The Young Lady"s Mentor.
by A Lady.
PREFACE
The work which forms the basis of the present volume is one of the most original and striking which has fallen under the notice of the editor.
The advice which it gives shows a remarkable knowledge of human character, and insists on a very high standard of female excellence.
Instead of addressing herself indiscriminately to all young ladies, the writer addresses herself to those whom she calls her "Unknown Friends,"
that is to say, a cla.s.s who, by natural disposition and education, are prepared to be benefited by the advice which she offers. "Unless a peculiarity of intellectual nature and habits const.i.tuted them friends,"
she says in her preface, "though unknown ones, of the writer, most of the observations contained in the following pages would be uninteresting, many of them altogether unintelligible."
She continues: "That advice is useless which is not founded upon a knowledge of the character of those to whom it is addressed: even were the attempt made to follow such advice, it could not be successful."
"The writer has therefore neither hope nor wish of exercising any influence over the minds of those who are not her "Unknown Friends."
There may, indeed, be a variety in the character of these friends; for almost all the following Letters are addressed to different persons; but the general intellectual features are always supposed to be the same, however the moral ones may differ."
"One word more must be added. All of the rules and systems recommended in these Letters have borne the test of long-tried and extensive experience. There is nothing new about them but their publication."
The plan of the writer of the Letters enables her to give specific and practical advice, applicable to particular cases, and entering into lively details; whereas, a more general work would have compelled her to confine herself to vague generalities, as inoperative as they are commonplace.
The intelligent reader will readily appreciate and cordially approve of the writer"s plan, as well as the happy style in which it is executed.
To the "Letters to Unknown Friends" which are inserted entire, the editor has added, as a suitable pendant, copious extracts from that excellent work, "Woman"s Mission," and some able papers by Lord Jeffrey, the late accomplished editor of the Edinburgh Review.
Thus composed, the editor submits the work to the fair readers of America, trusting that it will be found a useful and unexceptionable "Young Lady"s Mentor."
LETTER I.
CONTENTMENT.
It is, perhaps, only the young who can be very hopefully addressed on the present subject. A few years hence, and your habits of mind will be unalterably formed; a few years hence, and your struggle against a discontented spirit, even should you be given grace to attempt it, would be a perpetually wearisome and discouraging one. The penalty of past sin will pursue you until the end, not only in the pain caused by a discontented habit of mind, but also in the consciousness of its exceeding sinfulness.
Every thought that rebels against the law of G.o.d involves its own punishment in itself, by contributing to the establishment of habits that increase tenfold the difficulties to which a sinful nature exposes us.
Discontent is in this, perhaps, more dangerous than many other sins, being far less tangible: unless we are in the constant habit of exercising strict watchfulness over our thoughts, it is almost insensibly that they acquire an habitual tendency to murmuring and repining.
This is particularly to be feared in a person of your disposition. Many of your volatile, thoughtless, worldly-minded companions, dest.i.tute of all your holier feelings, living without object or purpose in life, and never referring to the law of G.o.d as a guide for thought or action, may nevertheless manifest a much more contented disposition than your own, and be apparently more submissive to the decision of your Creator as to the station of life in which you have each been placed.
To account for their apparent superiority over you on this point, it must be remembered that it is one of the dangerous responsibilities attendant on the best gifts of G.o.d,--that if not employed according to his will, they turn to the disadvantage of the possessor.
Your powers of reflection, your memory, your imagination, all calculated to provide you with rich sources of gratification if exercised in proper directions, will turn into curses instead of blessings if you do not watchfully restrain that exercise within the sphere of duty. The natural tendency of these faculties is, to employ themselves on forbidden ground, for "every imagination of man"s heart is evil continually." It is thus that your powers of reflection may only serve to give you a deeper and keener insight into the disadvantages of your position in life; and trivial circ.u.mstances, unpleasant probabilities, never dwelt on for a moment by the gay and thoughtless, will with you acquire a serious and fatal importance, if you direct towards them those powers of reasoning and concentrated thought which were given to you for far different purposes.
And while, on the one hand, your memory, if you allow it to acquire the bad habits against which I am now warning you, will be perpetually refreshing in your mind vivid pictures of past sorrows, wrongs, and annoyances: your imagination, at the same time, will continually present to you, under the most exaggerated forms, and in the most striking colours, every possible unpleasantness that is likely to occur in the future. You may thus create for yourself a life apart, quite distinct from the real one, depriving yourself by wilful self-injury of the power of enjoying whatever advantages, successes, and pleasures, your heavenly Father may think it safe for you to possess.
Happiness, as far as it can be obtained in the path of duty, is a duty in itself, and an important one: without that degree of happiness which most people may secure for themselves, independent of external circ.u.mstances, neither health, nor energy, nor cheerfulness can be forthcoming to help us through the task of our daily duties.
