STRAY THOUGHTS FOR GIRLS

by

L. H. M. SOULSBY

"I sing the Obsolete"

New and Enlarged Edition

Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York and Bombay

1903

DEDICATED TO

GIRLS AT THE "AWKWARD AGE. "

 "An unlessoned girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd, Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn. "

PREFACE

What _is_ the awkward age?

Certainly not any special number of years. It is most frequently foundbetween the ages of thirteen and twenty-seven, but some girls never gothrough it, and some never emerge from it!

I should be inclined to define it as the age during which girls areasked--and cannot answer--varying forms of the question which soembarrassed the Ugly Duckling: "Can you purr--can you lay eggs?"

Most girls on growing up pass through an uncomfortable stage like this, inwhich neither they nor their friends quite know what niche in life theycan best fill--sometimes, because of their own undisciplined characters;sometimes, because the niche itself seems to be lacking. Whether thisstage be their misfortune or their fault, it is an unpleasant one--bothfor themselves and for their friends. With much sympathy for both, Idedicate these few suggestions to my known and unknown friends who arepassing through it. 

 L. H. M. SOULSBY. OXFORD, April 4, 1893. 

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

In bringing out a new edition, the book has been enlarged by adding paperson "Making Plans, " "Conversation, " "Get up, M. Le Comte!" "Sunday, " and "Agood Time;" "Coming out" has been omitted, and "Friendship and Love"somewhat altered. The present form has been adopted in order to make itmatch the other volumes of "Stray Thoughts. "

 L. H. M. SOULSBY. BRONDESBURY, Nov. 23, 1903. 

CONTENTS

 LINES WRITTEN ON BEING TOLD THAT A LADY WAS "PLAIN AND COMMONPLACE"

 THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN

 MAKING PLANS

 CONVERSATION

 AUNT RACHEL; OR, OLD MAIDS' CHILDREN

 "GET UP, M. LE COMTE!"

 A FRIDAY LESSON

 A HOME ART; OR, MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

 ESPRIT DE CORPS

 ROUGH NOTES OF A LESSON

 HOLIDAYS

 SUNDAY

 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

 A GOOD TIME

"The Sweet, Sweet Love of Daughter, "I have discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's whole life one can never have more than a single mother. You may think this obvious and (what you call) a trite observation.... You are a green gosling! I was at the same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet I never discovered this (with full evidence and conviction, I mean) till it was too late. "--_Gray's Letters_. 

"of Sister, "The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a Boy She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, And love, and thought, and joy. " Wordsworth. 

"and of Wife. "

 "The thousand still sweet joys of such As hand in hand face earthly life. " M. Arnold. 

 "I desired to make her my wife, knowing that she would be a counsellor of good things, and a comfort in cares and grief. For her conversation hath no bitterness; and to live with her hath no sorrow, but mirth and joy. "--_Wisdom of Solomon_. 

LINES

WRITTEN ON BEING TOLD THAT A LADY WAS "PLAIN AND COMMONPLACE. "

 You say that my love is plain, But that I can never allow When I look at the thought for others That is written on her brow. 

 The eyes are not fine, I own, She has not a well-cut nose, But a smile for others' pleasures And a sigh for others' woes:

 Quick to perceive a want, Quicker to set it right, Quickest in overlooking Injury, wrong, or slight. 

 Nothing to say for herself, That is the fault you find! Hark to her words to the children, Cheery and bright and kind. 

 Hark to her words to the sick, Look at her patient ways; Every word she utters Speaks to the speaker's praise. 

 "Nothing to say for herself, " Yes! right, most right, you are, But plenty to say for others, And that is better by far. 

 Purity, truth, and love, Are they such common things? If hers were a common nature, Women would all have wings. 

 Talent she may not have, Beauty, nor wit, nor grace, But, until she's among the angels, She cannot be commonplace. 

Arthur Heathcote. 

The Virtuous Woman. 

A FAREWELL BIBLE LESSON TO GIRLS ON LEAVING SCHOOL. 

 "Wisdom ordereth all things strongly and sweetly. "--WISDOM viii. 1 (Vulg. ). 

It would be interesting to make a "Garden of Women" from the poets, collecting the pictures of "Fair Women" they have drawn for us, but I wantto consider specially the ideal woman of that ancient poet Solomon, and tosee how far she can be translated into modern life. 

The subject ought to be considered by you who are leaving a school youhave loved and valued, and which you should commend to the world, byshowing that it has made you fit for home. Beaumaris School has a blankshield for its arms, with the motto, "_Albam exorna_, " "Adorn the white;"you are all starting with white shields, and you _can_ adorn the white: itis not only in Spenser that we find Britomarts. You are as much a band ofchampions as were King Arthur's Knights; you have all the same enemy, havemade the same vows, and for a year have been in fellowship, learning andpractising the same lessons: can you help feeling that there is aresponsibility laid on you, to see that the world shall be the betterbecause of you? Be like Sir Galahad with his white shield on which "abloody cross" was signed, when he had fought and won. 

You know that I admire the old-fashioned type of woman--the womanlywoman, --and you will not suspect me of wishing you to start off "on someadventure strange and new, " but I do want you not to be content to lead acommonplace life; you _must_, anyway, live your life: resolve that byGod's grace you will live it _nobly_. You cannot alter the outward form ofyour life, --you will probably be surrounded by very commonplace householdduties, and worries, and jars, --but you can be like King Midas, whosetouch turned the most common things to gold. We have it in our power, asEpictetus tells us, to be the gold on the garment of Life, and not themere stuff of which Fate weaves it. We can choose whether we will live aking's life or a slave's: Marcus Aurelius on his throne was a king, fornothing could conquer him; but Epictetus in chains was equallyunconquerable and equally a king. We all have the choice between the Crownand the Muck Rake, and I think we sometimes turn to the straws and therubbish, not because they are fascinating to us, but because they seemthe only things open to us: we do not feel as if our lives had anything todo with Crowns. If you think of your various homes from the point of viewof turning their "necessities to glorious gains, " and as a field forwinning your spurs, I suspect you are each feeling that this is very "talltalk" for such a commonplace home as yours. "All lives have an idealmeaning as well as their prose translation;" but you feel perhaps that youare sure to be swamped in little bothers and duties, and pleasures, anddulness and stagnation, so that you will find it hard to see any idealmeaning at all. This is not true, and to look on an ideal life as "talltalk" is a snare of the Devil; and in these days of common sense andhigher education we need to guard against it, and to remember that "athing may be good enough for practical purposes, but not for idealpurposes. " "Ideal life" is not tall talk, but our plain duty, unless ourLord was mocking us when He said, "Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heavenis perfect. "

To know our ideal is one step towards attaining it. "So run, not asuncertainly; so fight, not as one that beateth the air. " Before takingsuch a definite step in life as leaving school, it would be veryinteresting to draw up a plan of what you would like your life to be, andalso of what you hope to make of the life apparently before you, whichmay be very different from the life you would like. If you kept it, likesealed orders, for five years, it would be interesting to see how yourviews had changed, and how prayers had been answered in unexpected ways, and it would also be a solemn warning to see, as we assuredly should, thatwilful prayers had been heard to our hurt. 

Bacon, when he made a new start as Solicitor-General, made a survey of hislife, past and future, his faults and blunders, his strong and weakpoints, his hopes, the books he meant to read and to write, the friends hewished to make. I am sure that thinking over our own lives as a wholewould strengthen and guide us. We rush into action and fight our best, butwe do not make a plan of the campaign, and thus much of our energy iswasted by misdirected effort; and, in leaving a school-life of rule andregularity, you will be much tempted to slip through the day without thesafeguard of a life of Rule; but, until you _are_ the saints you are_called_ to be, you cannot afford to do without this help. We mustremember the warning of St. Francis de Sales against playing at beingangels before we are men and women. 

On the other hand, you will need to guard against the temptation to makeyour rules unbending and inconsiderate, to follow your ideal, heedless ofthe fact that you thereby become tiresome to your people. How often thehome people feel jealous of school, and say it has cut a girl off from herhome interests, that she comes back full of outside friendships andinterests and new principles. Of course she does; if not, what good wouldschool have done her? But she ought to feel how natural and how _loving_is this (often unexpressed) jealousy, and, by sympathetic tact, to avoidrousing it, and not to be always thrusting school interests down homethroats. The duty of a life of rule at home is all the more complexbecause home pleasures are duties too; if it was only a question ofself-denial it would be plain sailing, but your mother likes you to goout, and your brothers want you, and if you refuse to enjoy yourself ithurts them: if you even betray that you would rather be doing somethingelse, you spoil their pleasure, for a "martyr" to home duty is a mostdepressing sight to gods and men. And the complexity lies in the fact thatyou enjoy going, and conscience pricks you every now and then because younever read, and you seem to go through the day in a slipshod way, with nodefinite rule, --no daily cross-bearing, no self-restraint to give salt tothe day. At school you have a definite duty of self-improvement set beforeyou, and everything urges you to follow it. This remains a duty when yougo home, but it is very hard to reconcile it with the many things thatclash--not the least of these being our own laziness when the help ofexternal pressure is taken away. You have had intellectual advantages, andyou will be downright sinful if you fritter all your time away overflowers and tennis, and never read because you do not like to be thoughtunsociable: you are bound to improve your talents, but take it as yourmotto, that _rules should be iron when they clash with our own wishes, andwax when they clash with those of others_. 

Yet we must yield _sensibly_, and not allow our time to be needlesslywasted--at all events, by brothers and sisters and friends. It isdifferent with a father or mother: they are only lent to us for a part ofour lives, and no memory of sensible, useful work will be to us the samepleasure in after years as the thought of the time that passed morepleasantly for a mother because we spent it in idle (!) talk, or theknowledge that a father had enjoyed the feeling that we were always athand if he wanted us. A strong-minded woman might consider mattersdifferently, and feel that a language learnt, or a district visited, wasof more value, but we shall not be able to reason so when we see life inthe new light which death throws upon it; the little restrictions of homelife will then assume a very different aspect. 

Unless you are driven with an unusually loose rein, you will probably beirked by having to be punctual, and to account for your letters and foryour goings and comings; but if you ever feel inclined to resent it, justthink what it will be when you are left free--free to be late becausethere is no one to wait dinner for you, free to come and go as you willbecause there is no one who cares whether you are tired or not; some ofthese days you will give anything to be once more so "fettered. "

Higher education often makes girls feel it waste of time to write notesfor their mothers, and to settle the drawing-room flowers: they "must goand read. " Now, what mental result, what benefit to the world, will resultfrom an ordinary woman's reading, which can, in any way, be comparable tothe value of a woman who diffuses a home-atmosphere, and is always "atleisure from herself"? You know that I care very much for yourreading--you will have plenty to do if you read all the books I havebegged you to study--but if it gave your mother pleasure for you to be atthe stupidest garden-party, I should think you were wasting your timeterribly if you spent it over a book instead. Some people think ordinarysociety, and small talk, beneath them:--well! do not let the talk besmaller than you can help, but remember Goulburn's warning, "Despise notlittle crosses, for they have been to many a saved soul an excellentdiscipline of humility. "

But to come at last to Solomon's ideal--what is our first impression ofher? Surely it is _strength_, and we probably feel her strong-minded, andrather a "managing woman"--and, as a rule, these are not loved. I feelthat she wants some sorrow to humanize her--she would hardly be sorry forless prosperous, less sensible people: the modern feeling of, "the pity ofit, Iago, the pity of it!" has never gone home to her; she is not likeRuskin's "gentleman" who has tears always in his eyes, in spite of thesmile on his lips; she is not "quick to perceive the want" in the manylives, which are empty or crippled, though, perhaps, seemingly prosperous:things turn out well with her, and she deserves it, so the sight of herwould bring home a sense of undeservingness to the less fortunate; shecannot speak so as to be "understanded of" them; she is not one of thosewho have learnt that "_avoir beaucoup souffert c'est comme ceux qui saventbeaucoup de langues, avoir appris à tout comprendre, et à se fairscomprendre de tous_. " But the virtues Solomon describes need not result inthis type, which is antagonistic to us; extremes meet, and it is theexaggeration of a very lovable type--the woman who gives you the feelingof rest and protection and strong motherliness, who is as the shadow of agreat rock in a weary land. "The meekness and gentleness of Christ" istranslated by Matthew Arnold as the "sweet reasonableness, " and thismakes a very lovable woman. Sweet unreasonableness makes a more _taking_one, but not a _keeping_ one. Butterfly women have more fascinating ways, but Spring-time comes to an end--the day will come for all women whenothers will come to them to be ministered to, to be rested and soothed andraised. It is sad to watch many who have the faded pretty ways which oncewas all that was required of them, and who, in middle life, cannotunderstand why their belongings find them so inadequate! Long ago, Swiftwarned girls against making nets instead of cages, but they have not alllearnt wisdom yet. And the main point is, not how you can get, or give, most amusement, but how you can give most comfort; and no one goes to aweak person for that. There are few things certain in life, but one ofthese few is, that others will come to each one of us, in doubt, insorrow, in pain, in ignorance, and that, through negligence and ignoranceof ours, they may go away uncomforted, unhelped, untaught, and this, though each one of us has it in her power to become, through God's grace, one of those Queens of Consolation of whom Dante spoke. 

I think the Virtuous Woman ought to be on her guard against hardness: itis her temptation, naturally, as it was that of the Elder Brother, --butlove and humility can make even strength lovable. And for those who arein no danger of being too like the Virtuous Woman, but who are stillstruggling out of a lower life, I am quite sure that weakness is the rockahead. It must be so for nearly all women: their feelings are keener andsooner developed than those of men, and they are less trained in intellectand self-control. Their chief value lies in intuition and impulse, andtheir chief danger also. You will never be the "Virtuous Woman" if you areself-indulgent in novels which dwell on feelings, in daydreams, in foolishfriendships, which only bring out the emotional side of your nature, instead of strengthening you to do what is right, and widening yoursensible interests in life. There is but one certain protection againstthis temptation, and we find it in Proverbs xxxi. ; I mean, _industry athome_. 

Industry is a leading feature of Solomon's ideal, and nothing but plentyto do can possibly keep our minds fresh and sweet, and wholesome andstrong, --and hence, strengthening for others. Feeling is the only part ofa woman's nature which will develop of itself:--her mind will not growunless definitely cultivated, and no more will her conscience, but if sheleave the field fallow, weeds of foolish feelings and fancies spring up onall sides. This is why it is your duty, when you leave, not to allowyourself to be idle: not only because God expects you to bring yoursheaves with you at the Last Day, but because your field cannot standempty--if good grain is not there, weeds will be. And manualwork--gardening or housework--gives more fresh air to the mind thananything else. If you ever, as _Punch_ expresses it, "find your dollstuffed with sawdust, " if life seems a disappointment, and you are a preyto foolish fancies, and have lost your spring, then try being really tiredout in body by useful work, and see if you do not find it an effectualtonic. Some say that these "mental measles" are a phase which the moderngirl must inevitably pass through: perhaps so, but I should bedisappointed if you went through them, --at all events, if you did so inthe hopelessly idiotic way that many do! I should be disappointed if, inthe future, you came and said, "I am in the dark, and Life is all atangle!" I do feel you ought to have learnt that "the light of Duty shineson every day for all. " "We always have as much light as we need, thoughoften not as much as we would like, " and if you honestly want to do yournext duty, you will have light enough to do it by. Come to me, by allmeans, if you like, and say, "I feel idle and good-for-nothing, and don'tparticularly want to see my Duty!" but do not moan about Life being allperplexity! It is always nobler to do your duty than to leave it undone:make this principle your sheet-anchor, and spiritual feelings and lightwill come some day, if God sees fit. It does not always do to applydirect remedies to these "measles:" if your mind is out of gear, leave italone, and attack it through the body by industry. And industry _at home_is best; here was the true strength of the Virtuous Woman. The strength ofher modern descendant lies abroad: she is strong and admirable, she doessplendid work, but there is always a tinge of excitement to help onethrough outside work. Things done among father and mother, brothers andsisters, are either very peaceful or very flat, according as your feelingsare either wholesome or unwholesome--there is none of the pleasurableexcitement, generally more or less feverish, of working with friends welove and admire; it is the difference between milk and wine. I do notthink wine wrong, but I think it is much better to cultivate a taste formilk; you must watch yourselves, and not get to feel home things dull. Some are so strong in home, so wrapped up in their own family, thatoutsiders feel _de trop_, which of course is a fault on the other side. Ifwe have happy homes, it is a trust for the use of others; we can give ahome feeling to those who are less fortunate as they pass by us, like theswallow flying through the lighted hall. Lonely people may gain a sense ofhome from this large-heartedness in the happy, a feeling of rest andrepose, which is the very essence of the atmosphere I should like myVirtuous Woman to shed around her; she must "do good by effluvia;" in herhome, "roof and fire are types only of a nobler light and shade--shade asof the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea. And wherever a true wife comes this home is always round her. The starsonly may be over her head, the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be theonly fire at her foot: yet home is wherever she is; and for a noble womanit stretches far around her, better than ceiled with cedar or painted withvermilion, shedding its quiet light far for those who else were homeless. "

Let us now consider the Virtuous Woman verse by verse. Solomon isdescribing a rich woman with an "establishment, " a sphere and husband andchildren, as if a woman's life was not complete without this. And no moreit is; it may be very useful and very beautiful, but it is not complete. Girls are often blamed for thinking too much about marriage: I think theydo not do it enough, --at least in the right way; you are not fit to bewives now, and you should aim at becoming so, and to do that, you must befit to manage your house and to teach your children; if you fit yourselvesto be perfect wives, you will at least be very perfect old maids, and findplenty to do for other people's children! But your life would then beincomplete. St. Paul is misquoted when his words in Cor. Vii. 34 are usedto condemn marriage; our Lord puts it before all other earthly ties, andit is used as a type of His love for His Church, which should guard usfrom two errors in connection with it. If married love is to be a type, however faint, of Christ's love for His Church, there must be nounworthiness connected with it; "no inner baseness we would hide;" nomarrying for the sake of being married, for the dignity and position, orthe worldly advantages it may bring; and there must be no matchmaking orflirtation that a woman need be ashamed of afterwards. "Let the wife seethat she reverence her husband, " says St. Paul, and the husband must beable to reverence her. And there must be no selfishness, no gettingentangled in engagements that must bring trouble on others; to marry _for_money is degrading, but a woman may redeem it by being a good wife; tomarry _without_ money means debt, which is irretrievably degrading, and isaltogether selfish instead of romantic. 

But, married or single, rich or poor, Solomon's Virtuous Woman gives usprinciples to go on. 

"_The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her_. " Is nottrustworthiness a main point in those we respect? Do we not require ourVirtuous Woman to be reliable, not to repeat what we say to her, not toforget her promises, in short, that we know "where to have her"?

"_She will do him good and not evil all the days of his life_. " It woulddistinctly do him evil if she did his work for him! This is a greattemptation of capable people; it is so much easier to do a thing yourselfthan to see others bungling over it; but remember, that _not to do otherpeople's duties is as much a duty as it is to do your own_. Unselfishpeople are often selfish in the harm they do husbands, and brothers, andsisters, and unconscionable friends, by doing their duties for them. Yourecognize that you yourself are on a downward path when you leave dutiesundone. You have no right to help any one else to tread that path. It ismuch pleasanter to spoil your brothers than to make them take their fairshare of family burdens; it is much pleasanter to be popular, --but if yourbrother grows up selfish, three-fourths of the sin will be on your head. You will have to be very careful to convince him that you are not selfishby sacrificing yourself on every occasion when it is not bad for him, butif you are to do him good and not evil all the days of his life, you mustremember that you are your brother's keeper in this matter. 

"_She worketh willingly with her hands_. " The idea is going out that, tobe like a lady, you must sit with your hands before you. I heard of avillage tea the other day where a curate's maid-of-all-work was boastingthat her mistress was a real lady who could not do a thing! "Dear! howstrange, " said an old servant; "my first mistress taught me, with her ownhands, all the house-work I know. " "Ah! she couldn't have been a _real_lady, " said the other. "Perhaps not, " said the old woman reflectively; "Ican't tell, but I know she was an Earl's daughter. " If you knew anythingof Colonial life in old uncivilized days, you would know how invariably itturned out that those settlers were nobody at home who talked there aboutwhat they were "accustomed to, " and how they could not do this orthat, --while the real ladies laughed and buckled to. I do not believe in awoman being thoroughbred if she cannot do what comes to her to do; she mayhave little bodily strength, but if she is of the right sort, spiritcarries her through, just as you often find uneducated people, unnerved bypain or fright, crying and pitying themselves: a real lady has nerve forit all, though she is ten times more sensitive, and, till the occasionarises, she may lie on the sofa all day, and believe herself quite unableto do a thing!

People sometimes seem to think it the mark of a sensitive, high-bred, refined nature to be unable to conquer fads, and fancies, and fears. Youhear them say, with an air of modest pride, "I _can't_ eat this or that;""I _can't_ touch spiders:" very likely they suffer if they do, and I donot see that they need be always forcing themselves to do it, but theyshould feel the power to do it _if need be_; if you are not master ofyourself, there is bad blood about you somewhere; _noblesse oblige_applies preeminently to such things. 

And I think _noblesse oblige_ ought to teach us another lesson in thismatter of work. So many often say, or feel, "It's not my duty to do thisor that; why should I? it's just as much _her_ business, --why shouldn't_she_ do the dirty work?" The true lady says, "_Somebody_ must do thedirty work, and why not I as well as another?" And so she workethwillingly with her hands; for "common household service" is

 "The wageless work of Paradise. "

"_She bringeth her food from afar_. " She is foreseeing and businesslike:she is not obliged to get inferior articles because she is driven at thelast moment and cannot send to the best shop; she is never unable to matchher dress because she has not thought about new gloves till the veryafternoon that she wants them; she does not forget till half-past six thatdinner has not been ordered, and then, in despair, order in ready-cookedthings from a shop. 

"_She riseth while it is yet night_. " Early rising is a great trial tosome, but I think those who are conscientious often make a mistake betweensloth and conscientious care of health: and the Virtuous Woman should bevery careful of her health. Some girls think it fine not to be; they say, "Oh, well, I shall only die the sooner! Better to wear out than rust out!"and they feel--and so do some of their friends--that they are very noblecharacters, and accordingly these tragedy queens stalk picturesquelythrough wet grass when they could quite well keep on the gravel. I hopenone of you will develop into tragic heroines. I have no patience when Isee girls with perfectly prosperous lives inventing tragedies forthemselves. They have no right "to take in vain the sacred name of grief. "If there is nothing else to romance about, they fall back on being"misunderstood, " which generally means that their mother understands thema great deal too well to please them. I dare say you will not see this inyourselves or in your friends, but it will strike you very much in youracquaintances, and you will, in time, recognize your own share of humannature, for we all do, undoubtedly, enjoy being sorry for ourselves, though I suspect life is much happier for all of us than we deserve. 

But to return to the question of health. If you could go out like theflame of a candle, well and good! the world would probably be well rid ofyou if you were going through life tragically, longing for death, but youwill not "wear out" in consequence of carelessness about wet feet and wantof sleep, and over-fatigue, and fancifulness about eating. These thingsdestroy, not your life, but your nerves and temper, and all that makesyour life a comfort to others; "wearing out" yourself means that you willwear out others, and require from them much time and nursing and goodtemper. 

Now, sleep is a most important consideration in such a nervous generationas ours: every woman ought to have eight hours' sleep, and more if sheneeds it, but she should not wake up and then go to sleep again; thatsecond sleep, which is so pleasant, is the sleep of the sluggard. I wouldlike to give her "a chamber deaf to noise and blind to light, " and neverlet her be woke, but she should get up the moment she wakes of her ownaccord, or, at most, spend ten minutes in the process of waking. 

"_She planteth a vineyard_. " I should like my Virtuous Woman to be fond ofgardening, and at all events read in Bacon's Essays how God Almighty firstplanted a garden. 

"_She strengthened her arms_. " This verse makes us fancy the VirtuousWoman as being unpleasingly strong, but we should guard against beingpurposely weak, with an idea of its being pleasing; Thackeray's Amelia ishardly a good model, and Patient Grizzel did her husband an infinity ofharm!

"_Her candle goeth not out by night_. " But the Virtuous Woman must beself-denying in the matter of sitting up, now that modern life makes somany more demands upon her brain. You know it is self-indulgence when yousit up late; you were not bound to be so sociable as all that; you onlyhinder yourself and others from proper time for prayer and sleep; if youmade a move after a reasonable amount of talk, the others would besensible too. And so you repent and force yourself to get up verypunctually the next morning, not seeing that this is on the principle thattwo wrongs make a right. It is your duty to get up in good time, but it isalso a duty to get sufficient sleep. I know you have a more comfortablefeeling when you have punished yourself, --you feel that you took theself-indulgence and you want to pay for it. This sounds fair and honest, but it is not, because you pay for it with the health and strength thatGod gave you to use for Him. Instead of the satisfactory scourge and hairshirt of rising betimes next morning, try the more commonplace penance ofgoing to bed in proper time the next night, without any dawdling. So manygirls do things in a dreamy, dawdling way, that must be a sore trial tothose about them: if a thing has to be done, you should do it in a quick, purpose-like way, and not waste your own time and other people's temper. Agirl will placidly tell you, "I'm always slow, it's my way, " neverrealizing that "ways" may be very objectionable. We think it dishonest inworkmen that there should be a difference between a man who works by timeand one who works by the piece: you blame the workman who spends twice asmuch of his master's time as he need, but, when you dawdle, you spend_your_ Master's time: getting through with things quickly and "deedily" isa matter of habit, and the Virtuous Woman practises it in everything shedoes. 

