
without it.
5. I have sometimes heard a girl say, "I know that I am very unpopular
at school." Now, this is a plain confession that she is very disobliging
and unamiable in her disposition.
6. If your companions do not love you, it is your own fault. They cannot
help loving you, if you will be kind and friendly. If you are not loved,
it is a good evidence that you do not deserve to be loved. It is true,
that a sense of duty may, at times, render it necessary for you to do
that which will be displeasing to your companions.
7. But, if it is seen that you have a noble spirit, that you are above
selfishness, that you are willing to make sacrifices of your own
personal convenience to promote the happiness of your associates, you
will never be in want of friends.
8. You must not regard it as your _misfortune_ that others do not love
you, but your _fault_. It is not beauty, it is not wealth, that will
give you friends. Your heart must glow with kindness, if you would
attract to yourself the esteem and affection of those by whom you are
surrounded.
9. You are little aware how much the happiness of your whole life
depends upon the cultivation of an affectionate and obliging
disposition. If you will adopt the resolution that you will confer
favors whenever you have an opportunity, you will certainly be
surrounded by ardent friends.
10. Begin upon this principle in childhood, and act upon it through
life, and you will make yourself happy, and promote the happiness of all
within your influence.
11. You go to school on a cold winter morning. A bright fire is blazing
upon the hearth, surrounded with boys struggling to get near it to warm
themselves. After you get slightly warmed, another school-mate comes in,
suffering with cold. "Here, James," you pleasantly call out to him, "I
am almost warm; you may have my place."
12. As you slip aside to allow him to take your place at the fire, will
he not feel that you are kind? The worst dispositioned boy in the world
cannot help admiring such generosity.
13. And even though he be so ungrateful as to be unwilling to return the
favor, you may depend upon it that he will be your friend as far as he
is capable of friendship. If you will habitually act upon this
principle, you will never want friends.
14. Suppose, some day, you were out with your companions, playing ball.
After you had been playing for some time, another boy comes along. He
cannot be chosen upon either side, for there is no one to match him.
"Henry," you say, "you may take my place a little while, and I will
rest."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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