es forth with the splendor of noon, but shines with a constant
and useful light. To the housewife--but, above all, to the
mother,--it is indispensable.

"Whatever other recommendations a lady may possess, she should have
an inextinguishable thirst for improvement. No sensible person can
be truly happy in the world, without this; much less qualified to
make others happy. But the genuine spirit of improvement, wherever
it exists, atones for the absence of many qualities which would
otherwise be indispensable: in this respect resembling that
'charity' which covers 'a multitude of sins.' Without it, almost
everything would be of little consequence,--with it, everything
else is rendered doubly valuable.

"One would think that every sensible person, of either sex, would
aspire at improvement, were it merely to avoid the shame of being
stationary like the brutes. Above all, it is most surprising that
any lady should be satisfied to pass a day or even an hour without
mental and moral progress. It is no discredit to the lower animals
that--'their little all flows in at once,' that 'in ages they no
more can know, or covet or enjoy,' for this is the legitimate result
of the physical constitution which God has given them. But it is far
otherwise with the masters and mistresses of creation; for

"'Were man to live coeval with the sun,
The patriarch pupil _should_ be learning still,
And dying, leave his lessons half unlearnt.'

"There are,--I am sorry to say it--not a few of both sexes who never
appear to breathe out one hearty desire to rise, intellectually or
morally, with a view to the government of themselves or others.
They love themselves supremely--their friends subordinately--their
neighbors, perhaps not at all. But neither the love they bear to
themselves or others even leads them to a single series of any sort
of action which has for its ultimate object the improvement of
anything higher than the condition of the mere animal. Dress,
personal appearance, equipage, style of a dwelling or its furniture,
with no other view, however, than the promotion of mere physical
enjoyment, is the height of their desires for improvement!

"Talk to them of elevating the intellect or improving the heart,
and they admit it is true; but they go their way and pursue their
accustomed round of folly again. The probability is, that though
they assent to your views, they do not understand you. It requires a
stretch of charity t