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 found
between the ages of thirteen and twenty-seven, but some girls never go
through it, and some never emerge from it!
I should be inclined to define it as the age during which girls are
asked--and cannot answer--varying forms of the question which so
embarrassed the Ugly Duckling: "Can you purr--can you lay eggs?"
Most girls on growing up pass through an uncomfortable stage like this, in
which neither they nor their friends quite know what niche in life they
can best fill--sometimes, because of their own undisciplined characters;
sometimes, because the niche itself seems to be lacking. Whether this
stage be their misfortune or their fault, it is an unpleasant one--both
for themselves and for their friends. With much sympathy for both, I
dedicate these few suggestions to my known and unknown friends who are
passing 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 papers
on "Making Plans," "Conversation," "Get up, M. le Comte!" "Sunday," and "A
good Time;" "Coming out" has been omitted, and "Friendship and Love"
somewhat altered. The present form has been adopted in order to make it
match 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 want
to consider specially the ideal woman of that ancient poet Solomon, and to
see how far she can be translated into modern life.
The subject ought to be considered by you who are leaving a school you
have loved and valued, and which you should commend to the world, by
showing that it has made you fit for home. Beaumaris School has a blank
shield for its arms, with the motto, "_Albam exorna_," "Adorn the white;"
you are all starting with white shields, and you _can_ adorn the white: it
is not only in Spenser that we find Britomarts. You are as much a band of
champions as were King Arthur's Knights; you have all the same enemy, have
made the same vows, and for a year have been in fellowship, learning and
practising the same lessons: can you help feeling that there is a
responsibility laid on you, to see that the world shall be the better
because of you? Be like Sir Galahad with his white shield on which "a
bloody cross" was signed, when he had fought and won.
You know that I admire the old-fashioned type of woman--the womanly
woman,--and you will not suspect me of wishing you to start off "on some
adventure strange and new," but I do want you not to be content to lead a
commonplace life; you _must_, anyway, live your life: resolve that by
God's grace you will live it _nobly_. You cannot alter the outward form of
your life,--you will probably be surrounded by very commonplace household
duties, and worries, and jars,--but you can be like King Midas, whose
touch turned the most common things to gold. We have it in our power, as
Epictetus tells us, to be the gold on the garment of Life, and not the
mere stuff of which Fate weaves it. We can choose whether we will live a
king's life or a slave's: Marcus Aurelius on his throne was a king, for
nothing could conquer him; but Epictetus in chains was equally
unconquerable and equally a king. We all have the choice between the Crown
and the Muck Rake, and I think we sometimes turn to the straws and the
rubbish, not because they are fascinating to us, but because they seem
the only things open to us: we do not feel as if our lives had anything to
do with Crowns. If you think of your various homes from the point of view
of turning their "necessities to glorious gains," and as a field for
winning your spurs, I suspect you are each feeling that this is very "tall
talk" for such a commonplace home as yours. "All lives have an ideal
meaning as well as their prose translation;" but you feel perhaps that you
are sure to be swamped in little bothers and duties, and pleasures, and
dulness and stagnation, so that you will find it hard to see any ideal
meaning at all. This is not true, and to look on an ideal life as "tall
talk" is a snare of the Devil; and in these days of common sense and
higher education we need to guard against it, and to remember that "a
thing may be good enough for practical purposes, but not for ideal
purposes." "Ideal life" is not tall talk, but our plain duty, unless our
Lord was mocking us when He said, "Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven
is perfect."
To know our ideal is one step towards attaining it. "So run, not as
uncertainly; so fight, not as one that beateth the air." Before taking
such a definite step in life as leaving school, it would be very
interesting to draw up a plan of what you would like your life to be, and
also of what you hope to make of the life apparently before you, which
may be very different from the life you would like. If you kept it, like
sealed orders, for five years, it would be interesting to see how your
views 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, that
wilful prayers had been heard to our hurt.
Bacon, when he made a new start as Solicitor-General, made a survey of his
life, past and future, his faults and blunders, his strong and weak
points, his hopes, the books he meant to read and to write, the friends he
wished to make. I am sure that thinking over our own lives as a whole
would strengthen and guide us. We rush into action and fight our best, but
we do not make a plan of the campaign, and thus much of our energy is
wasted by misdirected effort; and, in leaving a school-life of rule and
regularity, you will be much tempted to slip through the day without the
safeguard 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 must
remember the warning of St. Francis de Sales against playing at being
angels before we are men and women.
