ove 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,