"_Her hands hold the distaff_. " The Virtuous Woman will not be satisfieduntil she knows how to make a dress and do plain work; not that, havingacquired the knowledge, she will necessarily use it, for a woman withbrains and education can employ her time to more purpose, and can giveemployment to poorer women at her gate, by putting out her work. It isburying her talent in the ground if she employs, in making her children'sfrocks, the time which should be spent in cultivating her mind, so as tobe fit to educate them when they are older. 

"_She stretcheth out her hand to the poor_. " The "classes" are poor andneedy, as well as the "masses:" read Mozley's "University Sermon" on "OurDuty to our Equals, " and learn to see that they also need a stretched-outhand. We may be very kind in our district; are we as kind to socialbores? We may be very energetic in school feasts; are we as careful toprovide amusements of other kinds for people who, in rank or brains, areslightly our inferiors?

"_She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her householdare clothed with scarlet_" (marg. , double garments). She looks after thehealth of other people as well as her own; she does not keep her maidsitting up night after night, or overwork her dressmaker. She is asconsiderate for the flyman waiting for her on a rainy night as she wouldbe for her father's coachman and horses, remembering that the flyman isquite as liable to catch cold as the coachman, and has fewer facilitiesfor curing himself. 

"_Her clothing is silk and purple_. " She dresses suitably, richly ifoccasion demand it, but never showily. If she has to walk as a rule, shewill not buy dresses that look fit only for a carriage: she will not wear, in church, a brilliant dress that would be suitable at a flower-show. 

"_Her husband is known in the gates_. " There was doubtless a greatdifference among the husbands at the gate, and I feel sure that this onetook a specially large and public-spirited view of the business therediscussed. The Virtuous Woman would not usurp his office, just because shehad the power of speaking well, --she would remember the Russian proverb, "The Master is the Head of the House, while the Mistress is its Soul, "and she would be a very high-souled mistress, and care greatly that hermaster should not only be a good husband and a father, but should alsoserve his generation as a good citizen and a true patriot. When the publicgood demanded sacrifices, she would not drag him back by insisting on hisduty to his family, nor would she persuade him to rob the public stores, or time, by taking little perquisites or shortening his office hours. Shewould feel with De Tocqueville, who says, "A hundred times I have seenweak men show real public virtue, because they had by their sides womenwho supported them--not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifyingtheir feelings of duty, and by directing their ambition. More frequently, I must confess, I have observed the domestic influence graduallytransforming a man, naturally generous, noble, and unselfish, into acowardly, commonplace, place-hunting, self-seeker, thinking of publicbusiness only as the means of making himself comfortable; and this simplyby daily contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, anexcellent mother, but from whose mind the grand notion of public duty wasentirely absent. "

The husband of "a superior woman" is usually much to be pitied, but surelythe reason is that the woman is not superior enough. She has capabilitiesand knowledge, and has learnt to value them, and is right in so doing, but she has not learnt the next page of Life's Lesson Book, which is, therelative insignificance of her own acquirements, and the value of thequalities she has not got, --qualities which her husband very likelypossesses, only he has not the feminine power of expression. How often awoman's seeming superiority lies in this gift of words, which, as GeorgeEliot says, is in her, "often a fatal aptitude for expressing what sheneither believes nor feels. " The man often silently knows, and _lives_, the noble sentiment, which the woman fluently utters, imagining herself tobe its discoverer and prophet. Another point to remember in this matter isthat women are apt to overvalue intellect, perhaps because it is onlyduring the last few years that intellectual advantages have been withintheir reach. Sydney Smith looked forward hopefully to a day when Frenchwould be a common accomplishment, and women would be no more vain ofpossessing it than of having two arms and legs! Perhaps when, not onlyFrench, but still higher education becomes more generally diffused, we maylearn the proportions, and realize that, though intellect is a good gift, many others are to be preferred before it. The more we know, the wider ourhorizon grows, and the smaller we ourselves seem relatively to the widerexpanse around us. "Man's first word is, No: his second, Yes: and histhird is, No, again. " We start with ignorance and are necessarily humble, in a negative way: then comes the schoolroom, when we prize highly theknowledge so laboriously acquired; and then comes the schoolroom of life, which sends us back again to humility, though of a larger and nobler kind. 

(The tendency of the day is to overvalue education, rather than thereverse, so I need not dwell on the necessity laid upon the modernVirtuous Woman, of developing her intellect, more than Solomon requiredfrom his ideal. )

"_She maketh fine linen and selleth it_. " She is reliable and punctual, and clear in business arrangements. How much charitable work of thepresent day requires good arithmetic and a clear business head! She willnot miss her train, and she will write a clear legible hand, especiallywhen names and addresses are concerned. A good handwriting is a matter ofpatience and self-discipline, and a truly unselfish person would forceherself to acquire it, because she can thereby, in small ways, be of somuch use and comfort to others. 

"_She shall rejoice in time to come_. " She is not likely to do this, unless she learns to rejoice in the present also. Rejoicing is a habitlike most other virtues, and if we fail in this, it is probably ourselvesand not our circumstances that need to be changed. "The aids to_happiness_ are all within, " and the Virtuous Woman will take life bravelyand cheerfully, like the heroes of old, and will think it a poor thing topity herself and to go about with a long face. She

 "Welcomes and makes hers Whate'er of good though small the present brings-- Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers, With a child's pure delight in little things; And of the griefs unborn will rest secure, Knowing that mercy ever will endure. "

"_She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law ofkindness_. " Perhaps few things have done so much harm in the world assympathy! Are we not all conscious of having perpetually allowed thekindness of our tongue to be divorced from wisdom, so that ouraffectionate sympathy has weakened our friend and done more harm thangood? It is so much pleasanter to both when we join in her discontent orirritation, instead of being to her a second and a better self, aiding herto see things wisely, as she would see them when she grew calmer. "Abook, " said Dr. Johnson, "should teach us either to enjoy life, or toendure it, " and so should a friend. 

"_The law of kindness_. " It may seem a small thing that the Virtuous Womanshould never lose an opportunity of saying a kind word, but, if we all didthis, the world would be revolutionized; how it lowers our moraltemperature when some needless criticism is made, or some disparagingremark is repeated to us! The Virtuous Woman would set herself to be anon-conductor of these "stings and arrows, " while, in "a voice ever soft, gentle, and low, " she would pass on to us the pleasant things our friendssay, which make us feel "on the sunny side of the wall. " What was said ofSt. Theresa will be true of her--"it came to be understood that absentpersons were safe where she was. It would be hard to exaggerate the powerof influence for good which the confidence she had thus won must havegiven her. Her nobility felt the treachery which always lies indetraction, the kind of advantage taken, as it were, of theunprotectedness of the absent. "

Some separate wisdom and kindness in another way; they are so anxious tohelp others that they stretch a point of conscience, and persist in aforbidden friendship, in order to help the friend. Now you may be unjustlytreated in being told to give up your friend, and you may feel, andrightly, that it is very cruel to him or her. Perhaps so, but your want ofprinciple, in being disobedient or deceitful, must harm your friendinfinitely more than any amount of your good advice can do her good. _Acting on principle always helps others_: it is the most catching thingin the world, whereas our words and our personal influence do not helpthem one bit, unless God is speaking through us, and making us Hisinstruments, which He will not do if we are behaving wrongly. 

"_She looketh well to the ways of her household_. " She gives her servantsfull work, and insists on its being done, at the right time and in theright way, but she is careful never to overwork them, and to remember thatservants have rights and feelings; she is not only kind, but_considerate_, which involves far more sympathy and thought. 

"_She eateth not the bread of idleness_. " But she never does her servants'work, or spoils them. Of course, if she is very poor, and has fewservants, she will lend a helping hand, but she will be wise in herindustry, and understand that riches are a call, not to idleness, but toanother kind of work--overseeing and directing, but not doing. "One goodhead is worth a hundred good hands, " but the head must know how thingsshould be done, and therefore the Virtuous Woman will make it a point ofconscience to know how to cook, and equally a point of conscience not todo it, if she has servants who ought to see to it. 

"_Her children shall rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, andhe praiseth her_. " My Virtuous Woman may never marry, but she will be amother in Israel in spite of that. Every woman finds scope formotherliness if it is in her; one way or another she will find childrenlooking to her for love and help, and she must fit herself to educatethose children, for this is a woman's main duty in life; she should neverbe satisfied till she has earned a right to the compliment which Steelepaid his wife--that "to know her was a liberal education, " until

 "Men at her side Grow nobler, girls purer, and, through the whole town, The children are gladder that pull at her gown. "

"_A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised_. " I may seem tohave made my last words to you consist of merely worldly-wise counsels, and to have left out of sight "the one thing needful, " but in many otherScripture lessons we have spoken of that Prayer, and Bible reading, that"going in the strength of the Lord God, " which is the only source ofstrength for man or woman. 

I have tried to give a few practical counsels for everyday life, believing, as I do firmly, that the best part of this world's wisdom isreally one with Christianity, and that the fruits of dutifulness, commonsense, and kindliness, cannot be produced unless there is the root of realreligion. Solomon takes that root for granted, only at the close remindingus of its necessity; and, in picturing our ideal woman, I am sure we allsee her with

 "A brow serene Speaking calm hope and trust within her, whence Welleth a noiseless spring of patience, That keepeth all her life so fresh, so green And full of holiness, that every look, The greatness of her woman's soul revealing, Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling As when I read in God's own Holy Book. "

Making Plans. 

_Holidays_. --This is the time to show if school has done you any good. 

At school you are reminded constantly of Prayer, hard work, tidiness, regularity, self-control: you are practised in these things, and the greatunderlying principles of life are brought before you so that not one ofyou has any excuse for being careless and unconscientious in the holidays. Also you are most of you communicants, and you know that it is impossibleto be a communicant and to "let yourself go" in these ways. 

You have duties in the holidays as well as in school time. It is wrong tospend two months in self-indulgence without any self-discipline. You mustopen your eyes to your duties, --practising, sensible reading, tidiness, and daily unselfishness. 

It may be no one's business to remind you in the holidays, and your mothermay let you alone a good deal, from wishing you to have "a good time;" butyou alter very considerably during two months, and it is your part to seethat you alter for the better. 

Two months means two Communions with definite resolves, two definiteupward stages in life. If you let yourself go till you get back to thecrutches of school, you will have gone two very definite stages downhill. 

Some of you are tidy here, but at home your temptation is to plaster someneatly folded garment or sash over the recesses of an untidy drawer, or touse anything that comes to hand, any racquet, or croquet-mallet, oroil-can, or thimble; your own cannot be found--you take the nearest andthen leave that also lying about. 

Do you think these things do not matter? You would think it mattered verymuch if you grew up an unreliable, unconscientious woman, and yet, I donot know in what lesson-book you can learn to be thorough and reliable andconscientious, except in the daily lesson-book of these trifles. 

You each know that daily practise is a duty, if your mother wishes you tolearn music. A daily duty neglected, or a daily duty done, means a veryconsiderable difference in the person by the end of two months. 

There are one or two further points in your holiday and grown-up lifewhich I should like to talk about to-day. 

_Visits_. --Enrich your life with them, instead of letting them be timeswhen you slip back morally. Take your conscience with you (but do not wearit outside), and be very careful to keep your rules, your prayers, yourhome standard of right and wrong, your quietness and self-control. Do not"let yourself go, " and do silly things for fun. A great many leave theirsense of responsibility at home, whereas our visits are part of theregular course of that life for which God will judge us. And keep yourmind open, get new ideas, read the books in the house, instead of taking astore with you. 

Next consider your duty in the choice of people you live with. First, there are your relations. You say you cannot choose these; no, but you canchoose which side of them you will draw out. Every one is a magnet; someattract the worried, irritable side of other people, some the serene, pleasant side. If you try to see the bright side of things and to agreeinstead of differing, and if you say nice things about people when theyare out of the room, your family circle will show themselves verydifferent from what they might be if you were a magnet for unpleasantness!

Secondly, there are your friends. Do not let one person monopolize you, oryou her; do not have friends given to secrets, and do not let any one trapyou into a promise not to tell. If her secret is all right, she cannotobject to your telling your mother, and if it is silly you had better beclear of it. And do not forget that nice people do not deal in secrets, they keep their family affairs to themselves. It is the Rosa Matildas at"Young Ladies' Academies" who have secrets in a corner. 

Thirdly, choose your book friends carefully. You live with people inbooks, so have a conscience about your choice in this just as much as withliving friends. Some books are bad for any one; a great many more would doharm to you, but perhaps not touch an older person. When I was your age, many an argumentative book (which seems thin and empty to me now) mighthave upset my faith. Many an exciting, passionate book (which I now readwith a calm and critical mind) would have filled my whole heart and soul!Be thankful if you are kept under direction about books; but if you arenot, use common sense and conscience. Manage yourself sensibly, and sinceyou know that you are in a very mouldable, impressionable stage, it standsto reason that you had better steadily read classics now, to form andstrengthen your mind. 

When a girl reads sentimental and passionate poetry, neglecting Scott, Milton, and Wordsworth, I call it the same sort of wrong mismanaging ofherself as if she ruined her digestion with a greedy love of pastry. Poetry and pastry are often the same sort of weak self-indulgence. 

I do not say read _no_ novels that are exciting and romantic, or even thatare silly, but I do say, sandwich them. Face the fact that a silly orpassionate novel is likely to have great power over you at this stage, andtherefore read very few of them, and read many of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Miss Austen, and Mrs. Gaskell. 

Do not read society novels that make you live with flippant, irreverent, or coarse people, or those who take sin lightly. 

It is not right for a girl to live with people in books who would not begood friends for her in life, and she ought to make a conscience of notdoing it, even though there may be no definite bad scenes in the book toshock her. 

Books should give you nice ideas. You have got the making of your own mindand character in your own hands, and you are responsible for the books onwhich you choose to feed yourself, for each one of them alters you forgood or bad. Your book list is a very good help to self-examination. 

There is a great deal to think about and to settle for yourself when youbegin life, but there are three points of goodness binding on every one. One is, giving time to God. A girl must stick to her prayers and go toChurch on Sunday whether other people do or not. Sunday varies indifferent households, and I think each girl is bound by her parents'standard in the matter as long as she lives at home; when she marries sheshould think the matter over and have her own standard. But the root ofSunday-keeping lies in the fact that she must feed the Sunday side of heror it will die; and she should go to Church, once at least, to show hercolours. As to how much she feeds that Sunday side, or when, --that varieswith the household, only she should resolve on something and stick to it. You need not be disobliging, since you can always make time by denyingyourself. 

Secondly, have a standard in talk. You cannot tell your elders when youthink them wrong, but you should not join in, when your contemporaries saywhat you think wrong. Speak out then, or at least be silent andunresponsive. 

Thirdly, do something for other people, some steady kindness which you donot give up just to suit your own convenience. 

Now, what plan of life should you have? You must have a plan andresolution, for if you drift you are almost certain to drift _down_ andnot up. 

Yet you are quite rightly looking forward to a time of freedom. Butfreedom means being able to command yourself, it does not mean being freeto drift without a helm. 

Also you will be under control to a certain extent. Very likely you willsometimes resent control or reproof at home more than you would resent itfrom an outsider! But you are a stage nearer that sad freedom of laterlife when it is nobody's business to look after you, and you have now gotto learn how to use wisely that fuller freedom of later life. 

I hope you have been learning at school to use the comparative freedom of"being out. " I hope that, with both men and girls, you will remember whatI tell you here about not being silly and uncontrolled, or loud andboisterous. The actual school rules pass away, but there is not one ofthem that is not founded on some principle that I hope you will carry withyou and live by. 

The books, the music, the pictures in which you are interested here arenot mere lessons to be shut up joyfully when you leave! They are the greatinterests and amusements of the friends whom you most value, and it wouldbe very disappointing if you did not use your free time in makingopportunities to carry them on better than at school, for you come heremainly to find out what interesting things there are in the world you aregoing into. 

But to go to practical details. Take a girl who wants to be good anddutiful and useful, to be a comfort at home, to keep her brain in goodworking order, and to enjoy herself: what should she resolve upon if sheis to be of use in the world and not drift idly along? She must think itout for herself, and no longer wait for orders. She must put the salt ofself-denial and effort into every day, of her own accord, and not feelabsolved because her mother has not given any special orders. You areresponsible for your own life, and it is horribly easy to slide into aslack, pleasure-seeking life which will eat all the good out of you. 

You must not fill the day with rules and employments so that people feelyou always engaged, yet, though you must seem disengaged, you must have areal purpose underneath. You must be free to idle about after breakfastwhile your mother or the visitors are settling the day's employments, andyet you should aim at always having something to show for your morning, "Something accomplished, something done. "

It is more difficult to live an ordinary idle life well than ahard-working one, because it rests entirely with you whether you put anysalt into your day, and because it is your duty to do much as other peopledo, while at the same time, underneath, you must keep to your standard ofRight and Wrong. 

But, suppose a girl wants to arrange her own individual life on the bestpossible lines. Had you better make your plan, and begin at once?

There is great danger, if you wait, that your good resolutions will dieaway, and you will never begin. And yet, when you first leave, you want alittle time to feel quite free, and your people like to feel you are quitefree to enjoy yourself. 

There is a great deal to be said for beginning at once, but I am not sureabout it!

If you feel that you will _never_ begin good ways unless you do so atonce, then begin! But I am not sure that I should advise you to make yourResolution at once, though I should like you to make your Plan. I shouldlike you to plan your day while you are here, and write it out: you willnot do much with Resolutions unless you write them. Plan what time youwill get up and go to bed (you should have a conscience about both);settle a plan of your reading, --what books you want to read during thefirst year, what poetry to learn, what subjects to study. Plan it all out, and then seal it up, and keep it till Christmas comes. Then think over it, and pray over it, before New Year's Day, and then start your definiteresolutions with the new year. 

But are you to fritter away the time between this and then? No, carry outyour ideas of reading sensible books and doing kind things for friends andpoor people, and saying your prayers and reading the Bible, and write downevery day exactly how much you did. Let your resolution be to keep arecord of these months, rather than a resolution to keep to a detailedplan. Keeping a record is self-discipline in itself, it meansself-examination every night. If it shows you to be silly and idle andunpersevering, it will make you ashamed of yourself. Also it will giveyou some idea of how much time you can really count on getting. See howyour plan works before you promise God to keep it, and then you will notmake unwise resolutions at the New Year. 

In arranging one's life, it is well to take our Lord's three divisions ofDuty, --Prayer, Alms, and Fasting, --and see how our life and our plansstand this test. 

_Prayer_. --Under this head you would notice whether your daily prayers, and your attendance at the Holy Communion, were regular, and how you keptSunday. 

_Alms_. --What proportion of your money do you give away? You ought to giveaway one shilling out of every half-sovereign which you spend on yourself;and be sure you spend dress-money on dress, it is not honest to use it oncharity, or books, and then to look shabby. 

But money is only part of the giving which you owe: 'Such as I have give Iunto thee. ' What have you got? You have got education. There may be girlslike yourself living near you who have less; could you not start somesensible reading together? I remember delightful French and German andDante readings when we lived in the country, --eight or ten girls used tocome regularly, and we all enjoyed it. 

Are there no old people you could amuse in some way, --possibly withwhist? Or rather lonely people (aunts sometimes), to whom you could writeregularly; people like to be remembered, especially by the young! As longas you are young your kindnesses are very much valued, and if you chooseto be selfish instead, it is forgiven you, but, as you are in youth so youwill be in middle life, therefore be careful. As I heard Mr. Clifford say, "As long as you are young you may be selfish, or vain, or silly, andpeople love you all the same! But, by the time you are thirty, people willbegin to say they will not stand it any longer, and by the time you areforty or fifty you will be left to a lonely life!" So begin a _kind_ lifeat once, and act towards all around you on the principle 'such as I have Igive thee. ' Sometimes you can share your money, sometimes your pleasures, sometimes your education. And remember that in the work and kindnesseswhich you do for others, you must put first and foremost what you do foryour mother and father and home people. "_Haus Teuffel, Strasse Engel_" isa bad name. The point of that text about 'Corban, it is a gift, ' is, thatyou must not feel absolved from duties at home, because you do good worksoutside. Find out some home duty you can do regularly, and stick to it. Idare say your mother may not suggest any to you, because she wants you tohave a good time, but think of _her_ pleasure and amusement; mothersoften talk as if they enjoyed being left at home, just to make more roomfor you. Keep your eyes open, and find out what you can do to make lifepleasanter to her. Talk over your plans with her; often mothers do notrealize that a girl wants to find duties and kind things to do, and sothey only shower pleasures on her which do not satisfy her. 

If there seems no special work for you, be on the look-out to do thethings that other people do not like doing; that is the sort of person Ilike better than any other, --the one who feels "somebody must do thetiresome work, why shouldn't I?" Nothing you could do in the future wouldplease me so much as if you lived by that motto; and, if you add to it adetermination to make it quite a pleasure to your mother to find faultwith you, you will do well!

So much for Prayer, our duty to God, and for Alms, our duty to ourneighbour; how about Fasting, our duty to ourself?

What is the good of fasting? Is it simply that we should be uncomfortable?No, the point of fasting is self-discipline and training. This is yourduty to self: not to get comfort or amusement or success in the world, but, so to train, to drill, to feed and strengthen yourself, that you maybe a good soldier for God. 

Such questions as the proper amount of Rest and Amusement and Exerciseall come under this head, for we ought to aim at just as much as will makeus good soldiers, not to try for as much as we can get. 

We must manage ourselves; we must keep our bodies in good order, and keepour brains keen and bright. Self-denial in sleep and food and drink arepart of this management. 

Early Rising ought to be on your list of resolutions. Some find it best toname a certain hour, but then, if they are not called punctually, theyfeel the resolution broken, and they very likely lie on slothfully. Ithink it is best to resolve to get up either five or ten minutes after youwake, or are called; look at your watch, and jump up when the time comes. 

When you are up, your Rule of Prayer is the first thing to think of and toact on. 

And when you are dressed (carefully and prettily dressed), and your soulis dressed in God's armour, what are you going to do with the new day Godhas given you?

First carry out some duty in the house; next see to your own improvement, not as a self-ending pleasure, but in order to make yourself a usefulwoman, to train you for better work in the future. 

_Reading_ is not the only kind of such training, but it is one of thebest kinds and gives you new ideas. I advise you to try for half an hour aday, and to keep a list of the books you read:[1] make an abstract of asensible book once in three months: sandwich your English novels withforeign ones: keep a sensible book on hand and, alternately with books youfancy, read something a little above you: take up some special subjectevery three or six months and read several books on it, or else readthrough the books on my lists: read no novels before luncheon. 

It is seldom safe to fix the hour very decidedly; some one interrupts you, and then you feel the rule broken and you get discouraged!

Make a point of being occupied, keep some needlework on hand, idlenessleads to silly thoughts and self-indulgence. Do not be out-of-doors allday; have something indoors to show for yourself. Feminine occupationshave a good result on the character, and help you to be quiet andrecollected, to be the womanly woman who makes a real Home for her fatherand brothers. As Roger Ascham is reported by Landor to have said to LadyJane Grey, "exercise that beauteous couple, the mind and body, much andvariously; but at home, at home, Jane! indoors, and about things indoors. "

Mr. Lowell said that most men act as if they had sealed orders not to beopened till middle life! I do not want you to waste your life like that, Iwant you to feel that you have a definite purpose and that you know whatorders you ought to give yourselves, or rather what are God's orders foryour life. 

What is your purpose in life? I hope--Lord Bacon's words in our Tuesdaymidday Prayer express it--"the glory of God and the relief of man'sestate. " You go into life knowing how dearly the Lord Jesus Christ lovesyou, at how dear a cost He bought you; therefore, not just to save yoursouls, not just because you would be _afraid_ to live carelessly, but, because of His amazing love, you will try to live as He asks you to do. God grant you such a sense of that amazing love that you may rejoice tospend and be spent in His service. 

And you will want to live for the relief of man's estate. The more youreyes open to life, the more you see how many sore hearts there are in theworld, and (besides the well-dressed sorrows which are as sore as any)there is the pain and poverty and sin of those who have no chance in theworld; what can you do for the poor--you who have so many chances in life, who have so much love, so many pleasures? There may not be very much opento you when you first grow up, and you may be very busy with yourpleasures and home duties. Let your mother enjoy your pleasures, she hasbeen planning them for years, but do what little things you can todiscipline yourself so that by-and-by (when you are free to work) you maybe a worker worth having. It is that which makes the waiting years worthwhile. 

Often a girl gets tired of enjoying herself and longs for some purpose inlife, but she is tied in a hundred ways. Sometimes she loses heraspirations, her wish to do some good in the world, and sinks down into anidle round of small pleasures and worries. But do not you do that; ratherrealize that, according as you spend your waiting time, --before you marryor find some definite work, --such you will be when your opportunity comes:

 "Be resolute and great To keep thy muscles trained: know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, 'I find thee worthy; do this thing for me'?"

I was talking over East London work the other day with a worker, and shewas saying that the best preparation for usefulness lay in such commonthings as cooking, cutting out, musical-drill, gardening, children'sgames, neat business-like letters, keeping your own accounts, a power ofsmall talk! All these are possible to each of you, and a resolute puttingof salt into each day, --some discipline, some self-denial, somethoroughness, --will turn you out able by-and-by to do good work for theRelief of man's estate. 

 "Be resolute and great To keep thy muscles trained"

that you may be fit to do something to show forth your sense of theexceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ. 

[Footnote 1: "Record of a Year's Reading" (6_d_. Mowbray) would be usefulto you. ]

Conversation. 

Tourgenieff has a story in which three young princes, one by one, wentinto an enchanted garden and plucked a magic apple which gave the eaterone wish. The first asked for money, the second for beauty, the third forthe good-will of old women. The third proved to be the successful one. 

