AUGUST 415 



Happiness and cheerfulness were not at all cultivated 

 by serious -minded good people in my youth, who were 

 much affected by the teaching, even if not under the 

 influence, of the Quakers and Wesley. To be sad was 

 almost considered a virtue. The High Church move- 

 ment began the change, as I remember it, against the 

 gloom of the Low Church teaching. The practical 

 sense of the present day is now fighting the morbid ten- 

 dencies, which have taken a hold on so many, reflected 

 from the writings of Ibsen and Maeterlinck. Those not 

 naturally of a happy temperament should cultivate hap- 

 piness from within, not artificially assume it. 



A lecture on 'Happiness,' given by Miss Lucy 

 Soulsby in 1898 (published by Longmans, Green & Co.), 

 is an excellent example of the teaching to which I refer, 

 and would, I think, be helpful to many a girl. 



A very common grievance to-day between mothers 

 and daughters is that the girls while still young refuse 

 to go out into society at all, feeling how tiresome and 

 unprofitable it is. This is all very well if the girl has 

 mapped out her fate, and knows exactly what sort of a 

 life she is going to lead ; but if she is merely drifting, it 

 is only a form of selfishness, and rather a foolish one. 

 Until life is really settled, the more varied and open to 

 change it can be kept the better. After marriage, I am 

 sure the more people stay at home the better for ten or 

 fifteen years. 



The state I have referred to of more or less antago- 

 nism between mother and daughter ought not to cause 

 the amount of distress that it often does. Time, the 

 great healer, constantly rights things again, and, as a 

 rule, a girl never turns with more true love to her 

 mother than just after her marriage. But my advice to 

 girls under these circumstances is to be conciliatory and 

 hide from others the irritation which often they cannot 



