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can never be withdrawn from individuals, any more than 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 