On the other hand, you will need to guard against the temptation to make
your rules unbending and inconsiderate, to follow your ideal, heedless of
the fact that you thereby become tiresome to your people. How often the
home people feel jealous of school, and say it has cut a girl off from her
home interests, that she comes back full of outside friendships and
interests and new principles. Of course she does; if not, what good would
school have done her? But she ought to feel how natural and how _loving_
is this (often unexpressed) jealousy, and, by sympathetic tact, to avoid
rousing it, and not to be always thrusting school interests down home
throats. The duty of a life of rule at home is all the more complex
because home pleasures are duties too; if it was only a question of
self-denial it would be plain sailing, but your mother likes you to go
out, and your brothers want you, and if you refuse to enjoy yourself it
hurts them: if you even betray that you would rather be doing something
else, you spoil their pleasure, for a "martyr" to home duty is a most
depressing sight to gods and men. And the complexity lies in the fact that
you enjoy going, and conscience pricks you every now and then because you
never read, and you seem to go through the day in a slipshod way, with no
definite rule,--no daily cross-bearing, no self-restraint to give salt to
the day. At school you have a definite duty of self-improvement set before
you, and everything urges you to follow it. This remains a duty when you
go home, but it is very hard to reconcile it with the many things that
clash--not the least of these being our own laziness when the help of
external pressure is taken away. You have had intellectual advantages, and
you will be downright sinful if you fritter all your time away over
flowers and tennis, and never read because you do not like to be thought
unsociable: you are bound to improve your talents, but take it as your
motto, that _rules should be iron when they clash with our own wishes, and
wax when they clash with those of others_.
Yet we must yield _sensibly_, and not allow our time to be needlessly
wasted--at all events, by brothers and sisters and friends. It is
different with a father or mother: they are only lent to us for a part of
our lives, and no memory of sensible, useful work will be to us the same
pleasure in after years as the thought of the time that passed more
pleasantly for a mother because we spent it in idle (!) talk, or the
knowledge that a father had enjoyed the feeling that we were always at
hand if he wanted us. A strong-minded woman might consider matters
differently, and feel that a language learnt, or a district visited, was
of more value, but we shall not be able to reason so when we see life in
the new light which death throws upon it; the little restrictions of home
life will then assume a very different aspect.
Unless you are driven with an unusually loose rein, you will probably be
irked by having to be punctual, and to account for your letters and for
your goings and comings; but if you ever feel inclined to resent it, just
think what it will be when you are left free--free to be late because
there is no one to wait dinner for you, free to come and go as you will
because there is no one who cares whether you are tired or not; some of
these days you will give anything to be once more so "fettered."
Higher education often makes girls feel it waste of time to write notes
for their mothers, and to settle the drawing-room flowers: they "must go
and read." Now, what mental result, what benefit to the world, will result
from an ordinary woman's reading, which can, in any way, be comparable to
the value of a woman who diffuses a home-atmosphere, and is always "at
leisure from herself"? You know that I care very much for your
reading--you will have plenty to do if you read all the books I have
begged you to study--but if it gave your mother pleasure for you to be at
the stupidest garden-party, I should think you were wasting your time
terribly if you spent it over a book instead. Some people think ordinary
society, and small talk, beneath them:--well! do not let the talk be
smaller than you can help, but remember Goulburn's warning, "Despise not
little crosses, for they have been to many a saved soul an excellent
discipline of humility."