If a fairy godmother offered you one gift, what would you choose? I am notsure that you would not do well to imitate that shrewd young prince! It isold ladies who can teach you knowledge of the world, and whose good-willgets you the most desirable invitations! However, you can easily gaintheir good-will without any apple, so that, on the whole, I should advisea princess to choose the gift of being a good Talker--or rather one whoproduces good Talk. 

A woman Macaulay, even with brilliant flashes of silence, is not loved:you do not want a hostess who "holds forth, " but one who sets her gueststalking; and every woman is the hostess when she is talking to a man, orto any one younger or shyer than herself. You should make people go awaywith a regretful feeling that they missed a great deal by having talked somuch themselves that they heard very little from you. 

Do you think it is easy to listen--that it means mere silence? I assureyou it means nothing of the sort; it means listening with all your heartand soul and mind, and making the speaker feel, by your way of listening, that you _have_ a heart and a soul and a mind. There could not well beanything further from the person who makes him feel that there is a meredead wall of silence before him _at_ which he is talking. 

Listening is a fine art and requires great tact and a peculiar delicateperception of the shades that are passing over the speaker's mind, anddictating (often unconsciously) the words he says--words which inthemselves do not convey his mind, unless you are of the family of theInterpreter in Bunyan, and know by instinct what he feels. 

Only a large heart of quick understanding has this gift; but we help ourheart wonderfully by keeping our mind keen. The heart is apt to be veryblundering and stupid by itself; just as the mind is very apt to go off ona wrong scent about people, unless you have a warm heart to throw truelight on their motives. 

A _quick-witted heart_ is what I should put as the first requisite for agood talker; and next a _noble heart_--a heart that cares for the bestside of things and people, a heart which brings out the bearable side ofcircumstances, and the nobler side of people, and the interesting side ofsubjects. 

Some people are like Kay, in Anderson's "Snow Queen, " they have a bit ofice in their heart, and they see all the smallnesses and absurdities aboutthem, instead of being alive to the pathos, or endurance, or good-natureof the apparently stupid lives round them. They are always in a critical, carping, superior frame of mind. These people can often talk brilliantly, but it is thin. You cannot have a large mind without a large heart. 'Welive by admiration, hope, and love;' without these, we cease to live--wewither. 

The best talk is kindly; any fool can point out flaws, said Goethe (whocertainly had a great mind, whatever his heart was like), --it takes aclever man to discern excellencies. A good talker makes other people feelthey are much cleverer than they had before realized; they are at theirbest, thanks to the listener who draws out the best side of them. It isdelightful to be with some people--you are sure of hearing goodtalk--interesting subjects spring up wherever they are. 

Perhaps you have a friend staying with you who is one of these delightfulpeople, and you say: "Oh dear! I must go and pay a duty visit--it will beso dull, but do come with me. " And, lo and behold! that visit isdelightful, for your friend made that dull person into an interesting oneby getting her to talk and show her real self. For the real self of everysoul is interesting, only it often has such a "buried life" that we arenot skilful enough to find it. 

Now, does your way of talking bring out the best side of yourself and ofthose you talk to?

School gives you tremendous opportunities of adding to the kindliness andnice-mindedness of the world; for there you talk with a large number who, like yourself, are not yet made, and who are, therefore, more coloured bythe person they talk to than older people would be. 

There are people in the world who never hear unkind gossip or vulgarjokes, for no one would think of saying such things to them. I know girlswho would never have such things said--who would never get a letterwritten to them that was not of a nice tone--because, instinctively, theirfriends would feel such things out of harmony with them. 

When girls are silly, or spiteful, or not quite nice in what they say toyou, it pays _you_ a bad compliment; do not in your own mind merelycondemn _them_. They would not say it to you if they felt you above talkof that kind. You may be above it in your own mind and may feel that yourhome surroundings are on a higher level than such talk; but either youhave not had the courage to show your colours, or else you are like thatin your heart, and they know it by instinct. 

See to it that you keep at your best: for the danger of school is thetemptation to follow a multitude to do, not evil, but folly. 

Many, from indolence or thoughtlessness, or from yielding to the bad bitin them, join in silly school talk, silly mysteries, giggling, criticizingother people, boasting about home, loud, rough ways of talking, slang, cliques and exclusive friendships (every one of which is underbred, aswell as silly or unkind), and are yet, three-quarters of them, fit forsomething better, --at home they _would_ be better, and at school they_could_ be better. 

Many people dread schools for fear of wrong talk going on; now some of youmay (through gossip, or newspapers, or servants, or novels) know of badthings or fast things; and it is perhaps not your fault that you know; but_it is a very heavy sin on your conscience if you hand on your knowledge_and make others dwell on wrong things which would never have been in theirminds but for you. Books or friends which give us a knowledge ofwickedness, do more harm than we know. 

Never have the blood-guiltiness on your head of teaching evil to others, or leading their minds to dwell on it. Some find it much harder to get ridof such thoughts than others do--they may be more naturally inclined toit, and you may have woke up in them far more harm than you guess. 

Your very first duty when you are thrown with others is to see that _noone shall ever be less nice-minded because they knew you_. See to it thatno one learns anything about evil through your being with them. You canvery easily soil a mind, and you can never wash it clean. 

If you feel the least doubt about a thing, do not say it--do not tell thestory; if you want to ask a question and feel in the very leastuncomfortable about it, hold your tongue, or ask your mother instead. 

There are many things which it is not wholesome to talk about amongyourselves, but which it is quite right to ask your mother about, or anyone in her place, if you find yourself dwelling on them. Of course thisincludes everything which makes you feel at all hot, with a sense ofsomething not quite nice;--everything in books which it would make you hotto read out loud (an excellent test);--and _I_ include all uncanny thingssuch as ghosts and palmistry and fortune-telling:--these are not safethings to talk about, and I ask you as my particular wish not to do it, though you are quite welcome to unburden your mind to me if you wish to doso! I think your common sense will bear me out in not wanting them talkedabout among yourselves, because you never know who may take it seriouslyor what harm you may be doing, though as I have read "The Mysteries ofUdolpho" to you, you will see that it is not the subject, but theindiscriminate talking which I object to!

But apart from wrong talk, what sort of silly talk are you likely to beinfected with at school? It is not unlikely that among a number of girlsthere will be one with a hawk's eye for dress, who knows exactly how atrimming went, and how long this or that has been worn; in fact, she takesin every detail of the dress of each person she sees for a minute, and cantalk of it by the hour! She may have no harm in her, but she is firstcousin to a milliner's apprentice (and is mentally the poor relation ofthe two, since the milliner notices these things as a part of business, and very likely has other interests in life for her spare time). If thegirl wishes to prove herself of different family, she needs to put tosleep the side of her that belongs to the keen-eyed young lady behind thecounter, by feeding other sides of her mind, and turning her powers ofobservation on to other things. 

I should like you to be faultlessly dressed outside, and I should like youto be perfectly well inside; but I should not admire you if your chiefsubject of conversation was the devices by which you arrived at the dress, or the decoctions you took to arrive at the health. 

Copy the flowers of the field, not only in prettiness, but in giving animpression that you grow as naturally as they do! Make us feel that you_could_ not have anything ugly or awkward or unbecoming about you. Yourdress and your rooms and your dinners should be perfect, but do notentertain your guest with the mere mechanism of how you arrive at any oneof them. Give time and thought to this machinery of life--enough toproduce the right result, and then go on to the real interests, for whichthey are only the stage. I do not want a sloven, but I want a girl who isa real person and not a mere _poupée modèle_ to show off dresses. 

Petty gossip is the prevailing danger of any small community such as agirls' school. Provincial gossip, Matthew Arnold would call it--provincialbeing one of his severest adjectives for the Philistines whom his soulabhors, --by which he means that their talk is limited to theirnarrow-minded local gossip, so that when a stranger comes from a largerworld, they have nothing in common. I think his use of that word marks hisFrench turn of mind;--parochial would be the better expression in England, where the talk is very often literally parochial, --besides deserving theword in its wider meaning, as describing talk which is full ofunimportant, local, and personal facts, instead of belonging to the largerworld of ideas. 

English girls, as a whole, are supposed to be bad at talking--to giggleamong themselves, and to have nothing to say on general subjects. But, besides this, there is a certain love of silly mysteries and secrets insome girls, which is apt to be too much for their common sense. 

Some girls are so keen to chatter, and make themselves interesting at anycost, that they tell their family's private affairs or discuss the faultsof their nearest relations. I am sure you would all remember that any one, with a grain of decent family pride, washes every bit of dirty linen athome, and holds their tongue about family news till they are sure it ispublic property, and to the family credit! If you ever want to talk aboutsuch things for real reasons, always go to an older friend and not to oneof your own age; for an older friend would know enough of the world totake it up by the right handle and to hold her tongue. 

Again, some girls fancy that a little theatre gossip marks them out aswomen of the world. To talk about a play and about the good and badstrokes of acting is one thing:--the petty personal gossip about theactors and actresses is on the same level, to my mind, as the talkingabout dukes and duchesses by those who read of them in a society paper, without ever expecting to meet them. 

Again, there is some school talk which is undesirable, though not wrong. Imean talk about the things which belong to your future life, but whichare just the sides of it that you want your education to help you to keepin proper proportion. There are interests, such as hunting and dancing, which are all right in their own time and place, but which make a silly, empty mind when they are your chief mental food. You come to school totake an interest in work, and in bookish things generally. It is not soeasy to do this when you are in the full swing of home amusements, and soyou come away for a sort of mental retreat, during which it will be easierto you to let your bookish and thoughtful side grow. Here you are, andyour home amusements are left behind. Would it not be a pity to let yourmind keep running on the very things from which you have come away? Do notlet your tongue or your mind run on the amusements of home--they preventyour taking real interest in your work. 

Also there should be no talk about religious differences. Of course, youall come from different homes and have somewhat different teaching, and Ido not wish you ever to discuss those differences. Every one should keepto her home ways, and try to live up to them. Religious controversy neveryet made any into better Christians, and it generally makes them worse!

Avoid Religious gossip about the services and the clergy. Make it a rulefor yourself, wherever you are, never to criticize the clergyman or thesermon. Very likely you might say something to the point--it might do himgood if he heard it! That will not happen, and what _will_ happen is, thatyou will do yourself harm by being critical or amused, instead of makingyour mind devout. If your "mind" knows that, whatever it may notice inchurch, your "will" is not going to allow it to speak of, then yourcritical part goes to sleep. A joke loses its amusingness if one is notgoing to tell it, and you are then able to think only of your Prayers andResolutions. 

Purity and Reverence are the two main things in talk, but how about Sense?

There is one class of girl I have sometimes noticed with amused regret--Idare say you have too--though she is by no means so objectionable as theother kind I spoke of. She is a would-be child of nature. She has nothoughtfulness or weight about her; she is an engaging kitten who existson the rather inadequate stock-in-trade of nice eyes; she is quiteirresponsible and useless, and tells you so, in an ingenuous way, forwhich her nearest and dearest long to box her ears! I would call her "TheArtless Japanese, " remembering the princess in the _Mikado_, who says, "Isit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why I am so charming. "

Again, very often a girl of your age gets a good deal of society in theholidays or before she comes. She comes to school on purpose to keep awayfrom that, till the right time for it comes (when I hope she will haveplenty of it!)

Now, when a girl is not much accustomed to society (especially to men'ssociety), it sometimes turns her head, and she gets an idea that any jokeabout a man is amusing. I will not say that this sort of a joke is like aservant, for a well-brought-up servant puts many a young lady to shame byher nice-mindedness. Young ladies' academies are supposed to be full ofthat sort of thing--for which there is no word but vulgar--and when suchgirls leave such academies to go home for good, they are always in holesand corners either with a man, or with another girl talking about one. Aman does not respect that kind of girl--though he will go just as far withher as she will let him--and he will tell it again at his club, andprobably to his sisters. If _she_ does not mind about her dignity, whyshould _he_? There is hardly a man living who would not make game of theadvances of the girl who admires him, just as there is hardly a man livingwho would speak to others of the girl he loves. Unluckily, every idioticgirl (who is silly about him) thinks she is the one he cares for, andnever realizes how she is "giving herself away!"

And the worst of it is, that the girl is not only lowering herself, she islowering a man's standard of Woman in general. You, each one of you, helpto decide whether your brothers and every man you meet shall have a highor a low standard about women. I assure you, when I think of girls I haveknown of (and heard of from men), I wonder that men have any respect forwomen at all. 

We shall never know how much of Dante's nobleness was due to his havingonce known a girl in Florence, who never was in any specially closerelationship to him. He met her at the gatherings of Florentine ladies, where she must have heard his songs, but the most close personalintercourse they had was one day when they passed each other in thestreet, and she bowed to him, --"From that salute, humbleness flowed allhis being o'er. " Do you say, he was a poet, and Beatrice was one of themost famous of all Fair Women, and therefore they are no guide for you?What man has not got poetry in him, waiting for the woman he loves to wakeit? and what woman does not possess that womanhood which is, by God'sordering, in itself an attraction to a man, and which it rests with her soto use--by self-restraint and love of noble things--that she may be, toevery man about her, something of what Beatrice was to Dante?--he may knowvery little of her, and care less, but she will have helped to raise hisidea of what a woman should be. 

Women have a great deal to answer for as regards men, and every girlshould do her best to be on the right side and to help a man to be at hisbest, by showing that she thinks silliness and vulgar chaff objectionable. Every girl sets the tone of those she talks with, for every one'sconscience responds to the tacit appeal of a nice-minded girl's dislike ofthese things. If you do not respond, it checks such talk wonderfully. 

Boys are sometimes told that they must swim with the stream at school andjoin in bad talk because "everybody does it, " but the nice boy stands outand does not, and helps weaker ones thereby. 

Girls have a much smaller temptation in that way--more to silliness thanto actual wrong; but your tone--in these matters that I speak of--helpsyour brothers in their battles with downright wrong. Every boy who knowshis sister's standard is very high, is helped far more than he isconscious of, by her influence, --and far more than she ever knows, for shedoes not know all his temptations. 

Women have been trained to nice-mindedness by centuries of publicopinion--they have always been admired for it, and blamed if they lack it;while men have not been so trained; therefore women have a special powerof helping men, who are, consequently, not likely to be born so particularabout these things as women are. 

Always feel responsible for what you laugh at: very often people saythings tentatively to see if you will laugh: you help to fix theirstandard by the way you take it, and you often throw your weight into thewrong scale because you are afraid of seeming priggish. A man's sense ofhumour is different from a woman's; when you go into the world you must becareful not to laugh just because a man makes a joke, until you are quitesure that it is one to laugh at. Perhaps your host makes it, and his wifelooks a trifle grave: then be quick to take your cue from her and tonotice what nice women think nice for a woman. 

Very often in talking to girls and preparing them for life, the wholequestion of flirtation and nonsense is left out--there is not even as muchsaid as in Mrs. Blackett's village, where the clergyman's wife put everygirl through a special catechism before she left to go to service, part ofwhich was, "Lads, Sally?" The correct answer briskly given by Sally was, "Have naught to do with them--but if they _will_, tell mother. "

The whole subject of getting married, or falling in love, or meeting a manyou _may_ fall in love with, is often smothered up out of sight, as if itwere something wrong. If you have your life so full of other intereststhat it does not concern you till the real thing comes, so much thebetter--you will lose the pleasantest five years of your life if you turnyour mind in this direction too soon. 

What often happens is that it is plentifully thought of and talked ofamong the girls, and hidden away from the mothers and any older friends. Either do not speak of it at all, or let it be an open straightforwardthing, instead of a Rosa Matilda mystery. So often a girl feels adelightful spice of impropriety in any remark about a man or a boy. If shehad more to do with them she would not be so silly--unless she had a veryodd sort of menkind belonging to her; but you will find girls (veryunattractive ones, too) always imagining that a man is in love with them, or else being silly themselves over every other man they meet. 

What I am describing is, of course, very vulgar; but, from the castle tothe cottage, no house is folly-proof, though the outward manifestations ofit may be less objectionable where the manners are better. 

Now, with regard to all the kinds of talk which I have singled out asundesirable, please understand, that except in speaking of wickedness (orworse still nastiness), which is always a sin and needs your penitentconfession and God's absolution, all these things are wrong, only in thewrong place and wrong way and wrong proportion. 

If you are keen about any of them, and want dreadfully to talk about it, do so; let it out, if you cannot fill your mind with other things; only, do it with an older person, so as to save yourself from that demon ofsilliness who hovers about a room where girls are alone together. He ispowerless unless you invoke him; but remember, he is always there, eagerlywatching his opportunity. 

I advise you to make it a rule for yourself always to go to an olderfriend, when you want to talk about anything that might be not quite nice, or that might verge on silliness. If conscience or prudence give anypricks in the matter, go to an elder. You do not know how much such a rulewould save you from, and if you say, "but that is impossible, she wouldnot understand!" then I say to you, "well, it is always possible to holdyour tongue, though _I_ do not wish to impose such a severe penance onyou; I only say, talk to a safe friend, or to none. "

This question of talk is a very practical one in school life. Probablymost of you think privately, "How silly girls are!" What do _you_ do, tomake the mass less silly? That sort of infectious silliness is the greatdanger of school life, but the chatter is made up by individuals, whocould each talk instead of chattering: remember that a girl at school neednot be a schoolgirl; but she is in great danger of it, unless she iscareful!

When you live at home you do not talk nonsense at dinner, you probablyjoin in sensible talk. Well, do not alter because you are with girls, andsay complacently in your heart "How silly the others are!" Yourneighbours would not be silly if you did not admire it. You yourself arepart of the mass you are criticizing. On which side do your words go--talkor chatter? Watch yourselves, and see how your words, each day, can fairlybe divided between those two scales. 

"By thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt becondemned. " Are these words too solemn to use, after suggestions on talkwhich may seem to you to have been occupied with very petty and ignobledetails? Surely not, for your talk on these commonplace matters reallysettles your standard, and that of the world about you, on the deepestmoral questions. The common talk of the day is both cause and effect ofthe morality of the day. 

May I suggest some thoughts for self-examination on the matter? One goodquestion to put daily to yourself is, "How much of my talk to-day was formyself, and against others? Perhaps I was too well-mannered to boast, buthave I turned things to my own advantage, shown up my own strong points, instead of trying to help others to shine? Have I tried to get cheapcredit for wit, by sharp speeches, _would-be_ clever criticism and pullingpeople to pieces? Have I started, or handed on, spiteful remarks?" If youlike, use another question, and ask yourself, "Was I like S. Theresa, 'AnAdvocate of the Absent'?" Or ask, "Have I, by my way of speaking _orlistening_, lowered any one's standard to-day?" Very often people saythings or make jokes tentatively, to see how we shall take it, and throughfear of being stiff or priggish we surprise them by seeming to enjoy whatthey were rather uncertain about. It is quite curious how ashamed mostpeople generally are of seeming as good as they really are; they "hidetheir best selves as if they had stolen them. " If they would show theircolours, they would find that many of the apparently careless people theymeet do care about the real interests of life. If they themselves do careand yet try to seem careless, are they not responsible for half thecarelessness in those about them?

"The manner of our ordinary conversation, " says Bishop Wilson, "is thatwhich either hardens people in wrong, or awakens them to the right. Wealways do good or harm to others by the manner of our conversation. "

Aunt Rachel; or, Old Maids' Children. 

"What is the matter, my dear" said Aunt Rachel to her favourite niece, Urith Trevelyan, who was spending the Easter holidays with her. "You lookfit to be a sister in mind, though I hope not in manners, to the Persianpoet, who described himself as 'scratching the head of Thought with thenails of Despair. '"

"I think life is very difficult, " remarked Urith, with a solemn sigh. 

"There I partly agree with you, " said Aunt Rachel; "especially to peoplewho insist on doing to-morrow's duty with to-day's strength. I doubt verymuch if the holiday task, which I see in your hand, is the cause of thisgloom. "

"Oh dear, no! I was thinking what shall I do with myself when I leaveschool at Midsummer; it will be so very hard to read by myself. "

"My good child, do attend to what you are doing; you are just like the manin the 'Snark, ' who had

 "'luncheon at five o'clock tea, And dined on the following day. '

"I wish you would dine off that unfortunate task to-day, and when you havefinished it we will talk about your future work. "

The task did not take long when Urith fairly gave her mind to it, and thenext day she and her aunt started for a distant cottage at the far end ofthe parish. Urith seized the opportunity, and began as the door closedbehind them--

"Now, Aunt Rachel, how can I do everything I ought when I leave school? Ishall know nothing of Greek or Roman history, or mythology, or French orGerman history, or even of English, except the period we have been justdoing, and I have done only a few books in the literature class, and nonein foreign literature, and I have forgotten all my geography, and I shallhave Latin and Greek to keep up, and French and German and chemistry, andI don't know anything, hardly, of modern books, or of architecture ornatural history, or philosophy, or of cooking"--here, in her ardour, shetripped over a stone, and her aunt availed herself of the pause to say--

"Add Shakespeare and the musical glasses, and you will have a tolerablycomplete programme before you. "

"Yes, Aunt Rachel, you need not laugh, you always say girls are souneducated, and can't respond to literary allusions; but how are they tobecome educated when there is so much to be done?"

"My dear Urith, there is a very wise Irish proverb, 'Never cross a bridgetill you come to it, ' and though this bridge of culture seems such abridge of sighs to you, I really do not think it need be. In the firstplace, it has not got to be crossed in one year. You get far more law nowthan in my young days, for you and your friends are not expected to comeout full-blown heroines at seventeen or eighteen; you are almost expectedto carry on your education for some time longer. It is not safe to counton it, for real life may come on you in a dozen ways when you once leavethe safety of the schoolroom, but you will probably get several years oftolerable quiet, and, if I were you, I would not spend my first year in adesperate effort to fill up all the gaps in my education, and to go onwith school-work in the school spirit. I should take my first year offreedom as the arbour on the Hill Difficulty, where Christian rested; thelord of that country does not like pilgrims to stay there for good, butthey go on all the better for it afterwards. I should look on this year asbeing the ornamental fringe to the intellectual dress you have beenweaving for yourself at school. And do not forget that the dress and thetrimming are not an end in themselves--they are only to enable you toleave the house with decency, to go about your business; and at the end ofthe first year I should count up my possessions and see where I waswanting--if the dress proved thin, I would then set to work and furnishmyself with a jacket, by hard, steady work in the second year. "

"But some of my school-work will be wasted if I don't keep it up. "

"Quite true; but do not keep it up simply because you have once begun it;some of your lessons will have done their work by ploughing and harrowingyour mind, and may be left behind. The use of school is to teach you howto use your mind, and to try your hand at several branches of study, thatyou may be able to follow whichever suits you. "

"But I have not got any particular turn for anything, and it seems a pityto drop things. "

"Yes, it is a pity, but you are not going to teach, and you will have todo the best you can. You had better make up your mind, before you beginlife, as to what sort of woman you want to be, and then cut your coataccording to your cloth, for if you begin by wanting to keep upeverything, you will probably end by dropping everything, in despair. "

"Well, I want to keep up Latin and Greek and French and German, andAlgebra and Geometry and Chemistry and Mechanics, as well as Englishsubjects. "

"And seeing that your day will probably be only twenty-four hours long, Ifear 'want will be your master'! If you had a strong turn for any one ofthese subjects, I should say keep it up, by all means; but as you havenot, I have very strong doubts whether you will find mathematics orclassics much use to you. You know enough to take them up again if everyou wanted to help a beginner. "

"Then do you think Latin and Greek and mathematics no good for a woman?"

"Certainly not; you will read your newspaper, and the books of the day, inquite a different way now that your mind has been trained by thesesubjects, but you do not need to keep the scaffolding up when your houseis built!"

"It does seem a pity!"

