GOOD SENSE AND INTELLIGENCE. 299 sleep; an exhausted one left without food all night, because it would be such a pity to rouse him when sleeping so nicely, and the doctor said he must be kept quiet. So I have known pleasant tidings kept back from a heart sick with longing, because they would be "too exciting in her weak state," and disagreeable information fully detailed, “just to prepare her, poor thing!" It is all very easy to attribute such fatal blunders to natural folly, or want of thought; but good sense cannot build on a foundation of ignorance, and the profoundest reflection will evolve nothing out of nothing. Women's work is so minute, so made up of irregular particulars, so dependent on such changing circumstances, and ought to be so exactly done, that it is quite impossible for any one to remember the directions needful for each if they are to be done by rule of thumb. Nor is any one's practice extensive enough to fix the hundredth part of the rules she may want in one week in her memory. A good cook, a tolerable nurse, may be in the course of some years trained in this way, by recipes and rules, without a knowledge of their meaning or of the principles on which they are founded. But a thoroughly accomplished woman, such as we are speaking of, who shall understand all parts of a woman's work, be able to do, to superintend and to teach them, must know the principles of her rules, and know how to apply them; must be able, when told what is wanted, to judge for herself how she is to accomplish it: the best mode of doing so will be readily recollected, if the object to be aimed at is correctly understood, and can be varied to meet the particular circumstances of each case by one who knows what is necessary. CHAP. III. PRACTICAL HABITS TO BE ACQUIRED. § 1. BEING PURPOSE-LIKE. — A CLEAR PURPOSE: USELESSNESS OF WORK WITHOUT THIS: HOW IT SOLVES DIFFICULTIES: ENABLES § 2. THE HABIT OF OBEDIENCE. -§ 3. THE HABIT OF ATTENDING TO WHAT PASSES BEFORE US. -OF JUDGING ABOUT OTHERS: KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER, CAUTION IN "How willingly men work to attain their end in their own way; how necessary is it to make them comprehend what is really self-evident; and how hard to bring them to a knowledge of the necessary conditions under which alone their design is possible."-Wilhelm Meister. § 1. BEING purpose-like. If the mind has acquired that first essential, the habit of making its own thoughts clear; it will not be difficult to cultivate also an habitual clearness of purpose and aim. It is the absence of this which presses itself very forcibly on one's attention, in watching ladies' isolated attempts to do good; and which, more than anything else perhaps, makes persons afraid of seeking their aid. It is most important that before entering upon such a work, you should fix distinctly and clearly in your mind what is the special object at which you are to aim, and then take care not to lose sight of it in all the turmoil and complexity of circumstances in which you may be involved; otherwise will be in continual danger of losing your you own labour, and hindering that of others, by desultory attempts to mend all you find amiss, instead of doing the one thing entrusted to you; and the end of all such turnings aside is, that after a while you will find yourself striving for and aiming at your own will. I am appointed teacher of the third class in a Sunday-school: that is to say, I undertake to receive the children who have been through the fourth class, and prepare them, by a certain course of instruction, for the second. They get on well, we grow mutually fond of each other, and when the time comes for promotion they are ready to go on to the more advanced books; but it is disagreeable to lose these and begin again with a younger, duller set: if I forget my purpose in taking the third class, and object to parting and receiving, I spoil my own work and that of the fourth and second class teachers too. “No one could be so absurd." I beg your pardon, reader; this is as fruitful a cause as any I know of the inefficiency of these schools. So I have known a very skilful nurse, forgetting that her business was to keep her patient quiet, keep her awake from nine till eleven at night by her eloquent demonstration of the impropriety of her having over-exerted herself between eight and nine, of the necessity of her getting quiet for the night at eight, and of all the evil consequences of not doing so. You think such stupidity incredible; it requires such great determination not to be guilty of it, that only a "habit" can secure you from it. Suppose a lady is sent by the physician to minister to his over-worked, nervously depressed patient, described in Lecture III., page 81. She goes resolving to cheer and soothe him by turning his thoughts from his own wasting anxiety to that care and love which may lighten the present, and give him hope for the coming years. She finds the room deplorably dirty, the children snarling in rags, and crying for and getting "bits;" the slatternly wife washing at home, her water not hot, and her soap melting away in it, when the public washing-house is not a quarter of a mile off; a wasteful bit of meat frizzling into utter indigestibility over the fire, the man smuggling a lighted pipe into his pocket, and reason to think the wife has lately had some gin. The lady sits down, almost in despair of doing any good, on the greasy edge of a just smeared-down chair, and begins to ask about his health; and her sympathy wins, from the wife at any rate, the history of their distress; but the pathos of it is interrupted by squalls from the children, and sallies of wrath from the parents; and still more by the tone of hopeless grumbling |