But to come at last to Solomon's ideal--what is our first impression of
her? Surely it is _strength_, and we probably feel her strong-minded, and
rather a "managing woman"--and, as a rule, these are not loved. I feel
that she wants some sorrow to humanize her--she would hardly be sorry for
less prosperous, less sensible people: the modern feeling of, "the pity of
it, Iago, the pity of it!" has never gone home to her; she is not like
Ruskin's "gentleman" who has tears always in his eyes, in spite of the
smile on his lips; she is not "quick to perceive the want" in the many
lives, which are empty or crippled, though, perhaps, seemingly prosperous:
things turn out well with her, and she deserves it, so the sight of her
would bring home a sense of undeservingness to the less fortunate; she
cannot speak so as to be "understanded of" them; she is not one of those
who have learnt that "_avoir beaucoup souffert c'est comme ceux qui savent
beaucoup de langues, avoir appris à tout comprendre, et à se fairs
comprendre de tous_." But the virtues Solomon describes need not result in
this type, which is antagonistic to us; extremes meet, and it is the
exaggeration of a very lovable type--the woman who gives you the feeling
of rest and protection and strong motherliness, who is as the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land. "The meekness and gentleness of Christ" is
translated by Matthew Arnold as the "sweet reasonableness," and this
makes 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 when
others will come to them to be ministered to, to be rested and soothed and
raised. It is sad to watch many who have the faded pretty ways which once
was all that was required of them, and who, in middle life, cannot
understand why their belongings find them so inadequate! Long ago, Swift
warned girls against making nets instead of cages, but they have not all
learnt 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 a
weak person for that. There are few things certain in life, but one of
these few is, that others will come to each one of us, in doubt, in
sorrow, in pain, in ignorance, and that, through negligence and ignorance
of 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: it
is her temptation, naturally, as it was that of the Elder Brother,--but
love and humility can make even strength lovable. And for those who are
in no danger of being too like the Virtuous Woman, but who are still
struggling out of a lower life, I am quite sure that weakness is the rock
ahead. It must be so for nearly all women: their feelings are keener and
sooner developed than those of men, and they are less trained in intellect
and self-control. Their chief value lies in intuition and impulse, and
their chief danger also. You will never be the "Virtuous Woman" if you are
self-indulgent in novels which dwell on feelings, in daydreams, in foolish
friendships, which only bring out the emotional side of your nature,
instead of strengthening you to do what is right, and widening your
sensible interests in life. There is but one certain protection against
this temptation, and we find it in Proverbs xxxi.; I mean, _industry at
home_.
Industry is a leading feature of Solomon's ideal, and nothing but plenty
to do can possibly keep our minds fresh and sweet, and wholesome and
strong,--and hence, strengthening for others. Feeling is the only part of
a woman's nature which will develop of itself:--her mind will not grow
unless definitely cultivated, and no more will her conscience, but if she
leave the field fallow, weeds of foolish feelings and fancies spring up on
all sides. This is why it is your duty, when you leave, not to allow
yourself to be idle: not only because God expects you to bring your
sheaves with you at the Last Day, but because your field cannot stand
empty--if good grain is not there, weeds will be. And manual
work--gardening or housework--gives more fresh air to the mind than
anything else. If you ever, as _Punch_ expresses it, "find your doll
stuffed with sawdust," if life seems a disappointment, and you are a prey
to foolish fancies, and have lost your spring, then try being really tired
out in body by useful work, and see if you do not find it an effectual
tonic. Some say that these "mental measles" are a phase which the modern
girl must inevitably pass through: perhaps so, but I should be
disappointed if you went through them,--at all events, if you did so in
the hopelessly idiotic way that many do! I should be disappointed if, in
the future, you came and said, "I am in the dark, and Life is all a
tangle!" I do feel you ought to have learnt that "the light of Duty shines
on every day for all." "We always have as much light as we need, though
often not as much as we would like," and if you honestly want to do your
next duty, you will have light enough to do it by. Come to me, by all
means, if you like, and say, "I feel idle and good-for-nothing, and don't
particularly want to see my Duty!" but do not moan about Life being all
perplexity! It is always nobler to do your duty than to leave it undone:
make this principle your sheet-anchor, and spiritual feelings and light
will come some day, if God sees fit. It does not always do to apply
direct remedies to these "measles:" if your mind is out of gear, leave it
alone, 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 of
her modern descendant lies abroad: she is strong and admirable, she does
splendid work, but there is always a tinge of excitement to help one
through outside work. Things done among father and mother, brothers and
sisters, are either very peaceful or very flat, according as your feelings
are either wholesome or unwholesome--there is none of the pleasurable
excitement, generally more or less feverish, of working with friends we
love and admire; it is the difference between milk and wine. I do not
think wine wrong, but I think it is much better to cultivate a taste for
milk; 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, that
outsiders feel _de trop_, which of course is a fault on the other side. If
we have happy homes, it is a trust for the use of others; we can give a
home feeling to those who are less fortunate as they pass by us, like the
swallow flying through the lighted hall. Lonely people may gain a sense of
home from this large-heartedness in the happy, a feeling of rest and
repose, which is the very essence of the atmosphere I should like my
Virtuous Woman to shed around her; she must "do good by effluvia;" in her
home, "roof and fire are types only of a nobler light and shade--shade as
of 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 stars
only may be over her head, the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be the
only fire at her foot: yet home is wherever she is; and for a noble woman
it stretches far around her, better than ceiled with cedar or painted with
vermilion, shedding its quiet light far for those who else were homeless."
