330 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



the difference between the virgin and the matron, utter 

 the deadliest wishes ; yes, I say, he would rather send 

 the virgin with her wreath of rosebuds, her tenderness, 

 her ignorance of the sufferings of life, her dream-pictures 

 of a holy Eden, into the graveyard of earth, which is 

 God's field, than into the waste places of life. Yet do it 

 not, O poet ! The virgin becomes a mother, and gives 

 birth to the youth and the Eden which have fled from 

 her ; and to the mother herself they return, and fairer 

 than before : and so let it be as it is.' 



We have of late been going through a transition stage 

 on the question of giving liberty and independence to 

 young women. The most enlightened mothers, during the 

 last twenty years, in their anxiety to be in touch with the 

 times, have perhaps given their girls too great liberty when 

 too young, and when the girls have grown older, from fear 

 perhaps of what people might say, they have made the 

 fatal mistake of trying to tighten the reins. Let parents 

 and even young husbands realise that liberty once given 

 can never be withdrawn from individuals, any more than 

 from nations, without quarrels and trouble. The liberty 

 of women within certain limits must grow, and society 

 will adapt itself to it. The good and the bad will go on 

 as they have always done, uninfluenced by the swing of 

 the pendulum or the fiats of fashion. One generation 

 shows the shoulder and hides the arm, the other covers 

 up the shoulder and displays the arm. In my mother's 

 youth it was thought fast to valse, in my youth it was 

 thought fast to sit out with a partner after dancing, and 

 now girls valse and sit out and ride bicycles, and none of 

 these things make or unmake good women. 



I should say seventeen or eighteen was quite young 

 enough for a girl to begin serious study, if she is inclined 

 that way. In childhood attend to the grace and beauty 

 of her body, let her know her own language well, teach 