"Well, I do not want to debar you from these subjects if you really enjoythem; there would be a reason for going on, if they were intense pleasureto you, but I suspect you do them as 'lessons, ' and, if so, you had betterforsake them for things that directly tend to make you useful. "

"Oh, cooking and nursing, and that sort of thing. "

"Yes; but I was not thinking of that sort of thing. I meant things thatbring you closer to others; Madame Schwetchine says that every freshsorrow we endure is like learning a fresh language, because it enables usto speak to a fresh set of souls in their own tongue, and to sympathize. Every fresh thing that you learn brings you in sympathy with a fresh setof people. It gives pleasure and ease to a stranger to find that some onein his new circle knows his old home, and we can try to be at home in themental country of each person we meet, so as to be able to respond tothem. If you are a genius you can have your own country, and wait in it, till you meet some fellow-countryman; but as you only want to be anordinary woman, 'not too bright and good for human nature's daily food, 'you will give far more pleasure to others, and widen and strengthen yourown mind far more, by being able to join on easily to all you meet, thanby pursuing some one abstruse study, whether it be mathematics orphilosophy. "

"But it seems such a small thing to spend one's mind in learning odds andends of other people's hobbies. "

"But I would have a hobby of my own, and do some steady stiff reading, only, as you are going to be a woman, and not a student, I would choosereading that linked me to as many as possible of other people's interests. How dull and shy poor little Miss Smith was yesterday, till I found thatshe knew Venice as well as I did. After that she quite enjoyed her visit. "

"Yes, but I could not have talked about Italy. I never have a chance ofgoing abroad. "

"You do not know when you may go, and if you went to-morrow it would be acase of 'No Eyes. ' You do not know an interesting piece of architecturewhen you see it, you would not know what pictures to look for, you wouldnot know the history of the places you went to, and, in short, you wouldmiss nine-tenths of the best points, for want of knowing they were there. "

"Yes; I might read up countries, but it is so unlikely that I should eversee them, that it does not seem much use to read up for nothing. "

"Well, supposing that you did not go, but that you had read books onItalian Art, and made out a list of the pictures you wanted to see at eachgreat town--Florence, Venice, Rome, Siena--and knew about each painter, his history, his style, and photographs of his works, and copied out undereach picture what good critics had said of it, or at least put a referenceto the book where it was mentioned (_e. G. _ Kingsley's description ofBellini's Doge; Browning on Fra Lippo Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin;Ruskin's best descriptions); and if you looked out all the famous men ofeach town, and knew their history, and what parts of the town were sacredto them; if you studied the buildings of each town, looked up itsarchitecture, and tried to draw it from photographs and illustrations, andthen hunted out all the poetry and novels about each place, and drew out asketch of its history, marking where the local history of the towndovetailed into larger European interests, and specially where it touchedEngland--I think, after this, you would enjoy meeting any one from Italyalmost as much as if you had been there, and you would not feel you hadread up for nothing. I should take a fresh country every year, and makebelieve that you were going to it next summer, and that you were gettingready to be 'Eyes, ' and not 'No Eyes, ' while there. You would have got thespirit of the country by this, far more than ninety-nine out of a hundredof those who go to it in the flesh. You are leaving school at eighteen, and by the time you are five and twenty, _i. E. _ before you are fully grownup, you might have thus visited Italy, France, Germany, Spain, America, India, which would make you a fairly cultivated person. "

"But it is so hard to get books; I can read Ruskin while I am with you, and when I am with Uncle Charles I could find some of the others I shouldwant, but I can't get hold of a course of reading at home. "

"But if you have such a large peg as Italy on which to hang your reading, you can always find something which bears on it--you can borrow an oddbook here and there, or pick up bits in a stray magazine; several of thebooks you would want are cheap to buy, and, if you keep a list of them, you will be surprised to find from what odd quarters they turn up. Peoplehave a way of saying, 'Oh, do recommend me a book, ' as if all subjectswere equally interesting, or rather uninteresting, and they borrow thefirst that comes, reading it as a duty, quite regardless of the fact thatit does not belong to anything they have read before, or will read after;but if they had made up their mind on a subject, the lending friend wouldtake far more interest, and probably hunt up something that bore on thesubject, while the reader would be more likely to get good. "

"But if I begin Ruskin here, and then go home, where I may perhaps find anItalian history, and then go for another visit and find something else, itwill all be so disjointed. "

"Yes, it would be nicer if you could go on with art or architecture; butyour reading will not be so desultory as to be useless, if it is allstrung on the one thread of Italy, and then you can group it, as you goalong, in a commonplace book. I should take a large one, and divide itamong the towns I wanted to see, and then subdivide the pages given to, _e. G. _ Florence, under the heads of art, history, famous men, architecture, poetry, novels, and, as I read anything on these subjects, Ishould jot down the substance of it under the right heading, or if it wasa poem, just give the title and one or two of the best lines. And youcould keep up your French and German at the same time--suppose you read_Corinne_ and the _Improvisator_, they would both help to keep you in anItalian atmosphere. "

"Yes, I could keep up my reading, but how about the grammar?"

"I should recommend you to take a very conversational novel and turn apage of it into both French and German every week; this would keep up allthe rules of grammar, and, though you might make mistakes, you would gainfluency in expressing yourself, which is much more needed than grammaticalaccuracy if you go abroad, for a course of lessons will set you rightabout the grammar at any time, but would not make you talk, if you hadallowed yourself to get tongue-tied by not practising translation fromEnglish into French; and I should advise you to translate very freely, anduse the dictionary as little as possible; if you cannot remember the exactrendering, twist the sentence and paraphrase it, till you can manage it, simply to learn to express your thoughts easily. I should say an hour aweek of this would keep up both French and German. "

"But you have said nothing of English History and Literature. "

"I should be inclined to drop English History for the first year, becauseyou know so much more of that than of Foreign and Ancient History, but ifyou like it I should take some one prominent reign--Elizabeth or CharlesI. , or Anne or George III. , and get to know all the chief people, readtheir memoirs, and what they themselves wrote, so as to feel among friendswhenever you hear a name of that period mentioned--and read all essays, etc. That you can find upon it. To keep your mind generally open, I shouldmake a chart of contemporary history and another of literature, taking onecentury a month, and leaving plenty of space for adding things afterwards. In Literature, I should take one of the Men of Letters every month, or oneof the Foreign Classics, and at the same time read any of the man's ownworks that I could. Modern poets and novelists and essayists I should readat odd times, _specially making it a matter of conscience never to open anovel before luncheon_! I should read my poets not only promiscuously, asthe fancy took me, but compare their treatment of different subjects;_e. G. _, you might make yourself a private New Year's Eve service, of allthe poems on it you can find--Coleridge, Tennyson, and Elia's prose poemon the same subject. Or you could make a Shepherd's Calendar for yourself, and copy out under each month what poets have said about it, and itsflowers and features generally: or a Poet's Garden; collect all the bitsabout flowers, and make a 'Poet's Corner' in your garden, admitting noflower that cannot bring some poetry as its credential. It will makecountry life far more enjoyable if you know your poets as ThomasHolbrook, in 'Cranford, ' knew Tennyson. "

"I should like all that, Aunt Rachel; but you have not said anything thatsounds like stiff reading yet. "

"No; and you ought to have something that will tax all your powers, aswell as this general cultivation, which will be all pleasant. I shouldtake some really stiff book, on Logic or Political Economy, or Butler's'Analogy, ' and after each morning's work make a careful analysis of theargument, leaving one side of your MS. Book blank, that you may put inafterwards any illustrations or criticisms of your own, or others, thatmay occur to you in the future. I should always keep a stiff book in handand treat it so, even if all other regularity and plan in my reading fellthrough--it would be a backbone. "

"But I shall have so much writing to do if I am to make a commonplace bookon each subject. "

"It will make you slower, but much surer. I know a girl who writes areview of every book she reads, giving extracts, and an abstract of theargument and her own opinion of it. She finds it most useful, both aspractice in expressing her thoughts and for reference afterwards. "

"But it would take so long. "

"You would be well repaid, and you would not read any books in your timefor study which were not worth taking trouble with. In reading a book, Ishould put a mark to everything that struck me, and at the end of achapter should look over the marked bits, and put a second mark to thoseparts that seemed specially important, after I had mastered the drift ofthe chapter. It would then be easy, when you had finished the book, towrite a review, for you would only look at the doubly marked bits. "

"And am I to do no science?"

"I should vary your science with your opportunities, because you have nostrong turn for any one in particular. When you go to town in the winterfor that long visit you should get some cooking lessons, and before you goyou should get the books recommended by the South Kensington CookerySchool, and study the bookwork on the subject. When you go away in thesummer, you should take up geology, or botany, or whatever suits the placeyou go to. "

"But I shall only have smatterings of things at this rate!"

"Smatterings are very good things in their way, so long as you are notmisled into thinking them more than they are! They are the keys which willenable you, in the future, to follow up the subject for which you may haveany special opportunities. They also prevent your being quite a dumb noteanywhere, --it is something to be able to listen intelligently! Besides, ifyour mind is open on all sides, you will never find any one dull, for youare almost certain to be able to gain information on some one of thesubjects you are interested in. "

"I don't see how I can get all these things in, Aunt Rachel, for I shan'thave much time. "

"I think you might manage two hours a day, and I should divide the weekthus: Monday and Friday I should give to Italy or any subject which youmeant to take as the staple of your reading; Tuesday take a science, andWednesday English literature; Thursday take a stiff book and half an hourof French; Saturday take ancient history or mythology and half an hour ofGerman. I should write an essay every week at odd moments, if I were you, for you ought to think things out for yourself as well as filling yourmind with other people's thoughts by reading, but you could work out youressay in your head while walking or waiting for any one. I should alsoadvise you to make a list of every book you read after leaving school; youwill find it very interesting in after years, especially if you put ashort criticism on each. "[2]

"But surely I had better do more than one subject in a day? I should gettired of reading one book for two hours. "

"You might vary your treatment of the subject. For instance, take notesof the History of Italy for one hour, and look out descriptions ofpictures for another. In literature you could read about your author forone hour, and read his works for the next. In your science, give half thetime to book-work, and the rest to practical work. "

"But would it not be a more thorough change to go to a new subject?"

"So it would, but you may not be able to fit in two hours' reading withyour duty to your neighbour! On any day that you could honestly be only ahalf-timer, you are far less likely to get careless, and to despair ofregularity, if you get a bit of your day's subject, than if you have toleave one of your subjects entirely undone. "

Even Aunt Rachel's good advice came to an end at last, as in course oftime did Urith's visit, and also the Midsummer term, after which she leftschool with the best possible intentions, and announced them at home withmuch dignity. But, far from being allowed to carry on her course of study, it became a study with her two small brothers to prevent such morbidfancies from taking effect. They won golden opinions from the servantsthose holidays, who said that the young gentlemen had never been so littletrouble before. They suddenly became as full of "resources withinthemselves" as Mrs. Elton herself, to the admiration of the whole family, except of the unfortunate Urith, who might have unravelled the mystery, since the cultivation of her domestic virtues by startling and unexpectedinterruptions of her reading, occupied such of their spare time as was notdevoted to the mental exercise of devising new plans for her discomfitureon the morrow. 

But, happily for Urith, holidays are terminable, and when the boys leftshe hoped to do great things. But visitors came to stay in the house, special friends of her own, with strong theories as to the value ofco-operation in the matter of brushing their hair at night. 

Midnight conversations did not conduce to work before breakfast or to muchenergy after it. It was, therefore, with very mingled feelings that Urithwelcomed Aunt Rachel, her outside conscience, whose yearly visit wasusually an unmixed pleasure to her. 

Having written much about her intentions at first starting, she was notsurprised when her aunt, on the first evening of her visit, settledherself for a talk, and began--

"How is the reading going on? You were very sensible in saying that youmeant to begin at once on leaving school, so as not to get out of thehabit of work, and as you have now had three months I suppose you havesomething to show for it?"

"Well, I thought I should have had, but, you see, the boys wouldn't letme!"

"I don't see why you need have drawn the boys' attention to what you weredoing; but since they left--"

"The house has been full!"

"Yes, my dear, but as you generally do have visitors, your reading willnever flourish at this rate. "

"Well, I couldn't neglect them. "

"No; but they don't require entertaining before breakfast, do they?"

"No; but I was so sleepy. "

"What time did you go to bed?"

"Well, I suppose I ought not to have stayed in Barbara's room, but Alicehad so many stories to tell us of her adventures that I did not leave themtill after twelve o'clock. "

"As Alice is by no means tongue-tied in the daytime, her adventures mighthave kept, and if you went to bed in proper time, you might get half anhour before breakfast. But what do you do after breakfast?"

"Oh, then the flowers want doing, and mamma always wants some notes to beanswered, and then it is so fine that we go for a walk, and don't get backtill after luncheon, and then visitors come, and I must be there to talkto them; and when it gets cool, people come in for tennis, and as toreading after that, why, one barely gets time to dress for dinner, and inthe evening they like me to play to them, and papa wants the paper readto him, and you know, Aunt Rachel, you always said home duties ought tocome first, so I don't see when a girl at home is to read!"

"I quite agree with you about home duties, my dear; but, though manythings have changed since my day, home duties must have changed most ofall, if they now include chattering till midnight, and taking a two hours'walk in the morning, on days when you are likely to get three hours'tennis in the afternoon, and being obliged to play in the last set, sothat you cannot even go and dress a quarter of an hour too soon! It seemsto me that you might get these home duties done by eleven o'clock, andthen get an hour, or an hour and a half, for steady reading, or, if not somuch as that, still visitors do not come directly after luncheon: in fact, I noticed that you got through two volumes of that new novel before anyone came. Now, that time would have done equally well for history, andeven when the boys are at home, their suspicions would not be much arousedif you went to wash your hands for luncheon a quarter of an hour too soon, and the same in the evening before dinner. "

"Yes, Aunt Rachel, it all seems very easy when I talk to you, and I feelnow as if I should carry out all you say, but I know a hundred littlethings will come to make it very hard. I wish it were easier to carry outone's good intentions. "

"I do not wish it for you, my dear; you will be worth ten times more ifyou have to exert strength of character, than if everything is done foryou; we ought to feel a little insulted if Fortune lets us live on tooeasy terms, though I cannot say, after all, that you have very hard ones. There now! I have given you quite enough advice to start several girls inlife. I will only add this: do not get flurried over your work, or insiston doing it when time and strength will not permit; and, on the otherhand, do not be self-indulgent!"

 "Like as a star That maketh not haste, That taketh not rest, Be each one pursuing His God-given hest. "

[Footnote 2: See "Record of a Year's Reading. " 6_d_. Mowbray. ]

"Get up, M. Le Comte!"

You have all been considering what qualities are most necessary in familylife and what qualities are most to be deprecated--you have, in short, been considering Dr. Johnson's question as to what makes "a clubbableperson. " I find, on comparing your suggestions, that there arethirty-eight things to avoid in home life (which suggests complexity);however, each of you was to confine her attention to three virtues andthree failings, so in giving you my own likes and dislikes, I will notdwell on more than three. 

I will not take manifest faults like irritability or selfishness--we allstrive against those, but I would suggest turns of mind that are often notrealized as faults:--

I. --_The Benevolent Despot_ who takes infinite trouble for your help orpleasure, but insists on your enjoying yourself in _her_ way. (The youngvery often do this to the old or to the invalid, quite forgetting thatone's own way loses none of its charm, even in age or illness!)

II. --Then there is the _Peter Grievous_ who cannot stand a word ofreproof; she is aggrieved or huffy or sulky in a minute--she thinks thatshe has a delicate sense of justice, and that she does well to be angry;she feels as if her mother took a curious and selfish enjoyment in findingfault with her, --whereas the poor mother has to take her courage in bothhands before saying anything calculated to bring on those black looks. 

III. --And then there is _The Snail_, always slow, generally late, andfrequently a martyr--she has to be spoken to so often that her caseusually develops into the Peter Grievous disease as well. For if a motherspeaks, let us say, six times--in the daughter's mind it ceases to bereproof, and becomes Nagging. It never occurs to the daughter that shesinned six times (or even shall we say eight or ten?); she feels that sheis being nagged at, and may therefore cease to attend, and may enjoy agrievance into the bargain!

Now, I have slow friends who really suffer from a sense of their failing, and who realize acutely what they make others suffer; they were nottrained at first to pull themselves together and to collect beforehand anymaterials they were likely to want (as you can train yourselves bysettling in properly to do your preparation)--and they did not teachthemselves to start five minutes sooner instead of leaving things to thelast moment. (They think that the consequent family thundercloud is theirsad fate from their being of a slow constitution. ) But if you have onlyone horse and your neighbour two, and you are to dine at the same house, it only means that you must order yours earlier. Do not start together andthen bewail your sad fate; nothing condemns you to be late except your ownbad management. 

Especially be careful to be up early when you are going to early servicewith your mother; it fidgets her to wait--she recalls all your manyprevious sins of the same kind--and just when you both want to feel _atone_, you start off together (rather, I should say, you overtake her), both feeling very much _at two_. And yet you made an effort to go! and youfeel she ought to be pleased with you--do not spoil it by that fly in theointment of being late. 

 * * * * *

It seems to me that the Benevolent Despot, the Peter Grievous, and theMartyred Snail, are people to avoid in choosing your family!

Now, the people to choose for your family party are, first, _the ReliablePerson_. I know one person who is a perfect tower of strength, she is fullof common sense: if you give her a commission she is sure to get the rightthing and to do it reasonably; she knows exactly what she paid, and shetells you! If she undertakes to do a thing it is certain to be done ingood time; she does not wait till the very day the thing is wanted andthen find that it cannot be got. 

Now, _you_ often let yourselves do a stupid thing, or a forgetful thing, and then say, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" and feel as if you had wiped it out. Notat all! You have lost one chance of growing into a reliable woman. In allyour life you will only have a certain limited number of chances, andshould use every one you have--to be reliable is worth all the genius inthe world for comfort to others, and _you can each win this crown_ if youcare to do so. 

One other person I would choose if I were fated to have sisters, would bethe one who purrs when she is pleased. It takes all the colour and air outof life when people gaze impassively at beautiful things, or hear lovelythings and never seem to have taken them in; or meet kindness and look asif it was not there. You do not need to gush, but _do_ purr!

And thirdly I want a magnanimous nature;--one that takes slights andneglects in a large-minded way, and does not believe people meant themand, if they _did_, does not fret: one who is serene when little things gowrong, and does not fuss or worry: one who accepts generously as well asgives generously, and who is keenly alive to people's good points and goodintentions. Little petty motives and small spites and jealousy die awayin the light of a nature like that. It keeps the family atmosphere sweetand wholesome. 

 * * * * *

Now, my lessons are generally about the things that can be carried out athome, or else about the beliefs that underlie them. You know that myambition for you is that you should go out into the world and lead theordinary small social life, but that you should live it in a great way andbring great beliefs to bear on it. 

This is a special lesson--the last of all to some of you--the last in thisyear to all of you. 

How long have you been at school, each of you? How many times have we cometogether here, and thought over together, point after point, the thingsthat really matter to us?

Week after week we are reminded by these talks to pull ourselves together, first in one way, then in another, and I do believe we have all tried. 

Have the suggestions _I_ made and the Resolutions _we_ made, soaked intoour lives and altered the stuff of which we are made? That is theResponsibility for _me_ who speak and for _you_ who hear: "To him thatknoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. "

A Bible lesson written for you and dwelling on your special life anddangers is a more pointed reminder to you than a general sermon, and whenyou leave you will not get these reminders: one is hardly ever spoken toreligiously after being grown up. It is no one's business afterwards (asit is mine now) to speak to you. 

Therefore I want you always to keep some religious book on hand that islikely to _speak_ to _you_. For instance, Bishop Wilkinson's books speak, so do Dean Paget's and Law's "Serious Call, " and "Christian Perfection. "Read a little of such a book every day, and a longer bit on Sunday. If youonly say your prayers and go to church, it is apt to become an outsidething; you want stirring up!

When you go out into the world you may drift into the ways of eachhousehold you are with for the time being; whereas I want you to have yourown definite religious life, an inner life of rules and duties: dress likeother people, but keep a hair shirt underneath, as the Saints did. 

And when I talk about this and that piece of advice (advice which is oftenworldly wisdom; for goodness and worldly wisdom are closelyallied), --always remember that I pre-suppose the life of prayer and ruleabout which I so often speak--only _there_ can you gain strength to followsuch advice. 

But now (pre-supposing the inner religious life--the effort after thePractice of the Presence of God)--what shall I pick out as practicaladvice for a closing lesson to those who are going into the world?

I. --Always _vote on the right side_ in conversation. 

Very often the lower side, or the _un_religious side in talk (or indoings, such as not going to Church) is the easier side to take. It seemsobtrusive to show what you feel to be right; and very often the one whotakes the religious side is narrow-minded and tiresome compared to theothers. Goodness is very often tiresome, and non-religion broad-minded andamusing. (Gallio is often a most attractive person!) It takes courage thento side with the tiresome one, instead of saying something rather clever. In youth one has a great horror of belonging to the tiresome side. Cleverness counts for so much, and it is hard in early life to putgoodness first! One does not realize the beauty of the strength andprinciple shown by the tiresome people, and it takes real principle toshow one's colours in ordinary talk. 

I once heard of an earnest religious girl who was asked to a pleasantcountry house, and who thought she might lawfully take a holiday, as itwere, and be like other people while away from home; so she laughed andtalked with the rest and kept her real life to herself. On the last night, a girl she had taken a fancy to came into her room, and, after a littletime, said, "It has been so nice meeting you, but I rather wish yoursister had come too. " "But I have no sister. " "Why, I have heard so muchof her, and of how good she is, and though you wouldn't think it, I havebeen bothered about things lately, and when I heard your name, I thoughtit was she who was coming here, and I planned to have a talk withher:--you're awfully nice, but of course one wouldn't talk about thosethings to you any more than to any of the rest of us. "

I leave you to fancy the resolutions that girl made, to show her coloursfor the future!

And then it does not seem to matter--no _harm_ is being said or done, Gallio is generally an excellent person, and really "So-and-so" wasunnecessarily tiresome in raising the point; and then, again, one'sindolence bids one be quiet and vote neither way. 

But every vote on the right side counts; it alters the balance of thegeneral feeling, and probably helps some one looking on, --some one whonever let out that they needed or cared for any help. "Right!" has a bigbattle to fight, and you and I are soldiers, and must stand to our guns. 

Have the courage to show that you like goodness. It makes a difference, for no one ever tells an unkind story to a large-hearted woman, or a nastystory to a nice-minded woman. 

If they tell either to you, it means an intuitive perception that youenjoy it, --you bring out that side of them; if there is no response inyou, that side of them goes to sleep while they are with you. You createyour world in your own image, and are responsible for what is said to you, as well as for what you say. 

II. --My second advice is: _Show your mother that you love her. _ "In one'swhole life one can never have more than a single mother. You may thinkthis obvious.... You are a green gosling! I was at the same age as wise asyou, and yet never discovered this till it was too late. "[3]

Your mother will plan for you to go out and enjoy yourselves, and sheprobably will not say that she is left alone by this or that arrangement;but _you_ must think for her and protest against it, and see that she getsamusement, and is talked to. 

I know girls who will leave their mother alone night after night, or sitat home and never utter a word. _They_ do not think of it, and _she_ feelsleft out. Even if she makes you go out, she will like your noticing andthinking for her. I believe each daughter fails to realize in her own casehow much her mother values signs of the love which both know to be there. 

You may say, "My mother does not like a fuss!"--Very likely. But there areways and ways. --I do not believe any older person is ever anything butpleased when their little pleasures are seen to be a matter of realconsideration to a younger one. I have watched so many mothers now that Isee it, but I myself used to let my affection be taken for granted. I seenow how much more pleasure I might have given, and I would give anythingif _you_ would do what they say is impossible--_i. E. _ profit by some oneelse's experience, and try to show your affection for your mother. She isthe only person to whom it is safe to fully express your affection. If youfeel strongly for any one else, expressing it is apt to lead you to besilly, or sentimental, or wanting in self-control, but little loving wayswith your mother are quite different--they are always comforting to herand good for you. Every one of an older generation is apt to feel that theyounger one does not want them; therefore express your affection doubly toan elder compared to what is necessary or right, or wise to an equal, _because by nature the elder does not quite believe in it!_

I dare say you are nevertheless thinking as I used to do. "One's mother isquite different--_she_ knows I love her best. " In a way that is true, butall I have said is true too!

III. --My third advice is: _Put some salt into every day_--the salt ofeffort and self-denial. Go on with a book though it bores you. Go out fora walk though you feel lazy. Finish some drawing or needlework, which youwould rather leave to begin something else. Make yourself do somethingwhich you do not like, and which is useful. 

And I say to all of you, not only to the leaving ones: Do not loungethrough the day just because it is holidays. You are not a little childwho has to be made to do things: you are a sensible, reasonable being, whowants to grow. You do not leave off eating for a month, you do not leaveoff growing for a month; then do not leave off growing in other ways. Donot be _worthless_ at any time. 

Some of you seem to think you will not have to give account of holidays toGod--_I_ think you will be more called to account for them, for then youhave a chance of showing your real stuff. 

And when you are grown up, and quite free, feel that you are still moreresponsible. 

Enjoy yourself to the top of your bent, but see that each day you gain newpower to do what you ought, and what you make up your mind to do; andremember that this power is only gained in the using--and dies out if wedo not use it. I shall be horribly disappointed if you do not gain thispower, and if you do not use it well, "to the Glory of God and the Reliefof Man's Estate. "

Be ambitious--be all you were meant to be; make the world different; begenerous--freely you have received, freely give. 

Some one said to me the other day, "Girls are younger nowadays, and theygo on being young till they are well through middle life. At sixteen wehad to look after other people, but they shirk responsibility, till womenof thirty are content to be like birds of the air, just amusingthemselves, and feeling no call to be of any serious use. "

I said, "Well, _I_ do not like to see even a girl of eighteen with no_raison d'être_, 'living like a prize animal!'"

Why were you born? God thought about you, and took trouble about you, andhas something you can do for Him. To exist beautifully is not enough! Haveyou definite duties, which you stick to even though they bore you, _e. G. _, house duties, or reading aloud, or lessons with the younger ones? If not, find some!

Marcus Aurelius counted each day lost in which he could not at night lookback on something he had done for others. 

Jeremy Taylor, in the "Golden Grove, " says:--"Suppose every day to be aday of business: for your whole life is a race and a battle; amerchandise, a journey. Every day propounds to yourself a rosary orchaplet of works, to present to God at night. "

I have given you three pieces of advice--

 I. --Vote on the right side in conversation. II. --Show that you love your mother. III. --Put salt into every day. 

I would end with one more. I take it from Saint Simon, that cleveron-looker at the Court of Louis XIV. Whose memoirs are famous. His morninggreeting to himself was--

_"Get up, M. Le Comte! you have great things to do to-day. "_

You will all of you go out to lives that you _can_ make empty andself-indulgent and narrow if you like; you _can_ shirk duties and eatcapriciously or intemperately, and lie in bed too long; you _can_ idleabout all day amusing yourself, and fill your mind with dress and gossipand spite;--perhaps you would feel there was "no harm" in such a life!

_No harm!_ I would rather hear you were dead than that you lived a lifelike that!

On the other hand, every day of your life you _can_ make the wings of yoursoul grow by an honest bit of self-denial, by an honest bit of work forothers, by an honest bit of mental work. 

