Chapter II: Part 2

Books should give you nice ideas. You have got the making of your own mind and character in your own hands, and you are responsible for the books on which you choose to feed yourself, for each one of them alters you for good 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 you begin 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 to Church on Sunday whether other people do or not. Sunday varies in different 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 she should think the matter over and have her own standard. But the root of Sunday-keeping lies in the fact that she must feed the Sunday side of her or it will die; and she should go to Church, once at least, to show her colours. As to how much she feeds that Sunday side, or when,--that varies with the household, only she should resolve on something and stick to it. You need not be disobliging, since you can always make time by denying yourself.

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

Thirdly, do something for other people, some steady kindness which you do not give up just to suit your own convenience.

Now, what plan of life should you have? You must have a plan and resolution, for if you drift you are almost certain to drift _down_ and not up.

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

Also you will be under control to a certain extent. Very likely you will sometimes resent control or reproof at home more than you would resent it from an outsider! But you are a stage nearer that sad freedom of later life when it is nobody's business to look after you, and you have now got to 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 what I tell you here about not being silly and uncontrolled, or loud and boisterous. The actual school rules pass away, but there is not one of them that is not founded on some principle that I hope you will carry with you and live by.

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

But to go to practical details. Take a girl who wants to be good and dutiful and useful, to be a comfort at home, to keep her brain in good working order, and to enjoy herself: what should she resolve upon if she is to be of use in the world and not drift idly along? She must think it out for herself, and no longer wait for orders. She must put the salt of self-denial and effort into every day, of her own accord, and not feel absolved because her mother has not given any special orders. You are responsible for your own life, and it is horribly easy to slide into a slack, 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 feel you always engaged, yet, though you must seem disengaged, you must have a real purpose underneath. You must be free to idle about after breakfast while your mother or the visitors are settling the day's employments, and yet 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 a hard-working one, because it rests entirely with you whether you put any salt into your day, and because it is your duty to do much as other people do, while at the same time, underneath, you must keep to your standard of Right and Wrong.

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

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

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

If you feel that you will _never_ begin good ways unless you do so at once, then begin! But I am not sure that I should advise you to make your Resolution at once, though I should like you to make your Plan. I should like you to plan your day while you are here, and write it out: you will not do much with Resolutions unless you write them. Plan what time you will 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 the first 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 definite resolutions with the new year.

But are you to fritter away the time between this and then? No, carry out your ideas of reading sensible books and doing kind things for friends and poor people, and saying your prayers and reading the Bible, and write down every day exactly how much you did. Let your resolution be to keep a record of these months, rather than a resolution to keep to a detailed plan. Keeping a record is self-discipline in itself, it means self-examination every night. If it shows you to be silly and idle and unpersevering, it will make you ashamed of yourself. Also it will give you some idea of how much time you can really count on getting. See how your plan works before you promise God to keep it, and then you will not make unwise resolutions at the New Year.

In arranging one's life, it is well to take our Lord's three divisions of Duty,--Prayer, Alms, and Fasting,--and see how our life and our plans stand 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 kept Sunday.

_Alms_.--What proportion of your money do you give away? You ought to give away 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 on charity, or books, and then to look shabby.

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

Are there no old people you could amuse in some way,--possibly with whist? Or rather lonely people (aunts sometimes), to whom you could write regularly; people like to be remembered, especially by the young! As long as you are young your kindnesses are very much valued, and if you choose to be selfish instead, it is forgiven you, but, as you are in youth so you will 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, and people love you all the same! But, by the time you are thirty, people will begin to say they will not stand it any longer, and by the time you are forty or fifty you will be left to a lonely life!" So begin a _kind_ life at once, and act towards all around you on the principle 'such as I have I give thee.' Sometimes you can share your money, sometimes your pleasures, sometimes your education. And remember that in the work and kindnesses which you do for others, you must put first and foremost what you do for your mother and father and home people. "_Haus Teuffel, Strasse Engel_" is a bad name. The point of that text about 'Corban, it is a gift,' is, that you must not feel absolved from duties at home, because you do good works outside. Find out some home duty you can do regularly, and stick to it. I dare say your mother may not suggest any to you, because she wants you to have a good time, but think of _her_ pleasure and amusement; mothers often talk as if they enjoyed being left at home, just to make more room for you. Keep your eyes open, and find out what you can do to make life pleasanter to her. Talk over your plans with her; often mothers do not realize that a girl wants to find duties and kind things to do, and so they 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 the things that other people do not like doing; that is the sort of person I like better than any other,--the one who feels "somebody must do the tiresome work, why shouldn't I?" Nothing you could do in the future would please me so much as if you lived by that motto; and, if you add to it a determination to make it quite a pleasure to your mother to find fault with you, you will do well!