Let us now consider the Virtuous Woman verse by verse. Solomon is
describing a rich woman with an "establishment," a sphere and husband and
children, as if a woman's life was not complete without this. And no more
it 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 they
do not do it enough,--at least in the right way; you are not fit to be
wives now, and you should aim at becoming so, and to do that, you must be
fit to manage your house and to teach your children; if you fit yourselves
to be perfect wives, you will at least be very perfect old maids, and find
plenty to do for other people's children! But your life would then be
incomplete. St. Paul is misquoted when his words in Cor. vii. 34 are used
to condemn marriage; our Lord puts it before all other earthly ties, and
it is used as a type of His love for His Church, which should guard us
from 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 no
unworthiness connected with it; "no inner baseness we would hide;" no
marrying for the sake of being married, for the dignity and position, or
the worldly advantages it may bring; and there must be no matchmaking or
flirtation that a woman need be ashamed of afterwards. "Let the wife see
that she reverence her husband," says St. Paul, and the husband must be
able to reverence her. And there must be no selfishness, no getting
entangled 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; to
marry _without_ money means debt, which is irretrievably degrading, and is
altogether selfish instead of romantic.
But, married or single, rich or poor, Solomon's Virtuous Woman gives us
principles to go on.
"_The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her_." Is not
trustworthiness a main point in those we respect? Do we not require our
Virtuous Woman to be reliable, not to repeat what we say to her, not to
forget 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 would
distinctly do him evil if she did his work for him! This is a great
temptation of capable people; it is so much easier to do a thing yourself
than to see others bungling over it; but remember, that _not to do other
people's duties is as much a duty as it is to do your own_. Unselfish
people are often selfish in the harm they do husbands, and brothers, and
sisters, and unconscionable friends, by doing their duties for them. You
recognize that you yourself are on a downward path when you leave duties
undone. You have no right to help any one else to tread that path. It is
much pleasanter to spoil your brothers than to make them take their fair
share of family burdens; it is much pleasanter to be popular,--but if your
brother 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 selfish
by sacrificing yourself on every occasion when it is not bad for him, but
if you are to do him good and not evil all the days of his life, you must
remember that you are your brother's keeper in this matter.
"_She worketh willingly with her hands_." The idea is going out that, to
be like a lady, you must sit with your hands before you. I heard of a
village tea the other day where a curate's maid-of-all-work was boasting
that her mistress was a real lady who could not do a thing! "Dear! how
strange," said an old servant; "my first mistress taught me, with her own
hands, 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; "I
can't tell, but I know she was an Earl's daughter." If you knew anything
of Colonial life in old uncivilized days, you would know how invariably it
turned out that those settlers were nobody at home who talked there about
what they were "accustomed to," and how they could not do this or
that,--while the real ladies laughed and buckled to. I do not believe in a
woman being thoroughbred if she cannot do what comes to her to do; she may
have little bodily strength, but if she is of the right sort, spirit
carries her through, just as you often find uneducated people, unnerved by
pain or fright, crying and pitying themselves: a real lady has nerve for
it all, though she is ten times more sensitive, and, till the occasion
arises, she may lie on the sofa all day, and believe herself quite unable
to 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. You
hear 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 do
not see that they need be always forcing themselves to do it, but they
should feel the power to do it _if need be_; if you are not master of
yourself, 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 this
matter of work. So many often say, or feel, "It's not my duty to do this
or 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 the
dirty work, and why not I as well as another?" And so she worketh
willingly 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 the
last moment and cannot send to the best shop; she is never unable to match
her dress because she has not thought about new gloves till the very
afternoon that she wants them; she does not forget till half-past six that
dinner has not been ordered, and then, in despair, order in ready-cooked
things from a shop.