Every day you can be _more worth having_; there is not one of you here whohas not the power to make herself--and to _pray_ herself--into a noble, dutiful woman. 

_"Get up, M. Le Comte! you have great things to do to-day. "_

[Footnote 3: Gray's Letters to W. Mann. ]

A Friday Lesson. 

Our course of lessons for this term brings us to-day to Jephthah's story;to decide on the amount of blame due to the father is not a matter whichso nearly concerns us as to learn the lesson of true womanhood taught usby the daughter. Hers was no blind obedience; her reason for sacrificingherself gives us the true position of a woman as a helpmeet, and as ahelpmeet in the performance of public duty. "If thou hast opened thy mouthunto the Lord"--her father must do his duty at all costs, and she willhelp him to do it, even at the cost of her own life. The place of everywoman is to make duty possible and imperative for those about her--forbrother, sister, husband, friend. How many women keep their menkind backfrom public duty by their fretfulness about the inconveniences entailed onthemselves? A clergyman or doctor has to face fatigue or infection, --acitizen wishes to vote according to his conscience and against hisinterest: how often a woman--wife, sister, or mother--puts expediencybefore him, persuades him that "'second best' will do, " instead of aimingat "one equal temper of heroic hearts. "

Besides the love of her country and the sense of public duty, which shineout in Jephthah's daughter, notice the plain lesson of simple obedience, "That she subdued her to her Father's will. "

The ideal of obedience is less thought of now than in the "Ages ofFaith, "--perhaps, in one way, this is only a right development; but, though obedience is a "young" stage of moral growth, it is a necessaryone, --mankind went through it, and each man or woman worth the name mustgo through it even as our Lord Himself did. I recognize the strength, theNorth-country virtue of "grit" in such independence and sturdiness as thatof the Yorkes in "Shirley, " but the willing and reasonable obedience of astrong nature seems to me still higher--it is a nobler attitude of mind tofeel, "I don't care whether I get my own way in this or that, or am my ownmaster; I want to be in touch with the larger, higher life around me, "that larger life of moral growth into which only a humble, teachablenature can enter. The larger, stronger nature--the big dog--yields gladlyto its master; the small terrier nature loves to find an opportunity toyap and snarl. There is nothing fine about the unreasoning instinct toresent an order--it is rather the sign of a small nature. To take thecommonest instances, when you are told to go to bed, or to mend yourdress, or to put on a wrap, or to tidy your room, are you in any way afiner nature if you dawdle and argue and resent the order? Nothing is sosmall as self-sufficiency and self-centredness, whereas humility andobedience are of the Nature of our Lord Himself, and every humble andobedient soul is in communion with His Greatness. Dante's hierarchy ofheaven, "in order serviceable, " in ordered ranks, culminating in GodHimself, gives us a feeling of harmonious greatness which is lacking inthe scattered units of his "Inferno. " It was only ignoble greatness whichpreferred to reign in Hell rather than serve in Heaven. 

It may be that, in the maturer stages of life, obedience ceases to be aprimary virtue. I am not at all clear when that mature stage begins, --butall would admit, in theory, that a noble character must have obedience asa foundation. I think it would help you if you could step outside your ownmomentary irritation at being ordered to do this or that, and see howunlovely it is to argue and stand on your rights and contest points. Theessence of good breeding is to give way to others; quite apart from theconsideration of the "Fifth Commandment, " a thorough-bred person wouldshudder at the rude tone of voice, the snappishness, the contentiousness, the contradiction which many girls--otherwise "nice" girls--allowthemselves to show in speaking to their mothers. How many of you feelquite guiltless on this score? I am afraid you would often have to blushif a stranger, to whom you looked up, could hear the way you answer backat home. 

You half feel as though it were "fine" not to be ordered about;--but the"best" people in the Christian sense of the word, and the "best" people inthe worldly sense, inherit the feelings of the ages of chivalry, that, thenobler a man was, the more deference and service he showed to others:"_Ich dien_" is the motto of chivalry and worldly greatness. --"I am amongyou as he that serveth" was the saying of Him Who, "though He were a Son, ""learnt obedience. " For this next week, when you are tempted to answerback--to be independent--to resent being ordered--remember how much morebeautiful, how much more noble, is a humble submissive temper, than themiserably small ambition of being your own master. Do not be sosmall-minded as to contest and resent authority. You sometimes hear aservant say, "That's not my place, " or "I won't be put upon. " You neverhear a true lady speak in that temper, --and yet, is there any differencein spirit between this tone which you would condemn, and your own way ofanswering back? You cannot get out of bad habits all at once, but getyour ideal right, and you will grow to it. If you are not living in yourown family, and feel inclined to resent orders, remember the days ofchivalry, when all pages (often princes by birth) spent their youthserving in other people's houses, and learning the motto of every trueknight, "I serve. "

And whether with strangers or at home, remember Him Who was subject untoHis parents, Him of Whom Jephthah's daughter was but a faint type. 

A Home Art; or, Mothers and Daughters. 

 Know your own work, and do it. 

This is a simple sounding rule, but we all find practical difficulties infollowing it. You have most of you lately left school, and I think thedifficulty of the first part of this saying must have struck some of you. At school you knew your own work, --you had a certain time-table, youwalked with the crutches of routine; and when you left school and foundyour day mostly at your own disposal, you learnt that a free life is farmore difficult, and therefore far nobler, than a life under direction. 

It was pleasant at first to be able to carry out your own fancies, but youawoke after a while to the fact that you were not spending holidays butliving your real life; and then the thought must have come, if you had anystuff in you, "I must anyhow live my life; am I living it nobly?"

How can you live a noble life? Bacon gives us, perhaps, the best answerwhen he says that "the end of all learning should be the Glory of God andthe Relief of Man's Estate. " Shall this be the result of your schoollearning? Others can speak to you from experience, as I cannot, of theglory and happiness of a life spent in the Relief of Man's Estate: I wouldspeak to you of a preliminary stage of work for that relief, of some ofthe difficulties which beset girls on first leaving school, and owing towhich so much noble aspiration and unselfish enthusiasm run to waste. 

I believe one of the main difficulties is _friction at home_; a difficultyon which I the rather dwell because it is harder, for those who know youpersonally, to speak of it without irritating you, or else criticizingyour home. How is this home difficulty met? Some meet it by leavinghome, --which reminds me of the minister who said in his sermon, "This is aserious difficulty in our belief, my brethren; let us look it boldly inthe face, --and pass it by. " Some lay themselves open to _Punch's_ attack, when he depicts a girl saying, "Mamma has become quite blind now, and papais paralytic, and it makes the house so dull that I'm going to be ahospital nurse. "

Many who are too clear-sighted to neglect home duties, yet leave thisdifficulty unfaced, in that they look for all the pleasure of their lifeoutside home, and within that home allow themselves to live in anatmosphere of friction and peevishness. The girl who does that has leftthe riddle of home life unsolved: she was meant to wrestle with thatdifficulty till she wrung from it the blessing, the peace which comes onlyfrom self-conquest and acceptance of all the circumstances of her life. 

Have any of you the lurking thought, "I was born by no choice of my own:those who brought me into the world owe duty to me, not I to them?" I haveknown some say this, and I have known many act as if they thought it, andI have known some who felt as if God had better work for them to dooutside home, and have either gone off to do it, or have chafed againstlife because they could not go. It does seem to me that the present verygeneral eclipse of the old Roman virtue of filial piety lies at the rootof much of the unsound work, and of the undone work, of the present day. 

Know your own work, and do it. What is your work on leaving school? Is itnot to learn to fit into your home? At school, when you got your remove, your duty was to get into the work of the new form, and to do it. You havenow been moved to higher and far more difficult work than any sixth form, you are in the school of home. Are you learning its lessons, or are youfretting for a remove? It may be you find life so easy and pleasant athome that you feel any talk of its difficulties does not apply to you; itis all play so far. But I know so many who feel this friction on leavingschool, that I am sure it must be the case with some of you. 

If any here fail to feel the debt they owe at home--the debt which Godenforced as next to the debt owed to Himself--let me remind them that thewhole instinct of mankind has responded to the appeal of parents; filialpiety has always been reverenced and held beautiful, and the hereditarysense of mankind must be taken into account in deciding what is, or isnot, a virtue. But supposing I granted, for the sake of argument, that theoriginal debt was on your parents' side and not on yours, what then? Youremain as bound as ever to show them submission and devotion; all, inshort, that the old-fashioned believers in the Fifth Commandment thoughtto be due from a daughter. If you are striving after a noble life you mustgive all this, --if you owe allegiance to either the Christian ideal oflove or to the Pagan one of strength. "If a man love not his brother whomhe hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen?" and, equally, ifhe love not his brother close at hand, how can he love brethren afar off?It is a poor sort of love which lavishes itself on self-chosen and, therefore, less irritating objects of charity, and is powerless toinfluence the home atmosphere. It is a poor sort of strength which shrinksfrom the hardest fight, from the conquest of self at home. 

Is not every right and wise piece of good work for others an attempt tohelp them to train themselves to live a higher life? And can we dare toput our hand to this plough while neglecting our own training?

I was asked to speak to you about WORK, and you may think I am forgettingthis in dwelling on home life. Not at all; I am looking on home life notas an end in itself, but as God's great training-school for His bestworkers; as the special place for the development of those qualities whichare essential to all true and lasting work for "the Relief of Man'sEstate. "

I do not think I underrate the difficulties girls find; quite apart fromher own faults and weaknesses, a girl who leaves school and goes home hasprobably three difficulties to contend with. 

First, the change from restraint to liberty, which is a difficult phase inevery life. Will you make it a change from "the rich bounties ofconstraint" to self-restraint, which is better still; or will you let itbe a change to the weak lawlessness of a drifting life? If you wouldrespect yourselves, and be worthy to take part in the great battle betweengood and evil, make and keep some rules for yourselves. Have a rule aboutgetting up in the morning and (almost equally important) about going tobed at night; a rule against novels in the morning; a rule to readsomething sensible every day. Make what rule you please, only keep it, oryou will never be more than a cumberer of the ground. Reading is the bestthing to save your life from being eaten away by trifles. The bestadvisers say to a man taking a country living, "Read, read, read;" I sayto you, read doggedly; the snare of a free life is desultory reading. Makeany plan of stiff reading you like, and stick to it for one year, writingout notes of what you read, and you will be fitter for real work if itcomes, as come it will. 

I dare say you find reading is cold work, --very few women really enjoyknowledge for its own sake, --you are tempted to throw it up, and to driftin an easy good-tempered way, which pleases the others much more than yourshutting yourself up to read. And the others are quite right in expectingyou, now school is over, to be a woman, "with a heart at leisure fromitself" and from self-improvement. One of the hardest home lessons forsome girls to learn is the power of sitting idle and chatting. They feelit waste of time; they long to be doing something tangible; and yet a homeatmosphere is mainly the result of the mother having acquired the art ofleisure. You will be very unrestful house-mothers when your turn comes, and very unsatisfactory daughters and sisters in the mean time, if you arealways at high pressure, and giving your family to understand that youmust not be spoken to!

Too often the girl, who by dint of conscientious struggles keeps up realstudy, gets out of touch with her surroundings, and sees the stream offamily confidences, and affections, and appeals for help and sympathyflowing towards the easy-going sister, who makes no struggles of any kind. Your great wish is to be a true woman, "with continual comfort in herface. " Are your books, and your self-discipline, and your time-table, onlya hindrance to this? Must you starve either head or heart? Why cannot youseem outwardly at leisure, and yet live an inner life of thought and work?It needs self-denial, forethought, economy of time, and that mostChristian grace of tact; but these are all attainable, all part of thatWisdom which "orders all things sweetly and strongly, " and which is therightful heritage of every true woman. Let no delusion about amiabilityinduce you to leave off reading and study, only be very discreet as to howand when you do it. 

Let your time-table be a secret hair shirt, and not a red rag flaunted inyour family's face. But never give up reading and thinking, the keeping intouch with abstract ideas. As long as you are young you can get on withoutthis, but, when the charm of youth deserts you, you will find life (andothers will find _you_) a blessing or a curse, according as you havedeveloped or starved your powers of mind. It may be that you find littlepleasure in your steady reading, and see no immediate results from it;never mind, read on, lest you become in middle life one of those amiable, empty-headed women who can give neither help, nor comfort, nor advice, worth the taking. How many old maids, and young maids too, tied by homeduties, allowed their minds to get thin and empty: when, at last, theywere set free they were silly and inconsequent; no work requiring thoughtand insight could be entrusted to them. 

The second difficulty which is felt by many comes from the new lights ofthe day. At school, girls come in contact with varied ideals andinspirations, --they drink new wine, and they go home to find that oldbottles are still used there. Very often this difficulty is greater inproportion as a girl has rightly profited by school--in proportion as shehas been teachable and ready to assimilate good; she goes home with newaspirations to be met by old prejudices--prejudices intensified byhalf-loving jealousy of the alien influences of school. Are you to shutyour eyes to the new lights, and be as though you had never known them?No, but do not keep one Commandment by breaking another. The FirstCommandment is supreme, Thou shall have none other gods but Him Who is theTruth; Truth must be obeyed at all costs, but if your truth-seekingbreaks the Fifth Commandment, it probably breaks the Second also, and theprinciple you are obeying will turn out to be a graven image of God, andnot the voice of God Himself. Very grave doubt rests on any form ofgoodness which is in opposition to your mother; it may be good for others, but can scarcely be so for you. I know of a girl who got under High Churchinfluence at school, and who, in pursuit of spiritual good, getssurreptitious High Church books and newspapers, under cover to a friend. Another got under Low Church influence, and refuses to please her motherby dressing prettily or going out. It seems to me that both girls readtheir lesson backwards and neglect the weightier matters of the law, truth, and obedience, --while they seek what is good in itself but not goodfor them. Others persist in going to a church their mother disapprovesof, --they say they can get good at a musical church, and only irritationand harm by going with her. I feel heartily for the trial of going to achurch they dislike, but surely conquering self or pleasing a mother isgood in itself, quite apart from the help given by the service; while, asto the good derived from the musical church under those circumstances, Idoubt much if it comes down from the Father Who gave us the FifthCommandment. 

I should say, mistrust new lights which are a hindrance to old duties, "For meek obedience too is Light. " It is more likely that we should bemistaken, than that a duty should cease to be binding. Let us take toheart Cromwell's appeal to his Parliament, "I beseech you, my belovedbrethren, I beseech you by the mercies of Christ, to believe that you maybe mistaken. "

The third difficulty is that girls often fail to see that home life is oneof the "Home Arts, " which requires training and practice as much as musicdoes. How much of our home life is set to music? How much of it sets allharmony and rhythm at defiance? A true woman is

 "Like the keystone to an arch That consummates all beauty: She's like the music to a march That sheds a joy on duty. "

Do you make your father forget his bothers when he comes in from hisbusiness? Do you give your mother a share in your interests? Does yourbrother look forward to his time at home, instead of thinking it a bore?No one has such power over your brothers as you have: you can do more thanany one to give them high ideals: how many a brother, who has fallen tothe stable-yard level of company, might have been held up if his sisterhad used her wits and tact to make herself as agreeable to him as she doesto other people!

Sometimes it is not selfishness which makes home life a failure, but thenot having

 "among least things, An undersense of greatest. "

A girl tries to live nobly at home and fails: she is not enough wanted, her mother is not blind, and does not want to be deposed fromhousekeeping; her father is not paralytic, and only wants her to play tohim in the evening; life seems choked by tiny interruptions, such as doingthe flowers, or writing notes, and she sinks into a placid or unplaciddrudge--the aspirations with which she left school have died out. 

Need this be? If she went into a sisterhood or a hospital, the tinydetails would all be glorified by the halo which surrounds a vocation; itwould all be part of a saintly life. Why is home not felt to be avocation? Why cannot a girl welcome some tiresome commission or fidgetingrule of her mother's, as much as if it were imposed by some MotherSuperior? Ought not the trifling duties to be fuel to her burning desirefor her nobleness of life, instead of dust to choke it? You can make themwhich you will. 

Girls often say, "I have nothing to do, worth doing, at home; I want to goand do some real work;" and they sometimes have the face to say this, while they are still as full of faults as when they left school, and whenevery hour of the day, at home, brings with it an opportunity ofconquering some fault. 

Are you ready for real work? Can you take criticism or contradiction witha perfectly unruffled face and voice? Do you overcome your hindrances tousefulness at home, _e. G. _ do you improve your handwriting so that yourmother need not be ashamed to let you write for her? Do you help hertactfully and consentingly--the only help which rests people--or do youargue each point, so that it is far less trouble to do the thing twiceover than to ask you? Are you prompt and alert in your movements, or doyou indulge in that exasperating slowness, which some girls seem toconsider quite a charm? Do you wait till the last minute, and thenleisurely put on your things, with serene unconsciousness of the fret itis to every one's temper? If you want to see how unthoroughbred such ahabit looks, read "Shirley, " and study the character of Mr. Donne, thecurate, who flatters himself that he enhances his importance by keepingthe others waiting while he complacently finishes his tea. 

Do you lay down the law. Do you allow yourself the tone of positive, almost dictatorial, assertion, which, coming from a girl, so sets anold-fashioned person's teeth on edge; or do you try to speak in thetentative, suggestive, inquiring tone, which is not only required by goodmanners, but is also a real help to humility of mind?

Do not say that these things are too simple and obvious to bear on yourfuture work for the Relief of Man's Estate, --on Work with a big W. Theyare of the very essence of the formation of character, and your Work forothers stands or falls by that. 

The sanctifying influence of home-life lies mainly in its necessity, itsobviousness, --in the fact of our remaining unprofitable servants after wehave done our best. It is the school in which we are placed by God; we are_bound_ to learn its lessons, and do its duties: there is no halo ofself-sacrifice around it--the position rightly viewed gives us no choice. "I must, "--_there_ is the sting, the irksomeness to us. We can submitcheerfully to our self-chosen Pope, and seem most sweet-tempered inbearing criticism and in doing tiresome duties, --the "I must" is notthere. This wilful obedience is worth just nothing as discipline ofcharacter, compared with obedience to our lawful authorities; "Ay, there'sthe rub!"

Is not this very necessity in home life--this "I must"--just the thingwhich makes it akin to our Lord's life? Is there not in that Holiest Lifea continual undercurrent of "I must"? His earthly life was a course ofobedience, not a succession of self-willed efforts; its keynote was, "Wistye not that I _must_ be about My Father's business?"

Esprit de Corps. 

While I was away, I was present at a discussion on _Esprit de Corps_, andwhether it was a good thing in girls' schools. What is _esprit decorps_?--The feeling that we are one of a large body of which we areproud. A soldier has it when he is proud of his regiment and is proud ofbelonging to it. 

Now, is it good or bad for girls to have a strong feeling of this kind fortheir school? Many opinions were expressed at the meeting. My opinion isthat it is a good thing--a necessary thing. But every virtue has itsdefect--if you overdo it, you fall into some fault; if you are tooamiable, you may fall into being untruthful; and so with _esprit decorps_. I want you to have it, but I want you to be on your guard againstsome faults connected with it. I want our School to be full of it, but Iwant it to be of the best kind. 

One fault very common in members of any large body is conceit. The feelingof belonging to a fine institution swallows up personal humility. You maybe more occupied with the importance and dignity of your position, thanready to take home the idea that you yourself are a very faulty member!Margaret Fuller, a clever American friend of Emerson's, said, "There areso many things in the universe more interesting than my individual faults, that I really cannot stay to dwell on them. " There is one form ofconceit--or rather of self-satisfaction--to which schoolgirls are liable:they know they are living up to the average standard imposed by publicopinion and _esprit de corps_, and they are satisfied with this, insteadof trying to live up to their own best self. It is quite possible for anystraightforward, honourable girl to live up to the average standard, andit is very comfortable to feel satisfied. But if you are trying to live upto the highest standard you know, you will not be comfortable--you will bealways profoundly discontented with yourself, but it will be the Divinediscontent Plato speaks of. You will be always failing, but it will befailing nobly--the failure of one who loves the highest, and is content tofollow the highest, even though it be afar off. In King Arthur's court, the noblest knights went in search of the Sangreal--scarcely one couldsucceed in his quest, but it was nobler to aim high and fail than to becontent with "low successes. " We, too, ought each to follow the quest ofthe Sangreal, that is, to seek to be perfect, and then there is no roomfor self-satisfaction, far less conceit. 

Sometimes _esprit de corps_ not only makes us think a great deal of ourown merits, but it also makes us blind to the merits of others. We needonly put this into words, to see its smallness, but it often happens. Somepeople's patriotism seems to consist in despising the French and Germans. No one values true patriotism more than I do, but I detest"insularity"--that insufferable feeling of superiority of which Englishpeople are so often guilty. We ought to love our own school, or hall, orcollege; but it is a poor, low kind of love if it means despising otherschools, or halls, or colleges, picking holes in them, refusing to learnfrom them, and being mere partisans. A soldier would be proud of his ownregiment, and think it the finest there was, but he would admire thesplendid history that other regiments could boast, and he would be gladand proud of the fact that there were so many fine ones. All good schoolsbelong to a splendid brotherhood--a grand army--and they should be proudof each other. We can be just as true and loyal to our own, and yet havewide feelings. _Esprit de corps_--loyalty to our body--is a very splendidthing, and we degrade it when we turn it into mere clannishness; it oughtto bring out our love for all that is good, just as love for home oughtto make us love outsiders better. 

I have spoken of the faults of _esprit de corps_--do not think that meansI do not value it. No; a thousand times, no! If we had no _esprit decorps_ we should not be a living body, but a dead, stagnant mass, only fitto be swept away. What is true _esprit de corps_? My idea of it is, beingcontent to sink all personal interests--being content to be as he thatdoth serve--being glad and proud to fill the smallest post, if so be that, by filling that post in the most perfect way, you can help on theperfection of the school to which you belong. I was talking to some onethe other day about the community to which she belongs, and where sheholds a leading place. "Of course, I would black the shoes, " said she, "ifit would help the work in the very least, and so would any one who wasworth their salt. " I quite agree with her, and I would not give much forany work in which that was not the feeling of the workers, from thehighest to the lowest: that is the only true _esprit de corps_. 

Some say women are incapable of such a masculine virtue--that women cannotput their private feelings in their pocket and act in subordination to thegood of the whole--that they cannot sink their self-importance and theirpetty jealousies--that they cannot suppress themselves for a cause. Schools like ours have done a great deal for the mental education ofwomen. I think they will do something more valuable still if they showthat through their public education women can learn true public spirit, that school teaches true _esprit de corps_--that it teaches them to seekthe beauty of being second, instead of the glory of being first. 

In acting or recitations, could you be glad to take a minor part to helpon the whole, or would you be huffy and cross-grained because your powerswere not brought to the front? In the Wagner music at Baireuth, thesingers take the good parts in turn, and the best prima donna, as Kundryin "Parzival, " in one whole act has only one word. Think of theself-suppression needed for one who has such talent, to be content to actin such a piece and to put her full power into the dumb by-play, which isall that she has to do. 

_Esprit de corps_ is _the_ virtue above all others which we, as members ofthis school, should seek to attain, and, in the very nature of things, nothing so entirely kills it as any self-seeking; while if you wish to beworth anything as an individual, remember that nothing is so smallening, so alien to any true greatness--to the most far-off touch of greatness--asthe wish to be Number One. 

_Esprit de corps_, to my mind, means that we all stand shoulder toshoulder, loving our school, helping each other; doing our duty in homeand school, and in after-life, more perfectly, because we are proud of ourschool and mean to be worthy members, so far as in us lies; helping othersbecause "our advantages are trusts for the good of others. " Remember ourschool motto, "Ad Lucem, " and, because you have been brought nearer to thelight, help to be sunshine in all shady places. And while you are atschool, have the _esprit de corps_ which will make you do everything youcan, for the good and credit of the school. 

For one thing, be careful to get it a good name outside. "Manners are notidle"--people are quite right when they judge a school, as they largelydo, by its manners. If girls are really growing as they should ingentleness, courtesy, reverence for age, and all that makes truewomanhood, it must tell on their manners, and if they are not doing so, their school is not doing for them what it should. If you have real_esprit de corps, _ you will not give people who are prejudiced against us, any reason to think ill of our School in this respect. 

Another point of true _esprit de corps_ concerns those who havepower--whether as prefect, or VI. Form, or head of a form, or throughbeing popular. Power was given you that you might do more work forothers--you are made a chief in order that you may be as he that serveth;privilege means responsibility--not enjoyment. There is nothing so mean asto take the loaves and fishes of any post, and not to do its duties; toorder others about, and to be lax with yourselves. A ruler is contemptiblewho does not rule himself. Whether we are teacher, or prefect, or head ofa form, or a leader in any way, it ought to make us hot, and sore, andashamed, in exercising our rightful rule over others, whenever we areconscious (as we must all be at times) that we have failed in rulingourselves--failed in temper, --failed in carrying out minutely, every law, great or small, that we help to enforce on others. _Esprit de corps_ willmake us use our power for the good of the school and not for our ownpleasure. 

_Esprit de corps_ means being ready to give time and trouble to all schoolinterests--without any thought of whether you will have a leading partgiven you, or of whether it is very amusing to do it. You would beunworthy members of the school if you simply came to do your lessons, andtook no part in the little things which make corporate life go with aswing. You might as well think you were worthy members of your homebecause you ate and slept there. Membership in a home means being ready totake part in all its little tiresome duties; to throw yourself intoamusements which sometimes do not amuse you personally; in all ways tohelp on family life. The girl who distinguishes herself in the tennis isthought a good public-spirited member, and so she is, --she helps theschool and shows _esprit de corps_, --but, to my mind, the girl who fagswell at the match, and gets small thanks and no credit, shows even more_esprit de corps_ than the one who has the excitement of distinguishingboth herself and the school. 