So much for Prayer, our duty to God, and for Alms, our duty to our neighbour; 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 your duty 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 may be a good soldier for God.

Such questions as the proper amount of Rest and Amusement and Exercise all come under this head, for we ought to aim at just as much as will make us 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 keep our brains keen and bright. Self-denial in sleep and food and drink are part of this management.

Early Rising ought to be on your list of resolutions. Some find it best to name a certain hour, but then, if they are not called punctually, they feel the resolution broken, and they very likely lie on slothfully. I think it is best to resolve to get up either five or ten minutes after you wake, 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 to act on.

And when you are dressed (carefully and prettily dressed), and your soul is dressed in God's armour, what are you going to do with the new day God has 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 useful woman, to train you for better work in the future.

_Reading_ is not the only kind of such training, but it is one of the best kinds and gives you new ideas. I advise you to try for half an hour a day, and to keep a list of the books you read:[1] make an abstract of a sensible book once in three months: sandwich your English novels with foreign ones: keep a sensible book on hand and, alternately with books you fancy, read something a little above you: take up some special subject every three or six months and read several books on it, or else read through 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, idleness leads to silly thoughts and self-indulgence. Do not be out-of-doors all day; have something indoors to show for yourself. Feminine occupations have a good result on the character, and help you to be quiet and recollected, to be the womanly woman who makes a real Home for her father and brothers. As Roger Ascham is reported by Landor to have said to Lady Jane Grey, "exercise that beauteous couple, the mind and body, much and variously; 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 be opened till middle life! I do not want you to waste your life like that, I want you to feel that you have a definite purpose and that you know what orders you ought to give yourselves, or rather what are God's orders for your life.

What is your purpose in life? I hope--Lord Bacon's words in our Tuesday midday Prayer express it--"the glory of God and the relief of man's estate." You go into life knowing how dearly the Lord Jesus Christ loves you, at how dear a cost He bought you; therefore, not just to save your souls, 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 to spend and be spent in His service.

And you will want to live for the relief of man's estate. The more your eyes open to life, the more you see how many sore hearts there are in the world, 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 the world; 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 open to you when you first grow up, and you may be very busy with your pleasures and home duties. Let your mother enjoy your pleasures, she has been planning them for years, but do what little things you can to discipline yourself so that by-and-by (when you are free to work) you may be a worker worth having. It is that which makes the waiting years worth while.

Often a girl gets tired of enjoying herself and longs for some purpose in life, but she is tied in a hundred ways. Sometimes she loses her aspirations, her wish to do some good in the world, and sinks down into an idle round of small pleasures and worries. But do not you do that; rather realize that, according as you spend your waiting time,--before you marry or 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 she was saying that the best preparation for usefulness lay in such common things as cooking, cutting out, musical-drill, gardening, children's games, neat business-like letters, keeping your own accounts, a power of small talk! All these are possible to each of you, and a resolute putting of salt into each day,--some discipline, some self-denial, some thoroughness,--will turn you out able by-and-by to do good work for the Relief 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 the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ.

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

Conversation.

Tourgenieff has a story in which three young princes, one by one, went into an enchanted garden and plucked a magic apple which gave the eater one wish. The first asked for money, the second for beauty, the third for the 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 not sure that you would not do well to imitate that shrewd young prince! It is old ladies who can teach you knowledge of the world, and whose good-will gets you the most desirable invitations! However, you can easily gain their good-will without any apple, so that, on the whole, I should advise a princess to choose the gift of being a good Talker--or rather one who produces 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 guests talking; and every woman is the hostess when she is talking to a man, or to any one younger or shyer than herself. You should make people go away with a regretful feeling that they missed a great deal by having talked so much themselves that they heard very little from you.

Do you think it is easy to listen--that it means mere silence? I assure you it means nothing of the sort; it means listening with all your heart and 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 be anything further from the person who makes him feel that there is a mere dead wall of silence before him _at_ which he is talking.

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

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

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

Some people are like Kay, in Anderson's "Snow Queen," they have a bit of ice in their heart, and they see all the smallnesses and absurdities about them, instead of being alive to the pathos, or endurance, or good-nature of 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. 'We live by admiration, hope, and love;' without these, we cease to live--we wither.

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

Perhaps you have a friend staying with you who is one of these delightful people, and you say: "Oh dear! I must go and pay a duty visit--it will be so dull, but do come with me." And, lo and behold! that visit is delightful, for your friend made that dull person into an interesting one by getting her to talk and show her real self. For the real self of every soul is interesting, only it often has such a "buried life" that we are not skilful enough to find it.