It is indeed true, that, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, the thoughtful will never enjoy so much as others of that which is now generally understood by the word happiness. Anxieties must intrude upon them which others know nothing of: the necessary business of life, to be as well executed as they ought to execute it, must at times force down their thoughts to much that is painful for the present and anxious for the future. They cannot forget the past, as the light-hearted do, or life would bring them no improvement; but the same difficulties and dangers would be rushed into heedlessly to-morrow, that were experienced yesterday, and forgotten to-day; and not only past difficulties and dangers are remembered, but sorrows too: these they cannot, for they would not, forget.
In the contemplation of the future also, they must exercise their imagination as well as their reason, for the discovery of those evils and dangers which such foresight may enable them to guard against: all this kind of thoughtfulness is their wisdom as well as their instinct; which makes it more difficult for them than it is for others to fulfil the reverse side of the duty, and to "be careful for nothing."[1]
To your strong mind, however, a difficulty will be a thing to be overcome, and you may, if you only will it, be prudent and sagacious, far-sighted and provident, without dwelling for a moment longer than such duties require on the unpleasantnesses, past, present, and future, of your lot in life.
Having thus seen in what respects your superiority of mind is likely to detract from your happiness, in the point of the colouring given by your thoughts to your life, let us, on the other hand, consider how this same superiority may be so directed as to make your thoughts contribute to your happiness, instead of detracting from it.
I spoke first of your reasoning powers. Let them not be exercised only in discovering the dangers and disadvantages likely to attend your peculiar position in life; let them rather be directed to discover the advantages of those very features of your lot which are most opposed to your natural inclinations. Consider, in the first place, what there may be to reconcile you to the secluded life you so unwillingly lead.
Withdrawn, indeed, you are from society,--from the delightful intercourse of refined and intellectual minds: you hear of such enjoyments at a distance; you hear of their being freely granted to those who cannot appreciate them as you could, (safely granted to them for perhaps this very reason.) You have no opportunity of forming those friendships, so earnestly desired by a young and enthusiastic mind; of admiring, even at a reverential distance, "emperors of thought and hand." But then, as a compensation, you ought to consider that you are, at the same time, freed from those intrusions which wear away the time, and the spirits, and the very powers of enjoyment, of those who are placed in a more public position than your own. When you do, at rare intervals, enjoy any intercourse with congenial minds, it has for you a pleasurable excitement, a freshness of delight, which those who mix much and habitually in literary and intellectual society have long ceased to enjoy: while the powers of your own mind are preserving all that originality and energy for which no intellectual experience can compensate, you are saved the otherwise perhaps inevitable danger of adopting, parrot-like, the tastes and opinions of others who may indeed be your superiors, but who, in a copy, become wretchedly inferior to your real self. Time you have, too, to cultivate your mind in such a manner, and to such a degree, as may fit you to grace any society of the kind I have described; while those who are early and constantly engaged in this society are often obliged, from mere want of this precious possession, to copy others, and resign all ident.i.ty and individuality. To you, n.o.bly free as you are from the vice of envy, I may venture to suggest another consideration, viz. the far greater influence you possess in your present small sphere of intellectual intercourse, than if you were mixed up with a crowd of others, most of them your equals, many your superiors.
If you have few opportunities of forming friendships, those few are tenfold more valuable than many acquaintance, among a crowd of whom, whatever merits you or they might possess, little time could be spared to discover, or experimentally appreciate them. The one or two friends whom you now love, and know yourself beloved by, might, in more exciting and busy scenes, have gone on meeting you for years without discovering the many bonds of sympathy which now unite you. In the seclusion you so much deplore, they and you have been given time to "deliberate, choose, and fix:" the conclusion of the poet will probably be equally applicable,--you will "then abide till death."[2] Such friends are possessions rare and valuable enough to make amends to you for any sacrifices by which they have been acquired.
Another of your grievances, one which presses the more heavily on those of graceful tastes, refined habits, and generous impulses, is the very small proportion of this world"s goods which has fallen to your lot.
You are perpetually obliged to deny yourself in matters of taste, of self-improvement, of charity. You cannot procure the books, the paintings, you wish for--the instruction which you so earnestly desire, and would so probably profit by. Above all, your eyes are pained by the sight of distress you cannot relieve; and you are thus constantly compelled to control and subdue the kindest and warmest impulses of your generous nature. The moral benefits of this peculiar species of trial belong to another part of my subject: the present object is to find out the most favourable point of view in which to contemplate the unpleasantness of your lot, merely with relation to your temporal happiness. Look, then, around you; and, even in your own limited sphere of observation, it cannot but strike you, that those who derive most enjoyment from objects of taste, from books, paintings, &c., are exactly those who are situated as you are, who cannot procure them at will. It is certain that there is something in the difficulty of attainment which adds much to the preciousness of the objects we desire; much, too, in the rareness of their bestowal. When, after long waiting, and by means of prudent management, it is at last within your power to make some long-desired object your own, does it not bestow much greater pleasure than it does on those who have only to wish and to have?