The clever girl who wins prizes and scholarships, helps our school toshine, and no one applauds her more than I do, but in my heart, I feelthat the school owes even more to the dull plodding girl, who knows shecannot do much, but who determines to give her very best to the school, and to be worthy of it by giving no scamped work. Perhaps she gets lowmarks, perhaps she is told she ought to do better, --and quite rightly, because we want her to rise to give really good work, and are notsatisfied till she does; but whether it is good or not, if it is her_best_, she has fought a good battle for the school, and has "helped tomaintain the high standard of duty which was founded in the school by itsfirst and beloved head-mistress--Ada Benson. "

Rough Notes of a Lesson. 

I hope to start a new lesson for some of you, and I have gathered you allhere to-day, whether you will be able to come to it or not, because, inthinking over what I wished to say about this one lesson, I found I wasled into describing what I should like all lessons to do for you. My newlesson will be a talk on various things in which you are, or ought to be, interested. I have tried this plan before, and have sometimes been laughedat for having such miscellaneous lessons, but I found their effect verygood. I had a spare half-hour in the week, which I gave to this TalkingLesson. 

Once I took Dante, and after a sketch of his life and of Florence, we wentthrough the "Inferno;" I read the famous parts in full and told the storyof the rest, and now many of those children who listened feel, when theycome on anything about Dante, as if they had met an old friend. 

Then I happened to go to Yorkshire and saw several of its lovely abbeys:I came back with a craze for architecture, so I and the girls did thattogether. Neither they, nor I, imagine that we understand architecture, orare authorities on it; but though we only took the barest outline, it madeus all use our eyes and enjoy old buildings. I often get letters fromthose girls, saying that they have since enjoyed their travels so muchmore, because they now notice the architecture. You know the story of"Eyes and No Eyes"--how two boys went out for a walk--one saw nothing tonotice, and the other found his way lined with interesting things. I amsure, architecturally, your way is lined with beauty in Oxford, whichdeserves both outward and "inward eyes. "

Another time we took the French writers of Louis XIV. And we all feel thatMolière and La Fontaine and Mme. De Sevigné are our personal friends, sothat the value of their books is doubled to us!

We took mythology at one time, and many girls found that they understood, much better, allusions in books and various pictures in the Academy, whichare often about mythological subjects. Ignorance on this point maysometimes be very awkward. I have heard of an American lady who invitedher artistic friends to come and see a picture she had lately bought of"Jupiter and Ten. " The friends puzzled over her notes of invitation, and, on arriving at her house, were still more puzzled to know how to pass offthe mistake gracefully, when they found that the picture was one of"Jupiter and Io. " I trust you will not cause your friends embarrassment ofthis kind!

Another time we took the history of Queen Victoria, as our way ofcelebrating the Jubilee patriotically. We began by all collecting as muchpatriotic poetry as we could, which was surprisingly little--I wonder ifyou would find more--and, all through, we made a special point of findingpoems written about any of the events. We found _Punch_ a valuableassistance, and we much enjoyed the cartoons and jokes which had been somysterious to us before. Just that part of history which is not in"Bright, " and which, yet, is before our time, is so very hard to find outabout, and many allusions in the newspapers and parliamentary speeches areconsequently wasted on us. 

Now, all this was miscellaneous, yet I had one object running through itall, and the girls helped me to carry it out by listening in the rightspirit, knowing that I was only pointing out the various doors throughwhich they might go by-and-by. Not one of them thought she had "done" asubject because we had thus talked about it, --we all learnt to feel ourown ignorance, and at the same time, how much there was in the world tolearn. 

I want to show you this morning where such a lesson should fit in, in thegeneral plan of your education. To do that, you must first have the plan. Have you ever thought what education was to do for you, or, are youlearning your lessons, day by day, just because they are set? I know whatI want to do with you, but I cannot do it unless you work hand-in-handwith me, and you cannot do that unless you think about the matter andrealize that, for instance, Euclid is not only Euclid, it ought to teachcertain mental and moral qualities which you must have if you are ever tobe worth your salt. There is a story of Dr. Johnson, which seems to me toapply to so many things. When his friend, Mr. Thrale, the great brewer, died, there was a sale of the brewery, which Dr. Johnson attended. Anacquaintance expressed surprise at the great man's honouring with hispresence such an ordinary affair as the sale of a brewery. "Sir, " said Dr. Johnson, turning with crushing deliberation on the unhappy speaker, "thisis not the sale of a mere brewery, but of the potentiality of growing richbeyond the dreams of avarice. " This story seems to me well worthremembering, both because it is so characteristic of the Doctor, andbecause it is applicable to so many things. It is so easy to go throughthe world not seeing the importance of things, like the common people in"Phantasies, " who never saw what a fairyland they lived in. Lessons, forinstance, are not mere lessons, they are "the potentiality of growing richin wisdom and in goodness beyond our highest dreams. "

I should be sorry if, in after life, you should wake up and say toyourself, "How much more good my lessons would have done me if some onehad shown me the real use of them and made me think, so that I might havelearnt all I could, instead of just slipping through them day by day. " Noone can do the thinking for you. Unless you work with me by trying tothink, I cannot really do much for you. I can bring you to the water, butI cannot make you drink. Yes, after all, I _can_ make you drink, _i. E. _ doyour lessons day by day as a matter of obedience. So a better illustrationwould be that I can make you eat, but I cannot make you digest your food. You can prevent its doing you any good. If you simply learn your lessonsby rote and do not use your thinking powers, education is very littlegood, --the obedience will have done you good, but, as far as mental growthis concerned, you will not gain much, for that sort of education dropsoff, like water off a duck's back, when you leave school. They say "a fooland his money are soon parted, " but that is nothing to the speed withwhich a fool and his education are parted!

Now, I am going to take the chief subjects you learn, and show the higherthings which I want you to gain when you are doing those lessons, and_you_ must want it too, or my wanting it will not do much good. You do notlearn Mathematics simply that you may know so many books of Euclid, and somany pages of Algebra; it is to give you power over your minds, to enableyou to follow a chain of reasoning, to teach you to keep up continuousattention, and not to jump at conclusions. I do not say you cannot learnthese things except by Mathematics; you might do it by Logic, and I knowmany people who have done it by mother-wit and the teaching of life; butwhen a person is inclined to trust to his mother-wit, and to neglecteducational advantages because he can do without them, I for one feelinclined to doubt whether his share of mother-wit can be very large, afterall. The people I have known who are clever, without having had thecareful school-training you enjoy, used all the advantages that came intheir way (though, when they were young, advantages were fewer), andunless you do the same, you cannot expect to be like them. Also, cleveruntrained people often feel very much hampered by their want of training;you see the cleverness, but they feel how much more they could have doneif they had been trained. Therefore, do not allow yourselves to think"Euclid is no good, because 'Aunt So-and-so' is quite clever enough, andshe never did it;" depend upon it, that is not going the right road to belike her. I feel quite sure that if this "not impossible aunt" had hadopportunities of learning Euclid when she was young, she would have doneit, and very well too! Of course, if you mean to read Mathematics fromchoice by-and-by, you will work hard at the subject now, but I can quiteunderstand that those who are not going to do this, perhaps sometimesfeel, "What is the good? I shall never look at a Euclid again after Ileave school--I want to learn how to hold my own in after-life, --I want tobe able to talk when I come out, --I want to be a sensible woman, whoseopinion will be asked by other people, --I want to be clever at house-workor cooking, or to be able to manage a shop, --I want to be strong enoughand wise enough to be a support and comfort to others, --I want to be auseful woman and not a mathematician!" Well! that is just what I want youto be, but I am quite sure that Mathematics will help you to this, bymaking you accurate and reasonable and attentive, without which qualitiesyou will be no use and very little comfort. If you work hard atMathematics while you are here, and gain these qualities, you have my freeleave to shut your Euclid for good on the day you leave school, --you willhave learnt his best lessons. 

Is there any great mental good which you can gain by the study ofLanguages, quite apart from the advantage of being able to read and speakwhen you go abroad? Yes; it enlarges your mind to know the various ways inwhich things are expressed by different nations. A person who knows nolanguage but his own is like a man who can only see with one eye. It opensa whole new world of thought to realize that other nations have otherwords. 

Again, it makes you know your own language. Translation gives you choiceof words and trains you to appreciate delicate shades of meaning; thishelps you to appreciate Poetry, for one of the main beauties of greatpoets, such as Milton and Tennyson, is their marvellous perception ofshades of difference, and the felicity with which they choose exactly theright adjective!

It is said that barbarous tribes use a very small vocabulary; I sometimesfear we may be going back to a savage state, when I think of thevocabulary of a modern schoolgirl, and see how much ground is covered overwith these two narrow words, "awfully" and "jolly. " Hannah Morecomplained, in her day, of the indiscriminate use of the word "nice. ""Formerly, " she says, "a person was 'charming, ' or 'accomplished, ' or'distinguished, ' or 'well-bred, ' or 'talented, ' etc. , and each word hadits own shade of meaning; now, every one is 'nice, ' which saves muchthought. " "Nice" held its position, for we find Miss Austen making HenryTilney laugh at the same misuse of the word. "Awfully" and "jolly" seem toperform the same kind office for us which "nice" did for ourgrandmothers, --they "save us much thought, " and are used with a largedisregard of their inappropriateness; I have even been told by a girl thatthe _Christian Year_ was "such an awfully jolly book"! Now, I am sure ofthis: you will find excessive use of those two words always betokens anempty, or rather an uncultivated, mind. I do not believe in any exception;their votaries may have learning, but they have not digested it, they arenot thoughtful, they are "young (or old) barbarians, " for it is theunfailing mark of a cultivated mind, to use the right word in the rightplace, and never "to use a sixpenny word when a threepenny one will do. "

History should not be bare facts; it illustrates and explains politics ofour own day; it teaches sympathy and large-mindedness, and the power ofadmiring virtues which are not of our own type. The Royalist learns to seethe strength of Cromwell, and the Roundhead to see the beauty of "theWhite King. " It ought to make the world bigger to us by helping us torealize other places and other times. If we are to live quiet stay-at-homelives afterwards, it is very important that we should try not to be narrowand "provincial, " and history and geography should help us in thismatter. 

Poetry in the same way helps to make us imaginative, which is necessary, if we are to have the Christian graces of tact and sympathy. It is veryimportant to learn the best poetry by heart; it is dull perhaps at first, but new meanings unfold themselves every time we say it. Mr. Ruskin sayswe ought to read a few verses every day, as we should do with the Bible, to keep our lives from getting choked with commonplace dust, to remind usthat the Ideal exists. It certainly puts new beauty into life if we knowwhat poets have said about it, and how they expressed themselves, and thismight save us from unworthy expression. I have heard an intelligentschoolgirl, looking at a glorious sunset, say concisely, "How awfullyjolly!" I have heard a schoolboy say, "How rum!" I believe they were bothtouched, but I think they would have expressed themselves differently andhave got more pleasure out of it if they had been taught to see, by havingit reflected from poets and painters, and had known more of "the best thathas been thought and said. "

There was so much I wanted to say that it is difficult to stop. I havegiven only general ideas, but bear in mind--as the main point of what Ihave said--that I want you to educate yourselves, to get ready for life, and to use your lessons here to bring out those qualities which you willwant afterwards in everyday life. 

Now, how will such general lessons help you in after-life?

First, I want them to help you to be interested in the things you willmeet with in books and newspapers and conversation; you will not hear muchabout some lessons, but you will about these things--they are things thatit "becomes a young woman to know. "

Then, too, I want you to leave school with introductions to all sorts ofnice people in books; you will find it do you as much good as socialintroductions. Schoolgirls are often "out of it" for a time, when they gohome, because they had only "lesson-book" interests; I should like tobegin outside interests with you. 

Also, this kind of general interest makes the world seem bigger and moreinteresting; we get an idea of how many delightful things there are in it, and so our pleasures are increased, which is always a great advantage. Happiness is a duty, and sensible interests are a wonderful help to it. 

Touching on many interests shows us our ignorance. I have knownschoolgirls, who were kept to their lessons, Algebra and Latin and periodsof History, and who thought they knew a good deal, because they measuredby a schoolroom standard. When they came in contact with the number ofthings that cultivated people of society care for and appreciate, theylearnt a good deal of humility. Certainly the more I read on generalsubjects the more I feel my own ignorance, and I think it would be veryodd if it did not have the same effect on you. 

The next reason for this sort of lesson, and one of the best, is that itought to raise our taste. It is not enough to like or dislike a book: weought to train ourselves to like the best books. We do not think ourselvesborn judges in music or art; we submit to being trained before we thinkour opinion worth giving. It would be just so with a book, but you oftenhear girls quite sorry for the author if they find a book dull; they feelhe is to blame! When I find an author dull, whom good critics admire, Ifeel pretty sure that I am deficient on that point, and I try to learn tosee in him what they do. I speak from experience; when I found Wordsworthdull, I knew it was my own fault, and I read and re-read him, and listenedto those who could appreciate him, and now I am rewarded by his being areal part of the pleasures of my life. We need not leave off liking themerely pretty writers, such as Miss Procter and Longfellow. I loveLongfellow and admire Miss Procter, but I cared for them both quite asmuch when I was seven, and an author who can be in some measureappreciated at seven ought to give way to deeper authors by-and-by. LikeGuinevere, it is our duty "to love the highest. " The great good ofcultivated homes is that we learn to "put away childish things" and toadmire the better things which we hear talked of. Some of you may not havethis advantage; your people may be too busy for talking about books andsuch things, and some of you may be cut off from interesting talks byhaving school lessons to prepare when you would like to listen. Therefore, I should like you to get some talk in school on such subjects--to spendsome "Half-hours with the best Authors. "

Holidays. 

"Where shall we spend the holidays?" has doubtless been discussed in manyhouseholds, by both parents and children, --I wonder if the childrenfollowed it up by a still more important question, "_How_ shall I spendthe holidays?" Just at the close of a term you will not want me to suggestanything that is like lessons, but at the same time I do not see why youshould spend seven weeks in idleness and novel-reading, any more than youwould live for seven weeks on puddings and sweets. You like plenty ofsweets, and I hope you will get them, but I hope you will have meat aswell!

There are many books which are not novels, and which you would yetenjoy, --books which would send you back more thoughtful; and though youmight not know any one lesson better next term because of having readthem, yet you would be a step nearer to being the sort of women you wouldlike to be. I dare say when you go for your holiday you will get somethingto read at the station bookstall. Now, several of the books I mean can begot there, as easily as yellow novels, and can be got for the price of_Punch_; they are so small you could have them in your pocket and get themread in odds and ends of time, out-of-doors, so that you need not miss anyexpedition, or any fresh air, through staying in the house to study. Inthe same way you could get some really good poem for a penny, and learn itby heart. Nothing would please me so much as if you all brought me nextterm the name of some book you had read, of this kind, and repeated to mea poem of the sort that you think I should like--which very likely is notthe sort _you_ like, as yet. It would do you good, whether you enjoyed itor not, for you would be teaching yourselves to like the better kind ofbooks if you persevered with it, and your holidays would be pleasanter, aswell as better, if there was some effort of this kind to give backbone toeach day. Cooks say there should be a pinch of salt in everything you eat, and I am sure we ought to have a pinch of the moral salt of self-conquestin each day, just to keep it sweet and good. 

Perhaps you will think I am always wanting you to read, and you would liketo remind me that there are many other commendable pursuits. I certainlyam rather of the opinion Lowell expresses in "Democracy. " He says, "Southey, in his walk one stormy day, met an old woman, to whom, by wayof greeting, he made the rather obvious remark that it was dreadfulweather. She answered, philosophically, that, in her opinion, 'any sort ofweather was better than none!'" I should be half inclined to say that anyreading was better than none. 

Yet you are quite right about those other pursuits, and I hope you willfollow them; but at the same time, if you have not already got a taste forreading, it is the most important of all tastes for you to strive toacquire, as it is very doubtful if you will manage otherwise to do so inlater life. I should pity you terribly if you failed to acquire it, foryou will all find life hard in one way or another, and you will find thata love of reading is even more valuable than a sense of humour in helpingyou over rough places. And--over and above the minor, more "worldly"support of its power of amusing and interesting you, even in the most "setgrey life"--it is linked to those higher helps, without which, neitherreading nor anything else will do us much good. St. Hugh of Lincoln mademuch of good books because he said they "made illness and sorrowendurable, " and, besides this, they save you from many temptations. It hasbeen well said, "It is very hard for a person who does not like reading totalk without sinning.... Reading hinders castle-building, which is aninward disease, wholly incompatible with devotion.... Towards afternoon aperson who has nothing to do drifts rapidly away from God. To sit down ina chair without an object is to jump into a thicket of temptation. Avacant hour is always the devil's hour. Then a book is a strong tower, nay, a very church, with angels lurking among the leaves. "

But although I must allow reading to be my special hobby, --one, however, which is run very hard in my affections by both cooking andgardening, --still I quite appreciate other hobbies, and I should be quiteas much pleased next term if, instead of telling me about books read andbringing me a piece of poetry learnt (by-the-by, I do very much wish youwould all learn Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" during the holidays)--if, instead of this, you showed me collections of wild flowers or shells. Alittle time ago I saw a charming book of dried flowers, collected by a setof children just out of a kindergarten. Each flower had a page to itself, with its name neatly written, and any extra local names which it happenedto possess. On the opposite page was written any verses of poetry that thechildren could find about it; and I was quite surprised to see what a goodcollection they had of bits from Tennyson and Shakespeare and Wordsworth, etc. Of course, the older sisters and the mothers must have helped them inthis part, but such a book, made in the holidays, would be the work ofthe whole family, so you would have plenty of help; and you will noticethat the poetical part of it is a special attraction to me, as it affordsexercise to my own hobby both in reading and in verifying quotations. 

I think I had better here give you warning that when you come back nextterm every one will have to write an essay, describing some one place theyhave been to during the holidays. I tell you now, that you may try to findout all you can of the real interest of the place; its historical, orlegendary, or literary associations, or its flowers, or shells, orfossils. 

There is one other point of holiday-making on which I should like to talkto you. Some of you may have read Charles Lamb's amusing essay on "PopularFallacies;" I suppose every one could add to his list from their ownexperience of life. One of the popular fallacies I should like to combatis, that "holidays are 'the children's hour;'" though I quite allow that, like most popular fallacies, it has many grains of truth in it. The littlevictims consider that conscientious application to grammar and historydeserves a compensating course of lying in bed in the morning, sitting uplate at night, and general indulgence, with every right-minded member ofthe household waiting upon them, and making plans for their amusement. Now, I quite see their side of the question. It is not pleasant, dayafter day, to go on steadily with work, which you do not happen to carefor; to be cut off from this or that expedition, because lessonsinterfere; to have to get up early every morning; to lose this or thatvisit;--and, therefore, I hope your holidays may be full of fun, and thatyou may be richly rewarded for any struggles you may have made during theterm. 

But there is another side of it all, and _term-time_ is "the children'shour, " from one point of view. 

Instead of the term being, for children, a time of self-denial, and theholidays, a time of well-earned self-indulgence, --I feel that term-timemeans self-denial for the parents, and selfishness for the children. Donot misunderstand me; the selfishness which I mean is forced upon you, --itis your duty, in term-time, to put lessons first. It may very well be thatsome of you feel you were wrongly selfish in your way of doing it, --thatyou allowed school work and school interests to blind you to the helpfulthings you might have done at home without any injury to the lessons. Ioccasionally hear such things as, that school is "so bad for girls, because So-and-so gets so engrossed with her work that she is irritablewhen any demand is made on her time, and is deep in her books when anydemand is made on her sympathies; and when she is not studying, she andher school friends are running in and out of each other's houses, so thather mother might as well have no daughter at all. " I do beg that none ofyou will bring this discredit on school life, for the system gets blamedwhen it is really your individual shortcoming which is in fault; you oughtto be big enough to hold both school and home interests! But, settingaside this form of term-time selfishness, which we shall all agree tocondemn, there remains another form of it, which is a duty. You must putlessons first, or you will be wasting both your parents' money and thatleisure for self-improvement, which, as a rule, is only granted to uswhile we are young. You are not free, yet, to be as useful at home as youwould like to be; your mother has to do without a daughter, to a largeextent, or to avail herself of one with the uncomfortable feeling that thedaughter is losing valuable time thereby, and probably is consideringherself a martyr in having to do unscholastic duties. I dare say thedaughter feels, "It isn't to please myself that I slave at my lessons;mother would be vexed if I didn't; and it's very hard that I should beboth hindered in them and made to do other things as well, --it's quite badenough in term-time to have to fag at lessons. " But just consider, for amoment, this "fagging at lessons:" _you_ feel that in so doing you aremaking a concession to your mother, for which she ought to show unboundedgratitude by all manner of sweetmeats in the holidays. But who profits bythese lessons, --your mother, who denies herself many a small luxury to beable to pay for them, or you, who are being fitted by them to take a goodplace in after-life? It seems to me that the gratitude and the sweatmeatsought to flow from you to her; I quite see the force of it, if any girlfeels what I have just described, --I flatter myself I generally do see theforce of my victim's complaints; but it does not do my victim much good, because I generally also see the force of something else, which is ofsuperior importance, but which the victim, very likely, will not see tillshe is older. 

If you have read that pearl of stories, "Cranford, " you will remember howMrs. Jenkyns, to avoid explaining things to the small Deborah, "took tostirring the fire or sending the 'forrard' child on an errand. " Now, unlike Mrs. Jenkyns, I believe in explaining my views to the "forrard"children, as I think the superiority of girls over boys consists in theremarkably early age at which girls begin to be reasonable! Afterexpressing such a high opinion of you, I hope you will all prove me right, by seeing the truth that underlies the theory I am putting before you, which I am sure you will all be inclined to reckon as a fallacy!

There is no need for me to dwell on the desirability of holidays beingmade pleasant for _you_--fathers and mothers are only too ready to do it;but there is a need for somebody to dwell on the desirability of holidaysbeing made pleasant for fathers and mothers. They are too unselfishgenerally to speak for themselves, especially in holiday time. I hear themsaying, in deprecation of my hard-heartedness, "Oh, let the poor childrenhave a good time! they can only be young once; they work hard at school, let them have a little fun in the holidays. " I quite agree: I believe inas much fun as you can get: I should like to be able to insist as sternlyon your all enjoying yourselves in the holidays, as I should on yourworking in term-time. There was a great deal of sound wisdom in thatEastern potentate, who proclaimed a general holiday, adding, "Make merry, my children, make merry; he who does not make merry will be flogged!"

At the same time, much as I care for your having fun, I do not see why"fun" should mean upsetting all the household arrangements, and doublingthe servants' work, by your late hours in the morning; at all events, after the first few mornings, when perhaps it is only natural you shouldwish to feel your liberty. But sooner or later you will have to learn thatliberty, for reasonable beings, only means being free to forge your ownchains, --being free to make such rules as you know are necessary, if youare to live a wholesome, health-giving life. Being late for prayers ishardly a form of self-government which we should admire in the abstract, though it is very tempting in practice; and keeping your mother waitingfor her breakfast, or else letting her have a solitary meal, is hardly agood way of being that domestic sunbeam which schoolgirls are supposed tohave time to be, --in holidays!

Holidays are sometimes spent in incessant excursions with young friends, leaving your mother at home to look after the little ones; and yet, perhaps, your mother had a very dull time of it in term-time, when youwere either at work, and could not be spoken to, or were busy over schoolgossip with some friend, and, perhaps, she looked forward to the holidaysas a time when she would get a little companionship from the daughter forwhom she makes so many sacrifices. But she is too unselfish to be theleast drag upon you; so she asks a school friend to stay with you, and, somehow, always has a good reason for really wanting not to join theexpedition, and takes the younger ones off your hands with an air of itsbeing almost self-indulgence on her part to do it. But, all the same, whatever she says, mothers like going about too, and, even if they do not, they like to feel that their presence makes part of their daughter'spleasure in the holiday pleasurings. You may think it very hard-heartedand mistaken of me to suppose that you would be so selfish with yourmother, but I have, often and often, seen it done, and I feel like alittle boy I know, who can hardly speak yet, but who is evidently born tobe a general redresser of wrongs, --he is very quickly struck by anyinstance of the folly and injustice of the world, and his favourite remarkis, "_Somebody_ ought to tell them; why shouldn't I?" Now, _somebody_ought to say this about mothers, and the mothers who do the unselfishthings are the last people who will ever remind you that they, too, havefeelings, so I will usurp that little boy's office, and tell you myself, for I am quite sure that, if it ever struck you, you would be shocked atdoing it, but, "Evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart. "

However, I do not intend to make this my closing quotation, as I am suremy children will have plenty of both heart and thought, and that they willshed around them a full supply of that sunshine which the weather seems sodetermined to deny us! I suppose we must allow, with Southey's old woman, that "any weather is better than none, " but it is incontestable that weseem likely to have every opportunity afforded us, during these holidays, at all events, of

 "Making a sunshine in a _shady_ place. "

Sunday. 

In many ways this is a disquieting age in which to live, and yet it isalso markedly hopeful. It is true that the power of authority and ofcustom is crumbling on many sides, but surely this should lead to thelaying of deeper and truer foundations. In this very question of Sunday, the Fourth Commandment used to settle the question, whereas now weinvestigate its origins and claims in a way which sounds rebellious andunfilial. Yet it may be nearer the mind of Christ than unthinkingobedience, for the servant accepts with blind obedience this or that rulespoken by his master; the friend, the son, strives to understand "hisfather's innermost mind. " He may or may not be convinced that certainwords spoken on Mount Sinai, about the Jewish Sabbath, were intended torefer to the Christian Sunday; but, in either case, he realizes the natureof the spiritual life, and perceives that worship and thought and time areessential to it. He sees that the old Jewish rule tends to develop thisspiritual life, and therefore, until he finds a better way, he feels itmorally binding on himself; not because it was a Jewish rule, but becauseit assists his own growth. 