"_She riseth while it is yet night_." Early rising is a great trial to
some, but I think those who are conscientious often make a mistake between
sloth and conscientious care of health: and the Virtuous Woman should be
very 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 noble
characters, and accordingly these tragedy queens stalk picturesquely
through wet grass when they could quite well keep on the gravel. I hope
none of you will develop into tragic heroines. I have no patience when I
see girls with perfectly prosperous lives inventing tragedies for
themselves. 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 them
a great deal too well to please them. I dare say you will not see this in
yourselves or in your friends, but it will strike you very much in your
acquaintances, and you will, in time, recognize your own share of human
nature, 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 the
flame of a candle, well and good! the world would probably be well rid of
you if you were going through life tragically, longing for death, but you
will not "wear out" in consequence of carelessness about wet feet and want
of sleep, and over-fatigue, and fancifulness about eating. These things
destroy, not your life, but your nerves and temper, and all that makes
your life a comfort to others; "wearing out" yourself means that you will
wear out others, and require from them much time and nursing and good
temper.
Now, sleep is a most important consideration in such a nervous generation
as ours: every woman ought to have eight hours' sleep, and more if she
needs it, but she should not wake up and then go to sleep again; that
second sleep, which is so pleasant, is the sleep of the sluggard. I would
like to give her "a chamber deaf to noise and blind to light," and never
let her be woke, but she should get up the moment she wakes of her own
accord, or, at most, spend ten minutes in the process of waking.
"_She planteth a vineyard_." I should like my Virtuous Woman to be fond of
gardening, and at all events read in Bacon's Essays how God Almighty first
planted a garden.
"_She strengthened her arms_." This verse makes us fancy the Virtuous
Woman as being unpleasingly strong, but we should guard against being
purposely weak, with an idea of its being pleasing; Thackeray's Amelia is
hardly a good model, and Patient Grizzel did her husband an infinity of
harm!
"_Her candle goeth not out by night_." But the Virtuous Woman must be
self-denying in the matter of sitting up, now that modern life makes so
many more demands upon her brain. You know it is self-indulgence when you
sit up late; you were not bound to be so sociable as all that; you only
hinder yourself and others from proper time for prayer and sleep; if you
made a move after a reasonable amount of talk, the others would be
sensible too. And so you repent and force yourself to get up very
punctually the next morning, not seeing that this is on the principle that
two wrongs make a right. It is your duty to get up in good time, but it is
also a duty to get sufficient sleep. I know you have a more comfortable
feeling when you have punished yourself,--you feel that you took the
self-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 that
God gave you to use for Him. Instead of the satisfactory scourge and hair
shirt of rising betimes next morning, try the more commonplace penance of
going to bed in proper time the next night, without any dawdling. So many
girls do things in a dreamy, dawdling way, that must be a sore trial to
those 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. A
girl will placidly tell you, "I'm always slow, it's my way," never
realizing that "ways" may be very objectionable. We think it dishonest in
workmen that there should be a difference between a man who works by time
and one who works by the piece: you blame the workman who spends twice as
much 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" is
a matter of habit, and the Virtuous Woman practises it in everything she
does.
"_Her hands hold the distaff_." The Virtuous Woman will not be satisfied
until she knows how to make a dress and do plain work; not that, having
acquired the knowledge, she will necessarily use it, for a woman with
brains and education can employ her time to more purpose, and can give
employment to poorer women at her gate, by putting out her work. It is
burying her talent in the ground if she employs, in making her children's
frocks, the time which should be spent in cultivating her mind, so as to
be fit to educate them when they are older.
"_She stretcheth out her hand to the poor_." The "classes" are poor and
needy, as well as the "masses:" read Mozley's "University Sermon" on "Our
Duty to our Equals," and learn to see that they also need a stretched-out
hand. We may be very kind in our district; are we as kind to social
bores? We may be very energetic in school feasts; are we as careful to
provide amusements of other kinds for people who, in rank or brains, are
slightly our inferiors?
"_She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household
are clothed with scarlet_" (marg., double garments). She looks after the
health of other people as well as her own; she does not keep her maid
sitting up night after night, or overwork her dressmaker. She is as
considerate for the flyman waiting for her on a rainy night as she would
be for her father's coachman and horses, remembering that the flyman is
quite as liable to catch cold as the coachman, and has fewer facilities
for curing himself.