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

School gives you tremendous opportunities of adding to the kindliness and nice-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 by the person they talk to than older people would be.

There are people in the world who never hear unkind gossip or vulgar jokes, for no one would think of saying such things to them. I know girls who would never have such things said--who would never get a letter written to them that was not of a nice tone--because, instinctively, their friends would feel such things out of harmony with them.

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

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

Many, from indolence or thoughtlessness, or from yielding to the bad bit in them, join in silly school talk, silly mysteries, giggling, criticizing other people, boasting about home, loud, rough ways of talking, slang, cliques and exclusive friendships (every one of which is underbred, as well as silly or unkind), and are yet, three-quarters of them, fit for something 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 you may (through gossip, or newspapers, or servants, or novels) know of bad things 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 their minds but for you. Books or friends which give us a knowledge of wickedness, 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 rid of such thoughts than others do--they may be more naturally inclined to it, 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 _no one shall ever be less nice-minded because they knew you_. See to it that no one learns anything about evil through your being with them. You can very 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 the story; if you want to ask a question and feel in the very least uncomfortable about it, hold your tongue, or ask your mother instead.

There are many things which it is not wholesome to talk about among yourselves, but which it is quite right to ask your mother about, or any one in her place, if you find yourself dwelling on them. Of course this includes everything which makes you feel at all hot, with a sense of something not quite nice;--everything in books which it would make you hot to read out loud (an excellent test);--and _I_ include all uncanny things such as ghosts and palmistry and fortune-telling:--these are not safe things 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 do so! I think your common sense will bear me out in not wanting them talked about among yourselves, because you never know who may take it seriously or what harm you may be doing, though as I have read "The Mysteries of Udolpho" to you, you will see that it is not the subject, but the indiscriminate talking which I object to!

But apart from wrong talk, what sort of silly talk are you likely to be infected with at school? It is not unlikely that among a number of girls there will be one with a hawk's eye for dress, who knows exactly how a trimming went, and how long this or that has been worn; in fact, she takes in every detail of the dress of each person she sees for a minute, and can talk of it by the hour! She may have no harm in her, but she is first cousin to a milliner's apprentice (and is mentally the poor relation of the 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 the girl wishes to prove herself of different family, she needs to put to sleep the side of her that belongs to the keen-eyed young lady behind the counter, by feeding other sides of her mind, and turning her powers of observation on to other things.

I should like you to be faultlessly dressed outside, and I should like you to be perfectly well inside; but I should not admire you if your chief subject 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 an impression that you grow as naturally as they do! Make us feel that you _could_ not have anything ugly or awkward or unbecoming about you. Your dress and your rooms and your dinners should be perfect, but do not entertain your guest with the mere mechanism of how you arrive at any one of them. Give time and thought to this machinery of life--enough to produce the right result, and then go on to the real interests, for which they are only the stage. I do not want a sloven, but I want a girl who is a real person and not a mere _poupée modèle_ to show off dresses.

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

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

Some girls are so keen to chatter, and make themselves interesting at any cost, that they tell their family's private affairs or discuss the faults of 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 at home, and holds their tongue about family news till they are sure it is public property, and to the family credit! If you ever want to talk about such things for real reasons, always go to an older friend and not to one of your own age; for an older friend would know enough of the world to take it up by the right handle and to hold her tongue.

Again, some girls fancy that a little theatre gossip marks them out as women of the world. To talk about a play and about the good and bad strokes of acting is one thing:--the petty personal gossip about the actors and actresses is on the same level, to my mind, as the talking about 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. I mean talk about the things which belong to your future life, but which are just the sides of it that you want your education to help you to keep in 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 to take an interest in work, and in bookish things generally. It is not so easy to do this when you are in the full swing of home amusements, and so you come away for a sort of mental retreat, during which it will be easier to you to let your bookish and thoughtful side grow. Here you are, and your home amusements are left behind. Would it not be a pity to let your mind keep running on the very things from which you have come away? Do not let your tongue or your mind run on the amusements of home--they prevent your taking real interest in your work.

Also there should be no talk about religious differences. Of course, you all come from different homes and have somewhat different teaching, and I do not wish you ever to discuss those differences. Every one should keep to her home ways, and try to live up to them. Religious controversy never yet made any into better Christians, and it generally makes them worse!