Suppose a master admired a bed of lilies and said, "Let me always findsome here;" if a landslip destroyed that bed, a slave might feel absolvedfrom further trouble about lilies, but the son would say, "No; we can givemy father what he wants by growing them elsewhere--it was not so much thebed, as the lilies, that he really cared for. "

God will look in us for the lilies of peace and spiritual-mindedness, which only grow where there is what the old Babylonians called "a Sabbathof the heart. " Are we to feel absolved from responding to His demandbecause old Jewish ways have vanished? When St. Paul speaks so slightinglyof "times and seasons and Sabbaths, " does he mean that the worship andmeditation belonging to such seasons were valueless? No; he is rathersaying, "How can you think that our Father values, not the lilies, butonly the fact of their growing on this or that bit of earth?"

Every day, landslips are altering the features of God's great garden--thispresent world. We can no longer rely on definite instructions to plant inthis or that place; many circumstances, as yet unborn, may hinder it. Butwe must get it well into our minds that the Master will certainly comedown into His garden to ask for lilies, and that we must plant withoutdelay; tools and methods may be improved upon, certain aspects which arenow favourable may be deprived of sun by future buildings, but let usclearly realize that the end and object of having a garden is to growflowers, though ways and means may vary with the times. 

It is much easier to follow rules than to be inspired with the burningdesire to produce flowers and the moral thoughtfulness which uses the bestmethods of the day. 

But you can less well afford to do without moral thoughtfulness now thanyou could have done a generation ago. Thirty years ago a woman's path washedged in by signposts and by-laws, and danger-signals, to which sheattended as a matter of course; to-day, she has to find her way across amoorland with uncertain tracks, which she may desert at will. She needs toknow something of the stars to guide her now--she needs nobler and deeperteaching than in the days of convenances and chaperons. 

At present you have your home ways to guide, but you will find Sunday varyin almost every house you stay in, and when you marry you will have to setthe tone of a household; if you are to keep Sunday rightly in the future, you must learn now to value it rightly, and that means moralthoughtfulness, --a realization of our need of an inner life and of whatthat inner life requires for its sustenance, and an appreciation of theteaching of the Church Catechism, which tells us that our duty to Godbegins with Worship. 

What can we say as to the positive duty of keeping Sunday? We can hardlysay we are literally bound by the Jewish Sabbath, since, for JewishChristians, the Sabbath and Sunday existed for some time side by side, asseparate institutions; Sunday being a day of united worship, while theSabbath supplied retirement from the world. 

Gentiles kept Sunday only; but gradually there were incorporated into itall the spiritual elements of the Sabbath. In this point, as in allothers, the underlying eternal meaning of the Law was recoined andreissued by Christianity; no jot or tittle of its spirit passed away. 

In "The English Sunday, "[4] by Canon Bernard, you will find a short sketchof the history of the day; its universal acceptance through the decree ofConstantine, which organized the popular custom of a weekly holiday; theresistance of Luther and Calvin to any idea of being bound by the JewishSabbath; the Anglican idea of Church Services combined with the Book ofSports; the Puritan idea of a day of retirement from worldly business andamusement; and, finally, the gradual acceptance of this last idea by theEnglish national conscience, so that High Churchmen, like Law and Nelson, echoed the Puritan ideal, and the average business Englishman accepted itas the right thing. 

I am convinced that the vigour of the nation and the health of our ownsouls depends on keeping Sunday, --not only by going to Church, but by soarranging it that we get into an unworldly atmosphere, and have leisurefor the thought and reading which develop our spiritual nature. 

Such a Sunday is the development of the Fourth Commandment, keeping it inthe spirit though not in the letter. 

I am inclined to think that the Fourth Commandment is the most importantof all: if that is faithfully observed--if we spend due time in God'sPresence looking at things as He does, judging ourselves by Hisstandard--then the rest of our lives must in time get raised to the levelof those "golden hours;" we are as certain to improve as a person whoregularly goes up into bracing air is certain to grow stronger. 

Bishop Wordsworth's hymn suggests the highest lines on which to take thesubject, and I would ask, are you specially careful to come to breakfastfull of sunshine on Sunday mornings, as on a "day of rest and gladness"?Is it a cooling fountain to you? Do you soak yourself enough in goodthoughts to be more soothed and peaceful than you were on Saturday? Waslast Sunday a Pisgah's mountain?--did you cast so much as a glance at thepromised Land, at what will make the true joy of Heaven, the being likeChrist? did you seriously think over where you were unlike Him and whereyou could be more like Him in the coming week? "New graces evergaining:"--did you gain any grace at all last Sunday--or would this weekhave been exactly the same if Sunday had been wiped out? Make up a prayer, for Saturday's use, on the ideas in this hymn, or use the hymn in yourprayers, as inspiration on Saturday night and as self-examination onSunday night. 

Sunday should, as the Warden of Keble says, be a day of new plans forusing the coming week better than we did the last, and this implies quiettime for thoughtfully considering both the past and the coming week. OnSunday we should breathe different air and see weekday vexations from aSunday point of view. 

Our Sunday reading may well include all that is referred to in Phil. Iv. 8: "Whatsoever things are noble. " I would not say this or that book iswrong on Sunday--a book which is good on Saturday does not become bad onSunday, but, as is the case with many excellent weekday employments, itmay very well be a misuse of Sunday time, because we could be doingsomething better. I strongly advise you to make your Sunday books--and asfar as possible all your Sunday habits--different from those of the week, if only to give yourself a chance of getting out of grooves, of gettingthat complete change of air which is so conducive to a new start in one'sinner life and mental vigour. Lord Lawrence's Life would be splendidSunday reading, but if you are reading it in the week, you would be wiseto put it away on Sunday in favour of a change of air. 

It is quite possible that you are busy on Sunday, sometimes a father orbrothers, hard at work all the week, want you to amuse them on Sunday. Oryou may be busy with Sunday-school or Classes, which equally prevents thepersonal keeping of Sunday, while many household arrangements may make anold-fashioned Sunday impossible. (Let those who can have it be thankfulinstead of rebelling at its dulness!)

At the same time, I would suggest that the very young men for whose sakeyou are making the sacrifice--(the sacrifice of doing things which amuseyou as much as them, sometimes more, since a young man occasionally likesto lie in a hammock and read, without having the girls alwaysabout)--those very young men need Sunday quiet whether they desire it ornot. 

Would it not be well also, if you do have games, to keep to those whichallow of talk if the impulse comes, since a Sunday talk is often a help, and whether or no it is combined with boating or golf. 

I do not say to you, stand out against household ways and make yourselfdisagreeable by carrying out a Puritan Sunday--the only kind I believe in. No; surely that would be a very unchristlike way of spending Sunday. 

But every girl knows the difference between helping to make a pleasantfamily circle and lounging idly through the day in self-indulgent gossipand games. You must do what others do, and yet you must have a clear planof the reading and prayer and thinking which is right for you personally. If you cannot do it at one time on Sunday, find another, or else get itdone on Saturday. Nearly every one could find time for Sunday duties, onlyyou would rather not, because they are dull. I am not surprised, it is notnatural to like them till the spiritual nature is alive in you, but thatwill never be until you force yourself to take this spiritual food as aduty, or rather, as essential to your life. 

 "A Sabbath well spent Brings a week of content And strength for the toils of the morrow. "

Those are very old words by Sir Matthew Hale: I know them framed in thehall of an old-fashioned country house, and they bring back to me rest andquiet, and sweet sounds and scents--the bowl of roses and the pretty oldchintz on the sofa just under the words. 

I hope Sunday-like Sundays are not only to be found in old houses, but weall feel that Sunday quiet is likely to be the first thing sacrificed inthe rush and bustle of modern life. But if we have no time to eat, wecannot keep up to working pitch, we lose vitality: if we have no time forspiritual food, our souls lose vitality, and unfortunately starvation ofthe soul is a painless process, so we may unconsciously be getting weakerand weaker spiritually. 

You are regularly on your knees night and morning, but are you ever twominutes alone with God?--and yet "being silent to God"--alone withHim--is, humanly speaking, the only condition on which He can "mouldus. "[5] I am so afraid that the lawful pleasures and even the commandedduties of life, let alone its excitements and cravings, will eat out yourpossibilities of spirituality and saintliness: it is so easy to float onthe stream of life with others--so terribly hard to come, you yourself, alone into a desert place to listen to those words out of the mouth ofGod, by which only your individual life can be fed. The self-denials ofLent are comparatively easy, but to gain that quietness, which Bishop Goresays is "the essence of Lent, " is a hard struggle at all times of theyear. Do not let any one think, "this is all very well for quiet homes, but I cannot be expected to act on it, since 'the week-end' is always sobusy. " It would be very unpractical to say, day after day, "I cannot beexpected, for this and that excellent reason, to eat my dinner to-day. "You would soon find it advisable, for your own sake, to find some time atwhich you _could_ eat. I do not say, though it would be true, "it is a sinto break the Sabbath, and, in order to avoid God's anger, you must go toChurch and read good books;"--I say, "for your own sake, you _cannotafford_ to neglect these things, and if you cannot find time on Sunday, itwill be not only a crime but a blunder if you do not make time on Saturdayor Monday. " I only say, "if you do not eat enough to keep you alive, youwill die; and if you do not feed on the Word of God, your soul willshrivel away. "

Dante saw some souls in hell whose bodies were still alive onearth, --their friends in Florence and Lucca had not the faintest idea thatthese men, seemingly a part of everyday life, were, all the time, "deadsouls. " There is hardly a more terrible idea in all that terrible book, and yet it is a possibility in our own daily life--this atrophy of thespiritual nature, corresponding to the atrophy of the poetical naturewhich Darwin noted in himself as due to his own neglect. Mr. Clifford, in"A Likely Story, " forcibly depicts a soul awaking in the next world tofind that through this unconscious starvation, there was no longeranything in him to correspond with God. "The possibility of death isinvolved in our Lord's words about the power of living by the Word ofGod. "

Sometimes we are too tired to keep Sunday properly, and we give to"private sloth the time which was meant for public worship;" but surelythen the Sabbath breaking lay really in the week's excess of work. If weallow ourselves to live so hard in the week, to be so late on Saturday, that we are sleepy and stupid on Sunday morning, then we are not keepingthe Fourth Commandment, even if we force ourselves to go to Church; we arenot serving God with a fair share of our mind and strength. 

In these over-worked days of nerve exhaustion, it should be an inducementto remember how fresh and unwearied Mr. Gladstone was kept by his regularSunday habits. He said, "Sunday I reserve for religious employments, andthis has kept me alive and well, even to a marvel, in time of considerablelabour. We are born on each Lord's day morning into a new climate, wherethe lungs and heart of the Christian life should drink in continuously thevital air. "

Retreats and Rest-cures are nowadays found to be imperatively necessary;but are not both symptoms of something over-wrought in our system? Wouldit not be well for some if they tried, as Miss Wordsworth suggests, theeffect of keeping one Sunday in the week?

I do not wish to dwell on the unselfish side of the question--the moralobligation of keeping to those forms of entertainment and games which giveas little trouble as possible to servants, --I am sure that needs noenforcing on a generous mind. 

Neither do I wish to discuss what employments are suitable for Sunday, though I should like to draw your attention to a suggestion, in the Bishopof Salisbury's Guild Manual, that Sunday letters should always, as amatter of principle, have some Sunday element in them, and that we shouldrefrain from writing to people with whom we were not on this footing. Howoften our Sunday letters only clear our writing-table, that it may befreer for Monday's business!

Neither do I speak of our duty to God in the matter of worship, nor of thedefinite rules as to church-going which each must make for herself, if herreligion is not to vary with every house she stays in; I do not speak ofthe obligation binding on every member of the Church to conform to herChurch's regulations as to united worship. Every one of these points needa chapter to itself, and I wish to keep to a single point which seems ingreat danger of being neglected in this hurrying age, when there is suchterrible likelihood that we may "never once possess our souls before wedie. "

It is not the duty of keeping Sunday on which I want to lay stress, butthe fact that we dare not, for our own safety's sake, neglect it. Ourmoral thoughtfulness, our spiritual growth, the very existence of ourinner life, depends on our obtaining a sufficient supply of the air ofHeaven to keep our souls alive. To use Dean Church's words: "On the way inwhich we spend our Sundays depends, for most of us, the depth, thereality, the steadiness, of our spiritual life. "

[Footnote 4: Methuen. 1_s. 6d. _]

[Footnote 5: "Be silent to God, and let Him mould thee. "--Ps. Xxxvii. 7. ]

Friendship and Love. 

 "The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair. "

No word in our language has a nobler meaning than "friendship;" it is apity that none is more often abused. Every hasty intimacy formed by forceof circumstances--often merely by force of living next door--is dignifiedwith the title; but a deeper bond is needed to make a real friendship. "Bytrue friendship, " says Jeremy Taylor, "I mean the greatest love, and thegreatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblestsuffering, and the most exemplary faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which bravemen and women are capable. "

"Friendship is the perfection of love, " says the Proverb, and a certainJames Colebrooke and Mary his wife, buried in Chilham churchyard, seem tohave been of this mind, for the climax of their long epitaph is, that they"lived for forty-seven years in the greatest friendship. "

Proverbs on this subject abound, and teach varied lessons: "A faithfulfriend is the medicine of life;" but it would seem to act differently ondifferent constitutions, for, on the one hand, we are told, "a Father is aTreasure, a Brother is a Comforter, a Friend is both;" on the other, wehear the familiar exclamation, "Save me from my friends!" which isjustified by experience from the times of Aristides downwards, and isendorsed by Solomon, when he said, "He that blesseth his friend with aloud voice rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse tohim;"--words of which the wisdom will be felt by all who know what it isto feel unreasoning prejudice against some unoffending person, solelybecause of the excessive praise of some injudicious friend. Yet none theless are we bound to defend our friends behind their backs and to set themin a fair light. If we cannot aspire generally to St. Theresa's title of"Advocate of the Absent, " honour demands that we should at least earn itwith regard to our friends: though it requires infinite tact to avoidmaking your friend fatiguing, if not distasteful, to your listener in sodoing. For Tact, as well as Honour, is a necessary condition offriendship, in speaking both of, and to, your friend. In this matter oftact, Courtesy covers a large part of the ground. 

 "We have careful thought for the stranger, And smiles for the some time guest, But we grieve our own With look and tone, Though we love our own the best. "

This applies most to brothers and sisters, but also to friends; it takesthe delicate edge from friendship if we think ourselves absolved from theminor courtesies of manner and speech. 

We often say pretty things to an acquaintance, and omit them to a friend, "because she knows us, and we need not be ceremonious. " But ceremony isnot half such a bad thing as this age seems to think; it may be overdone, but so may its opposite. Why should we not give our friend the pleasure ofthis or that acknowledgment of her powers, which a stranger would giveher, but which she would value far more from us, even though she "knows weknow" it? Saying those things makes the wheels of life's chariot runsmoothly, --we think them, why are we so slow to say them? Why should "theprivilege of a friend" be synonymous with a cutting remark? Why should weall have reason to feel that "friend" might, without any violation oftruth, be substituted for the last word in that acute remark on the "finefrankness about unpleasant truths which marks the relative"? Well mightBob Jakes say, "Lor, miss, it's a fine thing to hev' a dumb brute fond o'yer! it sticks to yer and makes no jaw. " This question of making no "jaw"is rather a vexed one. Most people's experience would lead them to attendto a canny Dutch proverb, which observes that a "friend's" faults may benoticed but not blamed: since the consequences of blaming them are mostlyunpleasant; but a braver proverb says, "A true friend dares sometimesventure to be offensive;" and we read that it is our duty to "admonish afriend; it may be that he hath not said it, and, if he have, that he speakit not again. " But this earnest remonstrance which is sometimes requiredof us is very different from the small, nagging, and somewhat impertinentcriticisms which pass so freely between many friends. But defending anabsent friend is not the only point of honour essential in truefriendship. At the present time the Roman virtues seem somewhat at adiscount, --they are suspected of a flavour of Paganism; it is more inaccordance with the Genius of our Age to show our interest in our friendby talking over his moral and spiritual condition (and _par parenthèse_, all his other affairs) with a sympathizing circle, than to heed theold-fashioned idea, "He that is of a faithful spirit concealeth thematter. " How often do we hear, "I wouldn't, for the world, tell any onebut you, but--;" and then follows a string of repeated confidences whichthe friend under discussion would writhe to hear; yet the speaker would bemost indignant at being considered dishonourable, because "it was onlysaid to So-and-so, which is _so_ different from saying it to any oneelse"! The Son of Sirach made no exception in favour of "So-and-so" whenhe said, "Rehearse not unto another that which is told unto thee, and thoushall fare never the worse. " If it be true of a wife, that "a silent andloving woman is a gift of the Lord, " I am sure it is no less so of afriend; in friendship, as in most relations of life, silence, in itsseason, is a cardinal virtue. 

Girls are often tempted to retail their family affairs to some chosenfriend, from a love of confidential mysteries; the pleasure of being amartyr leads not only to the communication of moving details of home life, but frequently to their invention. A friend of mine adopted a niece, whoafterwards married and wrote from India asking her aunt to look throughand burn her old letters. My friend found touching pictures of hometyranny in the letters from school friends and answers to similarcomplaints, which the niece had evidently written about her own treatmentand since forgotten; possibly the home circles of the other girls wouldhave found the same difficulty that my friend did in recognizingthemselves:

 "Portrayed with sooty garb and features swarth. "

Equal with Honour, and before Tact, among the conditions of Friendship, Iwould place Truth, for there can be no union without this for a basis. Wehave touched already on the truth involved in what is called being"faithful" to a friend, but there are many other kinds required. Passingover the more obvious of these, I would draw attention to the subtler formof untruth, involved in endowing your friend with imaginary gifts andgraces. 

Yet the more we know of a true friend, the more we find to reverence inhim, and the more ground for humility in ourselves: "Have a quick eye tosee" their virtues; nay, more, idealize those virtues as much as you will, for this is a very different thing from endowing them with those they havenot; this is only learning to see with that divine insight essential tothe highest truth in friendship. "There is a perfect ideal, " says Ruskin, "to be wrought out of every human face around us, " and so it is with ourfriends' characters. 

And when we have found that ideal and true self, we must be loyal toit--loyal to our friends against their lower selves as well as againsttheir detractors. Plutarch says, "The influence of a true friend is feltin the help that he gives the noble part of nature; nothing that is weakor poor meets with encouragement from him. While the flatterer fans everyspark of suspicion, envy, or grudge, he may be described in the verse ofSophocles as 'sharing the love and not the hatred of the person he caresfor. '" Such a bit as that makes us forget the centuries which have rolledbetween us and Plutarch; his temptations are ours--how much easier it isto us to please our friends by sympathizing with their feelings, whetherthat feeling be right or wrong! How much pleasanter it is to us to gratifyour selfish affection by giving them what they want, as Wentworth did KingCharles, than to brace them to endure hardness for the sake of others!

We are so apt to give and to ask for weakening consolation. Sympathy inthe ordinary use of the term is more weakening than anything, and it ispleasant to give and to take. 

But sympathy should be like bracing air: "no friendship is worth the namewhich does not inspire new and stronger views of duty. " We all care to besons of consolation, --let us see to it that we brace others instead ofgiving mere pity. We all like to be pitied, but in our heart we are moregrateful to the friend who puts fresh spring into us, by what perhapsseems hard common sense. Those are the friends whose memory comes back tous when circumstances, or years, or distance, have drifted us far apart. 

The friend who fed the weaker part of us never gets from us the samegenuine affection with real stuff in it. How much easier it is tosympathize with our friends' unreasonable vexation--to join in theiruncharitable speeches, or in laughing at something we ought not to laughat, than to brace them

 "to welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!"

We find it very hard, almost impossible, to live always up to our ownbest self, and we may be quite sure our friends do too, whether they talkabout it or not, and our duty, as a friend, is to see their best self andhelp them to be it. Very often the mere fact of knowing that our friendsees our nobler nature, and believes in it, heartens us to keep faith init and to go on striving after it. "Edward Irving unconsciously elevatedevery man he talked with into the ideal man he ought to have been; andwent about the world making men noble by believing them to be so. "

It rests with each of us to draw out the better part in others; we allknow people with whom we are at our best, and we have failed in our Dutyto our Neighbour if we do not make others feel this with us. "Each soul isin some other's presence quite discrowned;" let the reverse be true wherewe are. 

It is a terrible thought that we have perhaps made others less noble, lesspure, less conscientious, than they would have been. We can never repairthe harm we do to one who loses faith in our goodness, --he inevitablyloses some part of his faith in goodness itself. "Much of our lives isspent in marring our own influence, " says George Eliot, "and turningothers' belief in us into a widely concluding unbelief, which they callknowledge of the world, but which is really disappointment in you or me. "

Nobody, who has not watched or felt it, knows the laming of all spiritualenergy, the hardening, the blighting of all noble impulse which comes fromthis sort of knowledge of the world; and who can say that he has never(more or less) been thus guilty?--it is more truly blood-guiltiness thananything else, for it helps to murder souls. 

Perhaps the greatest of the innumerable blessings which friendship conferson the character, lies in this fostering of moral thoughtfulness producedby its responsibilities: "I know not a more serious thing than theresponsibility incurred by all human affection. Only think of this:whoever loves you is growing like you; neither you nor he can hinder it, save at the cost of alienation. Oh, if you are grateful for but onecreature's love, rise to the height of so pure a blessing--drag them notdown by the very embrace with which they cling to you, but through theirgentleness ensure their consecration. "[6]

It needs a noble nature to be capable of friendship, or rather a naturewhich has carefully trained itself by discipline and self-denial, so as todevelop all the possibilities of nobleness which were latent in it. 

God gives each of us a nature with "pulses of nobleness, " and it restswith us whether this shall grow, or be choked by the commonplace part ofus. To be noble does not come without trouble. Good things are hard, and"noble growths are slow. "[7]

He who would be noble must go through life like Hercules and the oldheroes, working hard for others; not troubling about personal comfort andamusement, but practised in going without when he _could_ have, --for thesake of better things. 

To be noble means having your impulses under control, and this mostespecially where your affections are concerned. 

Do you want to help others to go right in life? I need not ask, for everygenerous nature would care to do that, even if she did not care much abouther own soul. 

Now, you will not do much by direct effort, but you will do an immensedeal by conquering your own besetting sin. In the "Hallowing of Work, "Bishop Paget says, "Increased skill and experience and ability are greatgifts in working for others, but they do not _compare_ with the powergained by conquering one fault of our own. "

Friendship can be the most beautiful thing in the world: it can be thesilliest thing in the world. It can be the most lowering: it can be themost ennobling. Nothing excites so much laughter and hard speaking in theworld as "schoolgirl friendships;" as often as not they are found amongolder people, but schoolgirls have given a name to this particular kind offolly, so it behooves schoolgirls to keep clear of it, and to deprive thename of its point. 

But can you help being sentimental if you are made like that? Some are ofgood wholesome stuff, with an innate distaste for everything of the kind, while to some it is their besetting sin. 

You can at least take precautions; for instance, do not day-dream aboutyour friend, --brooding over the thought of her weakens your fibre morethan being with her. 

Make a rule of life for yourself about your intercourse; walk and talkwith her more than with others, but at the same time sandwich those walksand talks by going with other friends, --it is a great pity to narrow yourcircle of possible friends by being absorbed in one person. 

Do not write sentimental letters, and, finally, do not sit in yourfriend's pocket and say "Darling. " (If you wish to know how it sounds, read "A Bad Habit, " by Mrs. Ewing. )

I must confess that I believe in what is so often jeered at as "kindredsouls. " Love is not measured by time; often we are truer friends throughsome half-hour's talk, in which we saw another's real self, than throughyears of ordinary meeting. But this is so different from the folly I speakof, that I need not dwell on it; except to say that you will be sparedmany disappointments if you are content with the fact that such moments ofsympathy have been, and do not look to have a permanent friendship on thatbasis. When people draw the veil aside for a minute they generally put itback closer than ever, and do not like to be reminded of theself-revelation. 

In the foolish friendships that make so much unhappiness, half the follylies in expecting the other person to be always at high-water mark, and inbeing fretful and reproachful when she is not. 