"_Her clothing is silk and purple_." She dresses suitably, richly if
occasion demand it, but never showily. If she has to walk as a rule, she
will 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 great
difference among the husbands at the gate, and I feel sure that this one
took a specially large and public-spirited view of the business there
discussed. The Virtuous Woman would not usurp his office, just because she
had 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 her
master should not only be a good husband and a father, but should also
serve his generation as a good citizen and a true patriot. When the public
good demanded sacrifices, she would not drag him back by insisting on his
duty to his family, nor would she persuade him to rob the public stores,
or time, by taking little perquisites or shortening his office hours. She
would feel with De Tocqueville, who says, "A hundred times I have seen
weak men show real public virtue, because they had by their sides women
who supported them--not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying
their feelings of duty, and by directing their ambition. More frequently,
I must confess, I have observed the domestic influence gradually
transforming a man, naturally generous, noble, and unselfish, into a
cowardly, commonplace, place-hunting, self-seeker, thinking of public
business only as the means of making himself comfortable; and this simply
by daily contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, an
excellent mother, but from whose mind the grand notion of public duty was
entirely absent."
The husband of "a superior woman" is usually much to be pitied, but surely
the reason is that the woman is not superior enough. She has capabilities
and 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, the
relative insignificance of her own acquirements, and the value of the
qualities she has not got,--qualities which her husband very likely
possesses, only he has not the feminine power of expression. How often a
woman's seeming superiority lies in this gift of words, which, as George
Eliot says, is in her, "often a fatal aptitude for expressing what she
neither believes nor feels." The man often silently knows, and _lives_,
the noble sentiment, which the woman fluently utters, imagining herself to
be its discoverer and prophet. Another point to remember in this matter is
that women are apt to overvalue intellect, perhaps because it is only
during the last few years that intellectual advantages have been within
their reach. Sydney Smith looked forward hopefully to a day when French
would be a common accomplishment, and women would be no more vain of
possessing it than of having two arms and legs! Perhaps when, not only
French, but still higher education becomes more generally diffused, we may
learn 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 our
horizon grows, and the smaller we ourselves seem relatively to the wider
expanse around us. "Man's first word is, No: his second, Yes: and his
third is, No, again." We start with ignorance and are necessarily humble,
in a negative way: then comes the schoolroom, when we prize highly the
knowledge 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 the
reverse, so I need not dwell on the necessity laid upon the modern
Virtuous Woman, of developing her intellect, more than Solomon required
from his ideal.)
"_She maketh fine linen and selleth it_." She is reliable and punctual,
and clear in business arrangements. How much charitable work of the
present day requires good arithmetic and a clear business head! She will
not miss her train, and she will write a clear legible hand, especially
when names and addresses are concerned. A good handwriting is a matter of
patience and self-discipline, and a truly unselfish person would force
herself to acquire it, because she can thereby, in small ways, be of so
much 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 habit
like most other virtues, and if we fail in this, it is probably ourselves
and not our circumstances that need to be changed. "The aids to
_happiness_ are all within," and the Virtuous Woman will take life bravely
and cheerfully, like the heroes of old, and will think it a poor thing to
pity 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 of
kindness_." Perhaps few things have done so much harm in the world as
sympathy! Are we not all conscious of having perpetually allowed the
kindness of our tongue to be divorced from wisdom, so that our
affectionate sympathy has weakened our friend and done more harm than
good? It is so much pleasanter to both when we join in her discontent or
irritation, instead of being to her a second and a better self, aiding her
to see things wisely, as she would see them when she grew calmer. "A
book," said Dr. Johnson, "should teach us either to enjoy life, or to
endure it," and so should a friend.
"_The law of kindness_." It may seem a small thing that the Virtuous Woman
should never lose an opportunity of saying a kind word, but, if we all did
this, the world would be revolutionized; how it lowers our moral
temperature when some needless criticism is made, or some disparaging
remark is repeated to us! The Virtuous Woman would set herself to be a
non-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 friends
say, which make us feel "on the sunny side of the wall." What was said of
St. Theresa will be true of her--"it came to be understood that absent
persons were safe where she was. It would be hard to exaggerate the power
of influence for good which the confidence she had thus won must have
given her. Her nobility felt the treachery which always lies in
detraction, the kind of advantage taken, as it were, of the
unprotectedness of the absent."
Some separate wisdom and kindness in another way; they are so anxious to
help others that they stretch a point of conscience, and persist in a
forbidden friendship, in order to help the friend. Now you may be unjustly
treated in being told to give up your friend, and you may feel, and
rightly, that it is very cruel to him or her. Perhaps so, but your want of
principle, in being disobedient or deceitful, must harm your friend
infinitely more than any amount of your good advice can do her good.