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

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--I dare say you have too--though she is by no means so objectionable as the other kind I spoke of. She is a would-be child of nature. She has no thoughtfulness or weight about her; she is an engaging kitten who exists on the rather inadequate stock-in-trade of nice eyes; she is quite irresponsible and useless, and tells you so, in an ingenuous way, for which her nearest and dearest long to box her ears! I would call her "The Artless Japanese," remembering the princess in the _Mikado_, who says, "I sit 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 the holidays or before she comes. She comes to school on purpose to keep away from that, till the right time for it comes (when I hope she will have plenty of it!)

Now, when a girl is not much accustomed to society (especially to men's society), it sometimes turns her head, and she gets an idea that any joke about a man is amusing. I will not say that this sort of a joke is like a servant, for a well-brought-up servant puts many a young lady to shame by her nice-mindedness. Young ladies' academies are supposed to be full of that sort of thing--for which there is no word but vulgar--and when such girls leave such academies to go home for good, they are always in holes and corners either with a man, or with another girl talking about one. A man does not respect that kind of girl--though he will go just as far with her as she will let him--and he will tell it again at his club, and probably to his sisters. If _she_ does not mind about her dignity, why should _he_? There is hardly a man living who would not make game of the advances of the girl who admires him, just as there is hardly a man living who would speak to others of the girl he loves. Unluckily, every idiotic girl (who is silly about him) thinks she is the one he cares for, and never realizes how she is "giving herself away!"

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

We shall never know how much of Dante's nobleness was due to his having once known a girl in Florence, who never was in any specially close relationship to him. He met her at the gatherings of Florentine ladies, where she must have heard his songs, but the most close personal intercourse they had was one day when they passed each other in the street, and she bowed to him,--"From that salute, humbleness flowed all his being o'er." Do you say, he was a poet, and Beatrice was one of the most 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 wake it? and what woman does not possess that womanhood which is, by God's ordering, in itself an attraction to a man, and which it rests with her so to use--by self-restraint and love of noble things--that she may be, to every man about her, something of what Beatrice was to Dante?--he may know very little of her, and care less, but she will have helped to raise his idea of what a woman should be.

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

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

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

Women have been trained to nice-mindedness by centuries of public opinion--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 power of helping men, who are, consequently, not likely to be born so particular about these things as women are.

Always feel responsible for what you laugh at: very often people say things tentatively to see if you will laugh: you help to fix their standard by the way you take it, and you often throw your weight into the wrong scale because you are afraid of seeming priggish. A man's sense of humour is different from a woman's; when you go into the world you must be careful not to laugh just because a man makes a joke, until you are quite sure that it is one to laugh at. Perhaps your host makes it, and his wife looks a trifle grave: then be quick to take your cue from her and to notice what nice women think nice for a woman.

Very often in talking to girls and preparing them for life, the whole question of flirtation and nonsense is left out--there is not even as much said as in Mrs. Blackett's village, where the clergyman's wife put every girl through a special catechism before she left to go to service, part of which 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 man you _may_ fall in love with, is often smothered up out of sight, as if it were something wrong. If you have your life so full of other interests that it does not concern you till the real thing comes, so much the better--you will lose the pleasantest five years of your life if you turn your mind in this direction too soon.

What often happens is that it is plentifully thought of and talked of among 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 straightforward thing, instead of a Rosa Matilda mystery. So often a girl feels a delightful spice of impropriety in any remark about a man or a boy. If she had more to do with them she would not be so silly--unless she had a very odd sort of menkind belonging to her; but you will find girls (very unattractive 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 to the cottage, no house is folly-proof, though the outward manifestations of it may be less objectionable where the manners are better.

Now, with regard to all the kinds of talk which I have singled out as undesirable, please understand, that except in speaking of wickedness (or worse still nastiness), which is always a sin and needs your penitent confession and God's absolution, all these things are wrong, only in the wrong 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 of silliness who hovers about a room where girls are alone together. He is powerless unless you invoke him; but remember, he is always there, eagerly watching his opportunity.

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

This question of talk is a very practical one in school life. Probably most of you think privately, "How silly girls are!" What do _you_ do, to make the mass less silly? That sort of infectious silliness is the great danger of school life, but the chatter is made up by individuals, who could each talk instead of chattering: remember that a girl at school need not be a schoolgirl; but she is in great danger of it, unless she is careful!

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

"By thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Are these words too solemn to use, after suggestions on talk which may seem to you to have been occupied with very petty and ignoble details? Surely not, for your talk on these commonplace matters really settles your standard, and that of the world about you, on the deepest moral questions. The common talk of the day is both cause and effect of the morality of the day.