In matters of charity this is still more strikingly true--the pleasure of bestowing ease and comfort on the poor and distressed is enhanced tenfold by the consciousness of having made some personal sacrifice for its attainment. The rich, those who give of their superfluities, can never fully appreciate what the pleasures of almsgiving really are.
Experience teaches that the necessity of scrupulous economy is the very best school in which those who are afterwards to be rich can be educated. Riches always bring their own peculiar claims along with them; and unless a correct estimate is early formed of the value of money and the manner in which it can be laid out to the best advantage, you will never enjoy the comforts and tranquillity which well-managed riches can bestow. It is much to be doubted whether any one can skilfully manage large possessions, unless, at some period or other of life, they have forced themselves, or been forced, to exercise self-denial, and resolutely given up all those expenses the indulgence of which would have been imprudent. Those who indiscriminately gratify every taste for expense the moment it is excited, can never experience the comforts of competency, though they may have the name of wealth and the reality of its accompanying cares.
Still further, let your memory and imagination be here exercised to a.s.sist in reconciling you to your present lot. Can you not remember a time when you wanted money still more than you do now?--when you had a still greater difficulty in obtaining the things you reasonably desire?
To those who have acquired the art of contentment, the present will always seem to have some compensating advantage over the past, however brighter that past may appear to others. This valuable art will bring every hidden object gradually into light, as the dawning day seems to waken into existence those objects which had before been unnoticed in the darkness.
Lastly, your imagination, well employed, will make use of your partial knowledge of other people"s affairs to picture to you how much worse off many of those are,--how much worse off you might yourself be. You, for instance, can still accomplish much by the aid of self-denial; while many, with hearts as warm in charities, as overflowing as your own, have not more to give than the "cup of cold water," that word of mercy and consolation.
You may still further, perhaps, complain that you have no object of exciting interest to engage your attention, and develop your powers of labour, and endurance, and cleverness. Never has this trial been more vividly described than in the well-remembered lines of a modern poet:--
"She was active, stirring, all fire-- Could not rest, could not tire-- To a stone she had given life!
--For a shepherd"s, miner"s, huntsman"s wife, Never in all the world such a one!
And here was plenty to be done, And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all."[3]
This wish for occupation, for influence, for power even, is not only right in itself, but the unvarying accompaniment of the consciousness of high capabilities. It may, however, be intended that these cravings should be satisfied in a different way, and at a different time, from that which your earthly thoughts are now desiring. It may be that the very excellence of the office for which you are finally destined requires a greater length of preparation than that needful for ordinary duties and ordinary trials. At present, you are resting in peace, without any anxious cares or difficult responsibilities, but you know not how soon the time may come that will call forth and strain to the utmost your energies of both mind and body. You should anxiously make use of the present interval of repose for preparation, by maturing your prudence, strengthening your decision, acquiring control over your own temper and your own feelings, and thus fitting yourself to control others.
Or are you, on the contrary, wasting the precious present time in vain repinings, in murmurings that weaken both mind and body, so that when the hour of trial comes you will be entirely unfitted to realize the beautiful ideal of the poet?--
"A perfect woman, n.o.bly plann"d To warn, to counsel, to command: The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."[4]
Then, again, I would ask you to make use of your powers of reflection and memory. Reflect what trials and difficulties are, in the common course of events, likely to a.s.sail you; remember former difficulties, former days or weeks of trial, when all your now dormant energies were developed and strained to the utmost. You felt then the need of much greater powers of mind and body than those which you now complain are lying dormant and useless. Further imagine the future cases that may occur in which every natural and acquired faculty may be employed for the great advantage of those who are dear to you, and when you will experience that this long interval of repose and preparation was altogether needful.
Such reflections, memories, and imaginations must, however, be carefully guarded, lest, instead of reconciling you to the apparent uselessness of your present life, they should contribute to increase your discontent.
This they might easily do, even though such reflections and memories related only to trials and difficulties, instead of contemplating the pleasures and the importance of responsibilities. To an ardent nature like yours, trials themselves, even severe ones, which would exercise the powers of your mind and the energies of your character, would be more welcome than the tame, uniform life you at present lead.
The considerations above recommended can, therefore, be only safely indulged in connection with, and secondary to, a most vigilant and conscientious examination into the truth of one of your princ.i.p.al complaints, viz. that you have to do, like the Duke"s wife, "nothing at all."[5] You may be "seeking great things" to do, and consequently neglecting those small charities which "soothe, and heal, and bless."
Listen to the words of a great teacher of our own day: "The situation that has not duty, its _ideal_, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, pampered, despised actual, wherein thou even now standest, here, or nowhere, is thy _ideal_; work it out, therefore, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself; the impediment, too, is in thyself: thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of--what matters whether the stuff be of this sort or of that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the G.o.ds for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth,--the thing thou seekest is already with thee, "here, or nowhere," couldst thou only see."
When you examine the above a.s.sertions by the light of Scripture, can you contradict their truth?