_Acting on principle always helps others_: it is the most catching thing
in the world, whereas our words and our personal influence do not help
them one bit, unless God is speaking through us, and making us His
instruments, which He will not do if we are behaving wrongly.
"_She looketh well to the ways of her household_." She gives her servants
full work, and insists on its being done, at the right time and in the
right way, but she is careful never to overwork them, and to remember that
servants 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 few
servants, she will lend a helping hand, but she will be wise in her
industry, and understand that riches are a call, not to idleness, but to
another kind of work--overseeing and directing, but not doing. "One good
head is worth a hundred good hands," but the head must know how things
should be done, and therefore the Virtuous Woman will make it a point of
conscience to know how to cook, and equally a point of conscience not to
do it, if she has servants who ought to see to it.
"_Her children shall rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and
he praiseth her_." My Virtuous Woman may never marry, but she will be a
mother in Israel in spite of that. Every woman finds scope for
motherliness if it is in her; one way or another she will find children
looking to her for love and help, and she must fit herself to educate
those children, for this is a woman's main duty in life; she should never
be satisfied till she has earned a right to the compliment which Steele
paid 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 to
have 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 other
Scripture lessons we have spoken of that Prayer, and Bible reading, that
"going in the strength of the Lord God," which is the only source of
strength 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 is
really one with Christianity, and that the fruits of dutifulness, common
sense, and kindliness, cannot be produced unless there is the root of real
religion. Solomon takes that root for granted, only at the close reminding
us of its necessity; and, in picturing our ideal woman, I am sure we all
see 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 great
underlying principles of life are brought before you so that not one of
you has any excuse for being careless and unconscientious in the holidays.
Also you are most of you communicants, and you know that it is impossible
to 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 to
spend two months in self-indulgence without any self-discipline. You must
open 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 mother
may let you alone a good deal, from wishing you to have "a good time;" but
you alter very considerably during two months, and it is your part to see
that you alter for the better.
Two months means two Communions with definite resolves, two definite
upward stages in life. If you let yourself go till you get back to the
crutches 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 some
neatly folded garment or sash over the recesses of an untidy drawer, or to
use anything that comes to hand, any racquet, or croquet-mallet, or
oil-can, or thimble; your own cannot be found--you take the nearest and
then leave that also lying about.
Do you think these things do not matter? You would think it mattered very
much if you grew up an unreliable, unconscientious woman, and yet, I do
not know in what lesson-book you can learn to be thorough and reliable and
conscientious, except in the daily lesson-book of these trifles.
You each know that daily practise is a duty, if your mother wishes you to
learn music. A daily duty neglected, or a daily duty done, means a very
considerable difference in the person by the end of two months.
There are one or two further points in your holiday and grown-up life
which I should like to talk about to-day.
_Visits_.--Enrich your life with them, instead of letting them be times
when you slip back morally. Take your conscience with you (but do not wear
it outside), and be very careful to keep your rules, your prayers, your
home 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 their
sense of responsibility at home, whereas our visits are part of the
regular course of that life for which God will judge us. And keep your
mind open, get new ideas, read the books in the house, instead of taking a
store 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 can
choose which side of them you will draw out. Every one is a magnet; some
attract the worried, irritable side of other people, some the serene,
pleasant side. If you try to see the bright side of things and to agree
instead of differing, and if you say nice things about people when they
are out of the room, your family circle will show themselves very
different from what they might be if you were a magnet for unpleasantness!
Secondly, there are your friends. Do not let one person monopolize you, or
you her; do not have friends given to secrets, and do not let any one trap
you into a promise not to tell. If her secret is all right, she cannot
object to your telling your mother, and if it is silly you had better be
clear 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 in
books, so have a conscience about your choice in this just as much as with
living friends. Some books are bad for any one; a great many more would do
harm 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) might
have upset my faith. Many an exciting, passionate book (which I now read
with 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 are
not, use common sense and conscience. Manage yourself sensibly, and since
you know that you are in a very mouldable, impressionable stage, it stands
to reason that you had better steadily read classics now, to form and
strengthen your mind.
When a girl reads sentimental and passionate poetry, neglecting Scott,
Milton, and Wordsworth, I call it the same sort of wrong mismanaging of
herself 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 that
are silly, but I do say, sandwich them. Face the fact that a silly or
passionate novel is likely to have great power over you at this stage, and
therefore 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.