May I suggest some thoughts for self-examination on the matter? One good question to put daily to yourself is, "How much of my talk to-day was for myself, and against others? Perhaps I was too well-mannered to boast, but have 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 cheap credit for wit, by sharp speeches, _would-be_ clever criticism and pulling people to pieces? Have I started, or handed on, spiteful remarks?" If you like, use another question, and ask yourself, "Was I like S. Theresa, 'An Advocate of the Absent'?" Or ask, "Have I, by my way of speaking _or listening_, lowered any one's standard to-day?" Very often people say things or make jokes tentatively, to see how we shall take it, and through fear of being stiff or priggish we surprise them by seeming to enjoy what they were rather uncertain about. It is quite curious how ashamed most people generally are of seeming as good as they really are; they "hide their best selves as if they had stolen them." If they would show their colours, they would find that many of the apparently careless people they meet do care about the real interests of life. If they themselves do care and yet try to seem careless, are they not responsible for half the carelessness in those about them?

"The manner of our ordinary conversation," says Bishop Wilson, "is that which either hardens people in wrong, or awakens them to the right. We always 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 look fit to be a sister in mind, though I hope not in manners, to the Persian poet, who described himself as 'scratching the head of Thought with the nails 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 people who insist on doing to-morrow's duty with to-day's strength. I doubt very much if the holiday task, which I see in your hand, is the cause of this gloom."

"Oh dear, no! I was thinking what shall I do with myself when I leave school 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 man in 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 have finished it we will talk about your future work."

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

"Now, Aunt Rachel, how can I do everything I ought when I leave school? I shall know nothing of Greek or Roman history, or mythology, or French or German history, or even of English, except the period we have been just doing, and I have done only a few books in the literature class, and none in foreign literature, and I have forgotten all my geography, and I shall have Latin and Greek to keep up, and French and German and chemistry, and I don't know anything, hardly, of modern books, or of architecture or natural history, or philosophy, or of cooking"--here, in her ardour, she tripped over a stone, and her aunt availed herself of the pause to say--

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

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

"My dear Urith, there is a very wise Irish proverb, 'Never cross a bridge till you come to it,' and though this bridge of culture seems such a bridge of sighs to you, I really do not think it need be. In the first place, it has not got to be crossed in one year. You get far more law now than in my young days, for you and your friends are not expected to come out full-blown heroines at seventeen or eighteen; you are almost expected to carry on your education for some time longer. It is not safe to count on it, for real life may come on you in a dozen ways when you once leave the safety of the schoolroom, but you will probably get several years of tolerable quiet, and, if I were you, I would not spend my first year in a desperate effort to fill up all the gaps in my education, and to go on with school-work in the school spirit. I should take my first year of freedom as the arbour on the Hill Difficulty, where Christian rested; the lord of that country does not like pilgrims to stay there for good, but they go on all the better for it afterwards. I should look on this year as being the ornamental fringe to the intellectual dress you have been weaving for yourself at school. And do not forget that the dress and the trimming are not an end in themselves--they are only to enable you to leave the house with decency, to go about your business; and at the end of the first year I should count up my possessions and see where I was wanting--if the dress proved thin, I would then set to work and furnish myself 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 harrowing your mind, and may be left behind. The use of school is to teach you how to use your mind, and to try your hand at several branches of study, that you may be able to follow whichever suits you."

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

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

"Well, I want to keep up Latin and Greek and French and German, and Algebra and Geometry and Chemistry and Mechanics, as well as English subjects."

"And seeing that your day will probably be only twenty-four hours long, I fear 'want will be your master'! If you had a strong turn for any one of these subjects, I should say keep it up, by all means; but as you have not, I have very strong doubts whether you will find mathematics or classics much use to you. You know enough to take them up again if ever you 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, in quite a different way now that your mind has been trained by these subjects, but you do not need to keep the scaffolding up when your house is built!"

"It does seem a pity!"

"Well, I do not want to debar you from these subjects if you really enjoy them; there would be a reason for going on, if they were intense pleasure to you, but I suspect you do them as 'lessons,' and, if so, you had better forsake 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 that bring you closer to others; Madame Schwetchine says that every fresh sorrow we endure is like learning a fresh language, because it enables us to 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 set of people. It gives pleasure and ease to a stranger to find that some one in his new circle knows his old home, and we can try to be at home in the mental country of each person we meet, so as to be able to respond to them. 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 an ordinary woman, 'not too bright and good for human nature's daily food,' you will give far more pleasure to others, and widen and strengthen your own mind far more, by being able to join on easily to all you meet, than by pursuing some one abstruse study, whether it be mathematics or philosophy."

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