Stray Thoughts for Girls | Page 8

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