But to return to "schoolgirl friendships. " When you go out into societyyou may perhaps want to make private jokes among your friends, or to talkprivately to them instead of helping in general conversation, and you mayfeel "I have nothing much to contribute to the general stock; whyshouldn't I enjoy myself? it's very hard I should be so severelycriticized for bad manners if I do. " But if you look into any such matter, you are sure to find that bad manners are bad Christianity. There is awant of self-restraint in this schoolgirlishness; and you ought not to beable to pick out a pair of great friends in general society, not merelybecause, if you could, it would show them to be absurd and underbred, butbecause it would mean that others were made to feel "left out. " Have youever had some violent friendship--or laughed at it in others--which meantrunning in and out of each other's houses at all hours--beinginseparable--quoting your friend, till your brothers exclaimed at her veryname--and making all your family feel that they ranked nowhere incomparison with her? In this matter of home and friends conflicting, Iquite see the point of view of some: "My family don't give me the sympathyand help that my friend does--they always tease or scold if I come to themin a difficulty, and yet they are vexed and jealous when I find a friendwho can and will help. "

I do not say, Cut yourself off from your friend, --she is sent by God tohelp you; but, Remember to feel for your Mother;--see how natural andloving her jealousy is, and spare it by constant tact--instead of being amartyr, feel that it is _she_, and not _you_, who is ill-used. And in allways, never let outside affections interfere with home ones. It is thegreat difference between them, that outside, self-chosen affections burnall the stronger for repression and self-restraint; while home ones burnstronger for each act of attention to them and expression of them; _e. G. _postponing a visit to a friend for a walk with a brother will make bothloves stronger, and _vice versâ_, --and your friendship will last all thelonger because you consume your own smoke. Dr. Carpenter says that signsof love wear out the feeling;--every now and then they strengthen it, buttheir frequency shows weakness. Friendships are God-given ties when theyare real, but inseparable ones are mostly only follies;--anyhow, familyties are the most God-given of all, and friendship should help us tofulfil family claims better, instead of making us neglect them. The besttest of whether your love for an outside person is of the right kind, is, does it make you pleasanter at home? Mr. Lowell mentions an epitaph in theneighbourhood of Boston, which recorded the name and date of a wife andmother, adding simply, "She was so pleasant. "

We realize that we ought to make the world better than we find it, but wedo not realize how much more we should succeed in doing so if we made itbrighter, --a task which is in everybody's power. We are all ready to bearpain for others, but we overlook the little ways in which we might givepleasure. "Always say a kind word if you can, " says Helps, "if only thatit may come in perhaps with a singular opportuneness, entering somemournful man's darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happycircumvolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles. "

And there is one tiny little suggestion I would make to you, so small itwill not fit on to any of my larger headings. Do not make fun of yourfriend's little mishaps, little stupidities, losing her luggage, havingsaid the wrong thing, or having a black on her face when she especiallywished to look well! Your remark may be witty, but it does not reallyamuse the victim. I know it is very good for people to be chaffed, and Ido not wish them to lose this wholesome bracing. And yet we have a specialclinging to some tactful friends who never let us feel foolish. 

Another test you should apply to Friendship is, does it lead to idlewords? Every one likes talking about their neighbours, and dress, andamusement, but we need to be careful that kindliness and nice-mindednessare not sacrificed, and that all our interests are not on that level. Manythink that a woman's interest can rise no higher, and many girls and manywomen give colour to what you and I think a slander on us! We all likethese things, but we all like higher things too, and we need to encouragethe higher part of us because it so soon dies away. You know better than Ido how much of your own talk may be silly chatter--or worse--flippant orwrong talk, which you would stop if an older person were by. I have heardHigh Schools strongly objected to because they made the girls so full ofgossip, about what this or that teacher said, or what some girl did, tilltheir people hated the very name of school. If school friends talk muchschool gossip, they must weaken their minds and feel at a loss when outof their school set. It is very "provincial" to have no conversationexcept the small gossip which would bore a stranger, and yet I fear manyfriends confine themselves to a kind of talk which unfits them for generalsociety. You prohibit "talking shop, " by which you sometimes mean subjectswhich are interesting to all intelligent people, and yet you talkgossiping "shop" about the mere accidents of school life. But, unless youinterweave thoughtful interests and sensible topics of conversation withyour friendship, it cannot last. There must be the tie of a common higherinterest--it may be a common work, or intellectual sympathy, or, best ofall, oneness in the highest things--but without this a mere personal fancywill not stand the monotony, much less the rubs and jars, of closeintimacy. A friendship, where the personal affection is the deepestfeeling, is not a deep love, or of a high kind;--we must in the widestsense love "honour more. " "Love is a primary affection in those who lovelittle: a secondary one in those who love much" (Coleridge). 

A stool must have three legs if it is to support you, and two friends wanta third interest to unite them, or the friendship will die away inunreasonable claims and jealousies; since "claimativeness" is the evilgenius which haunts friendship, unless common sense and wholesomeinterests are at hand to help. It is difficult, but necessary, to learnthat affection is not a matter of will, except in family ties; that ourfriends love us in exact proportion as we appear to them lovable, that"the less you claim, the more you will have, " as the Duke of Wellingtonsaid of authority. A very little humility would wonderfully lessen ourdemands upon our friends' affections, and a very little wisdom wouldpreserve us from trying to win them by reproaches. How many coolnesseswould be avoided could we learn to see that friendship, like all otherrelations of life, has more duties than rights. Nothing so certainly killslove as reproaches; I do not believe any affection will stand it. Our hurtfeelings may seem to us tenderness and depth of feeling, but they areselfish:--"fine feelings seldom result in fine conduct. " If our love wereperfectly selfless, we should be glad of all pleasure for our friend;failure in his allegiance to us would not change us, nothing would do thatexcept failure in his allegiance to his better self. We should love ourfriends not for what they are to us, but for what they are in themselves. Of course, it may be said that fickleness to us is a flaw in his betterself, but if we stop to think how many tiresome ways we probably have, weshall be lenient to the friends who show consciousness of them. 

It is a natural instinct with all of us to claim love; those who seemmost richly blessed with it probably have some one from whom they desiremore than they receive; every one has to learn, sooner or later, that "anunnavigable ocean washes between all human souls, "--

 "We live together years and years, And leave unsounded still Each other's depths of hopes and fears, Each other's depths of ill. 

 "We live together day by day, And some chance look or tone Lights up with instantaneous ray An inner world unknown. "

We all have to learn, sooner or later, that nothing less than Divine Lovecan satisfy us, but because our natural longings are so often denied, somesay they are wrong and should be crushed out. It is wrong to give way tothem, to yield to the tendency which is so strong with some, to let alltheir interests be personal, --to care for places and natural beauty andsubjects only because they are associated with people, --to let life bedull to us unless our personal affections are in play. Women ought to makeit a point of conscience to learn to care for things impersonally. We aretoo apt to be like Recha in "Nathan, " when she only looked at the palmtrees because the Templar was standing under them; when her mindrecovered its balance, she could see the palm trees themselves. 

 "Nun werd' ich auch die Palmen wieder sehen Nicht ihn bloss untern Palmen. "

If God sends us the trial of loneliness, it may be that He has a specialwork for us, which needs a long and lonely vigil beside our armour. He maybe depriving us of earthly comfort to draw us closer to Himself, that wemay learn from Him to be true Sons of Consolation. 

"When God cuts off the shoots of our own interests, " it has been wellsaid, "it is that we may graft on our hearts the interests of others. "

Nothing but knowing what loneliness is can teach us to feel for it inothers. Nine-tenths of the world do suffer from it at some time or other;you may not now, but you will some day; and, if you are spared it, nine-tenths of the sorrows of life will be a sealed book to you. "I prayedthe Lord, " says George Fox, "that he would baptize my heart into a senseof the conditions and needs of all men. "

But our Lord, Who Himself suffered under the trial of loneliness, sendsall of us friends whom we do not deserve. We can trust to Him to give usthe friends we need, just when we need them, and just as long as we needthem, as surely as we trust Him for daily bread. He may be keeping Hisbest to the last; nay, the best may never come to us in this life at all;but it is as true now as when St. Anselm said it, eight hundred yearsago:--

"In Thee desires which are deferred are not diminished, but ratherincreased; no noble part, though unfulfilled on earth, is suffered toperish in the soul which lives in Thee, but is deepened and hollowed outby suffering and yearning and want, that it may become capable of a largerfulfilment hereafter. "

The hunger of the heart is as natural, and therefore as much implanted byGod, as the hunger of the body. Neither must be gratified unlawfully; butwhen God sends food to either we should accept it thankfully, withouteither asceticism or greediness, and use the strength it gives us as ameans of service. Does not the essence of the wrong sort of love consistin our looking on the affection we receive, or crave for, as a self-endingpleasure, instead of as a gift which is only sent to us to make ushappier, and stronger to serve others?

We do not need to be always self-questioning as to how far we are usingour happiness for others. We do not count our mouthfuls of food, we feedour bodies without thinking of it, and so we should do to our hearts; butwe are often not healthy-minded enough to go right unconsciously, thoughsome happy souls there are--

 "Glad hearts, without reproach or blot, Who do God's work, and know it not. "

The Fall brings us under the curse; the tree of knowledge of good andevil has entailed upon us the necessity of self-knowledge; and if we findour hearts out of joint, and craving for more love than we get, we shouldexamine ourselves as to whether we use the love we do get, like therunner's torch handed on from one to the other; whether the glow of ourhappiness warms us to pass on light and heat to others, or whether weabsorb it all ourselves. 

And if we know that we are selfish in the matter, --what then? We cannotmake ourselves unselfish by a wish; we cannot win love at will. But, though we cannot gain love, we can give it; we can learn to love so well, that we are satisfied by the happiness of those we love, even though wehave nothing to do with that happiness. 

"How hard a thing it is to look into happiness with another man's eyes!"but it can be done. People do sometimes live, "quenching their humanthirst in others' joys. "

Although our craving for sympathy is wrong if it be allowed to lame ourenergies, yet in itself we cannot say it is wrong. "To become saints, "says F. W. Robertson, "we must not cease to be men and women. And if therebe any part of our nature which is essentially human, it is the cravingfor sympathy. The Perfect One gave sympathy and wanted it. 'Could ye notwatch with Me one hour?' 'Will ye also go away?' Found it, surely, eventhough His brethren believed not on Him; found it in St. John and Martha, and Mary and Lazarus:"--

 "David had his Jonathan, and Christ His John. "

Some people are quite conscious that they do not "get on" with others; andthey are tempted to be morbidly irritable and exacting, or else to shutthemselves up and say, "It's no use, no one wants me. " If no one wantsyou, it is your fault; for if you were always ready to be unselfish andthoughtful for others in small ways, you would be wanted. You need notfret because you are not amusing to talk to, and think that therefore youcannot win affection. As a rule, people do not want you to talk; they wantyou to listen. Now, any one can be a good listener, for that requiresmoral, and not intellectual qualifications. Sympathy to guess somebody'sfavourite subject, and to be really interested in it, will always makethat somebody think you pleasant; but the interest must be real: if youonly give it for what you can get, you will get nothing. 

The right person always is sent just when needed. I do not believe inpeople missing each other--though it may very well be that we are not fitto be trusted with the affection we should like, and that God knows weshould rest in it if we had it, and never turn to Him, and so He keeps itfrom us till we are ready for it. The longer we live the more we arestruck by the apparent chance which threw us with the right people. 

There is a Turkish proverb which says, "Every only child has a sistersomewhere, " and F. D. Maurice, in his beautiful paper on the "Faëry Queen, "declares his belief that all who are meant to be friends and to help eachother will find each other at the right time, just as Spenser's knights, though wandering in trackless forests, always encountered each other whenhelp was wanted. 

And if all this is true of ordinary friendship--if it calls for so muchhigh principle and self-denial and prayer--what of love, "the perfectionof friendship"? It is usually either ignored or joked about. The jokes areedged tools always in bad taste and often dangerous, but it is a pity thesubject should be ignored. When it becomes a personal question the girl issure to be too excited or irritable to take advice, so that there issomething to be said for that discussion of "love in the abstract, " whichSydney Smith overheard at a Scotch ball. It is surely better, in formingher standard and opinion on this most important of all points, that a girlshould have the help of her mother and older friends. Girls do not go totheir mothers as they might, because they wait till they are sore andconscious and resentful. Most girls would rather be married, and quiteright too, --in no other state of life will they find such thoroughdiscipline and chastening!--it is the only life which makes a true andperfect woman. But if they wish it, let them not be so untidy, so fidgety, so domineering, that no man in his senses would put up with them! And ifshe be a "leisured girl" with no duty calling her from home (or verypossibly many duties calling her to remain at home), let her think, nottwice, but many times, before a wish for independence and Bohemianism(which she translates into "Art") leads her into grooves of life where sheis very unlikely to meet the sort of man who can give her the home and thesurroundings to which she is accustomed. Harriet Byron's despair andecstasy about Sir Charles have passed away, but girls still dream ofheroes (not always so heroic as Sir Charles). Their dreams cannot fail tobe coloured by the novels they read and the poetry they dwell on; do theyalways realize the responsibility of keeping good company? Readlove-stories, by all means, but let them be noble ones, such as show you, Molly Gibson, Mary Colet, Romola, Di Vernon, Margaret Hale, Shirley, AnneElliot, The Angel in the House, The Gardener's Daughter, The Miller'sDaughter, Sweet Susan Winstanley, and Beatrice. It is impossible to dwellon the mere passionate emotion of second-rate novels and sensuous poetry, without wiping some possibility of nobleness out of your own life. Everyinfluence which you allow to pass through your mind colours it, but mostof all, those which appeal to your feelings. You take pains to strengthenyour minds, but you let your feelings come up as wheat or tares accordingto chance; and yet the unruly wills and affections of women need morediscipline than their minds. 

Perhaps the individual girl feels commonplace and of small account. Whyshould she restrain her love of fun, her Tomboyism, her tendency toflirtation? She is no heroine! But, let her be as commonplace as possible, she will represent Woman to the man who is in love with her, as surely asBeatrice represented it to Dante. 

Every woman, married or single, alters the opinion of some man aboutwomen. Even a careless man judges a girl in a way that she, with her headfull of nonsense, probably never dreams of;--he has a standard for her, though he has none for himself. 

It is small wonder that chivalrous devotion should decrease when women layso little claim to it. Miss Edgeworth needed to decry sentimental andhigh-flown feelings, --the Miss Edgeworth of to-day would need to upholdromance. 

Women may still be "Queens of noble Nature's crowning, " but they toooften find that crown irksome, and prefer to be hail-fellow-well-met, taking and allowing liberties, which give small encouragement to men to belike Susan Winstanley's lover. 

Dante never watched the young man and maiden of to-day accosting eachother, or he would not have said--

 "If she salutes him, all his being o'er Flows humbleness. "

I am afraid Dante would now be left "_sole_ sitting by the shores of oldRomance, " unless indeed he went to some of the seniors, who are supposedto have no feelings left! "If you want to marry a young heart, you mustlook for it in an old body. "

Are you, then, to reject all suggestions of a sensible marriage with anyman who is not Prince Perfect? I once read a very sensible little poemwhich described the heroine waiting year after year for Prince Perfect. Hecame at last, but unfortunately "he sought perfection too, " so nothingcame of it! Cromwell's rule in choosing his Ironsides is the safest inchoosing a husband: "Give me a man that hath principle--I know where tohave him. " If he comes to you disguised as one of these somewhatcommonplace Ironsides, and recommended by your mother, consider how verymuch the fairy Prince of your dreams would have to put up with in you, andyou will probably find it heavenly, as well as worldly wisdom, to "godown on your knees and thank Heaven fasting for a good man's love. " Youwill tell me that many happy and useful lives are now open to women, andthat they need not be dependent on marriage for happiness, --and I shallquite agree with you; you may go on to say that marriage can now be to awoman a mere choice amongst many professions, a mere accident, as it is toa man, --and there I shall totally disagree with you. It is quite possiblethat Happiness may lie in the narrower, more self-willed work of thesingle woman, but Blessedness, which is higher and more enduring thanhappiness, can only be known to the married woman whose whole nature isdeveloped, and _fully_ known only to the "Queen of Marriage: a mostperfect wife. "

Are you, then, to spend your lives making nets, or, following Swift's wisecaution, even in making cages, waiting, like Lydia Languish, for a hero ofromance, and beguiling the interval with reading "The Delicate Distress, "and "The Mistakes of the Heart"? Not at all! The best way to prepare formarriage is to prepare yourself to be like Bridget Elia, "an incomparableold maid. "

 "The soul, that goodness like to this adorns Holdeth it not concealed; But, from her first espousal to the frame, Shows it, till death, revealed. Obedient, sweet, and full of seemly shame, She, in the primal age, The person decks with beauty; moulding it Fitly through every part. In riper manhood, temperate, firm of heart, With love replenished, and with courteous praise, In loyal deeds alone she hath delight. And, in her elder days, For prudence and just largeness is she known; Rejoicing with herself, That wisdom in her staid discourse be shown. Then, in life's fourth division, at the last She weds with God again, Contemplating the end she shall attain; And looketh back, and blesseth the time past. "--_Dante_. 

[Footnote 6: James Martineau. ]

[Footnote 7: Channing. ]

A Good Time. 

We sometimes hear people lamenting the dangers of this age as regardsunsettled views in religion, while others lament that girls neglect homeduties for outside work. 

I am not at all sure that our greatest danger does not lurk in that mostmodern invention, "a good time, " which, as a disturbing element, isclosely related to that other modern institution "week-ends. "

Fifteen or twenty years ago, a self-willed or self-indulgent girl escapedfrom the monotony of home duties by the door which led into slums andhospitals. Nowadays the same girl finds that duties can be evaded by thesimpler plan of staying at home and having "a good time. " I do not thinkthis will last, any more than slumming, as a mere fashion, has lasted. Ihope not, for it means that girls have had very full liberty given tothem, and that their sense of responsibility has not yet grown inproportion to their freedom. Just now, pending the growth of that sixthsense, "a good time" is very easily to be had--at the cost of a littlewant of consideration for others--since the elders of to-day are curiouslylarge-hearted in giving freely and asking very little in return. 

But it would be an ungenerous nature which took advantage of generosity, and was content to take much and give little. 

Surely it is utterly ignoble that any living soul sent into the greatbattle should ask to pick flowers, while every one worth their salt washard at work fighting the foe, protecting the weak, nursing the wounded. Ido not believe a girl would do it if she thought twice; every generousinstinct would cry out against it. But a girl may drift into a veryselfish pleasure-seeking life, and the tendency of the day is to regardthis as a defendable and lawful line of life. Duty will hold its own withthe morally thoughtful and with generous natures, but it is no longer anunquestioned motto for every one as it used to be in Nelson's days. 

I have heard a girl rebel against her life, on the ground that she had aright to a good time; youth was the time for pleasure, she would neveragain have such a power of enjoyment, and it was absolutely criminal onher parents' part not to provide her with more. I thought she already hadmore than most; but in any case, I did not agree with her in saying thatshe must enjoy now, or not at all. In case it should be any comfort tothose of you who may have a dull life, I can tell you that it is not so. Iam convinced we all have a certain power of enjoyment, and if you can getyour fill of pleasure in youth, you do not find as much keen enjoyment inmiddle life as if you had been kept on a shorter allowance. It is true youdo not enjoy quite the same things--there are youthful amusements whichyou can only enjoy at a certain stage; but take comfort, if you do not getas much as you would like now, it will only mean keener enjoyment of thepleasures of the next stage of life. 

But what struck me most was her fundamental assumption that Pleasure was avalid object in life, and that she was sent into the world to get as muchas she could. 

If so, I think the world is a great Failure. I often hear people saying, "I cannot believe in God, because of the Pain in the world;" and if thisworld was the end of things, that would be reasonable; if Pleasure is theobject of Life, it would be better never to be born! But if we are senthere to grow, then I cannot understand Pain being a reason for doubtingGod's love. Looking back on life, I am sure each will feel, "I could notafford to miss one of its shadows, no matter how black they were at thetime. " And the fact that you and I each feel that the key of God's lovefits the lock of our individual life, should be one valid reason forbelieving that all Life is ordered for a right and noble purpose; ourhappy lives are as real a bit of Life, and as good a specimen of God'sgovernment, as sad ones. 

People say to me, "Yes, I feel as you do about myself, but others havesuch terrible shadows that I cannot feel God is good!" Well, somesufferers tell me they would not change their life, for they feel God'slove in it: surely they have a right to speak. We learn from them thatPain works rightly into life. 

What makes a woman's life worth living? That she has had this or thatpleasure--that she has riches or poverty--that she is married or lonely, that she married the right man or the wrong?

No! What matters is, whether she is growing more and more into tune withthe Infinite? Is she learning God's lesson, and fitting herself for thestill nobler life He wants to give her?

You and I came into the world to do our part in a noble battle--

 "'Twere worth a thousand years of strife, 'Twere worth a wise man's best of life. If he could lessen but by one The countless ills beneath the sun. "

Besides, you will not find Pleasure-seeking pays in the long run! If youare feeling that Pleasure with a big "P" is your due, then all the littleannoyances prick and irritate. If you pay heavily for a new dress whichhangs badly, it is trying; if you never expected a new dress at all, andthat same dress was unexpectedly given you, the drawback would be lookedat very differently. 

It would pay pleasure-seekers to try the old plan of looking on life as aDuty, where pleasures came by accident or kindness, and were heartily andgratefully enjoyed. Do you remember in the "Daisy Chain, " how Ethel says, after the picnic, that the big attempts at pleasure generally go wrong, and that the true pleasures of life are the little unsought joys that comein the natural course of things? Dr. May disliked hearing her so wise ather age, but I think it must have been rather a comfort to Ethel to havefound it out. No thought of that kind damps your pleasure when the danceor the picnic turn out a great success! And when they do not, it is niceto feel there are other things in life. Every one knows how oftensomething goes wrong at a big pleasure; the right people are not there, oryour dress is not quite right; you are tired, or you say the wrong thing;while, if you get much pleasure, a certain monotony is soon felt, and youenvy the vivid enjoyment of the girl who scarcely ever has a treat. 

It stands to reason, that if you are deliberately arranging to getpleasure, and plenty of it, you cannot (from a purely pleasure point ofview) enjoy it as much as if your life consisted of duties, and yourpleasures came by the way. But there is a deeper reason why a life ofamusement fails to amuse. It is not only that we are so made that nearlyall our sensations of pleasure depend on novelty, the keenness wearing offif a sensation is repeated. 

The reason lies in a fact which militates against the Pleasure-seeker'sfoundation idea:--the fact that we are made for something else thanpleasure, failing which we remain unsatisfied. "There is in man a HIGHERthan Love of Happiness: he can do without Happiness, and instead thereoffind Blessedness. "

Here is the point I should like you to think clearly out for yourselves. Fifty years ago, Carlyle taught this truth as with thunder from Sinai. Letus imbue our minds with his passionate scorn for those who come into thisnoble world to suck sweets, --to have "a good time. " "Sartor Resartus, " oneof the Battle-cries of Life, and "Past and Present, " which has small mercyfor idlers and pleasure-seekers, are character-making books:--

 "There went to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, "

and there also go, to the making of man and woman, certain books. 

These may vary in each case and in generation. Tom Brown and Mr. Knowles'"King Arthur" may not do for you what they did for me; "Sesame andLilies, " "Past and Present, " Emerson's "Twenty Essays" may be superseded, though I can hardly believe it; but see to it that you find and read theirtrue successors, carry out Dr. Abbott's advice to his boys--to "read halfa dozen de-vulgarizing books before leaving school. "

Surely R. L. Stevenson should be on the list, for he speaks so splendidlyon Carlyle's great point that man was born for something better thanHappiness. He says, over and over again, "Happiness is not the reward thatmankind seeks. Happinesses are but his wayside campings; his soul is inthe journey; he was born for struggle, and only tastes his life ineffort. " He sounds the same note as Marcus Aurelius, another of thede-vulgarizing man-making books of the world. 

The message of all these men is, "Love not Pleasure; love God. This is theEVERLASTING YEA, wherein who walks and works it is well with him. "

Surely, when we look into things and leave our hungry wishes on one side, it seems clear to the best side of our nature that we are born, not with aright to Pleasure, but with a right to opportunity for development on ourown highest lines. 

A pig has a right to pigs-wash--he has no higher capacity. You and I havea capacity for courage and helpfulness and friendship with God. Our lifewill be a success if these things are developed, and a failure if they arenot. This is the success we have a right to, but as likely as not it mayneed Pain, not Pleasure, for its achievement; and in this case you and Iare born with a right to Pain, and we should be defrauded if any one savedus from it. 

I know you want Happiness and pleasure, and I sympathize with you; but itmakes all the difference to your whole life if you go out into the worldlike a vulture screaming for prey, or if you start out hoping, in thefirst place, to be brave and helpful, and, only in the second place, readyto take any pleasure as a good gift to be happy and grateful about. 

"How needlessly mean our life is; though we, by the depth of our living, can deck it with more than regal splendour!"[8]

Do you feel that this is very tall talk for quiet lives like yours andmine? Yes, it is; but we need great ideals to live even small lives by. Probably no one of us will ever get near living a noble life, but we canmake our lives of the same fibre as those of the heroes. We can live onnoble lines. 

How?

I. --Let us _work for others_: which may mean no more than being theuseful one in the house and perhaps taking a Sunday-school class. 

II. --Let us live with noble people, _i. E. _ read steadily books which keepus in touch with larger minds--if you are constantly meeting clever peoplethat does instead, but if you lead quiet lives with not much to talkabout, except gossip and family events, then secure a daily talk withpeople worth talking to. 

III. --Let us live part of each day with God. St. Christopher is the patronsaint of those who want to lead a noble, helpful life, and yet feel thatin them there lies no touch of saintliness, save it be some far-off touchto know well they are not saints. 

You know his story: how he sought to serve the strongest, first theEmperor, then the Devil, then the Crucified; how he went to an old hermitand said, "I am no saint, I cannot pray, but teach me to work for theMaster;" and how at last he found that in his common work he attained tothe service of the Crucified. 

You and I are sent into the world to serve the strongest, and we know thatmeans the Crucified. 

What makes Life worth while, and increasingly worth while, every year youlive, is that He does not offer us Pleasure, though He gives it to most ofus in overflowing measure: He offers us a share in His work. Think of allwe owe to others, to all who love us--to all who make life easy tous--and feel what a debt we owe. Think of the work He is doing--of thework He died for. Think how He calls each one to His side to be His friendand helper and fellow-soldier. Think of the possibility which belongs toeach one of us, of being one of His great army of those whose name isHelp. 

Let us thank Him for our Creation, in that such possibilities are beforeus. Verily, Life is well worth living. 

 "Go forth and bravely do your part, O knights of the unshielded heart. "

[Footnote 8: Emerson. ]

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