AUGUST 445 



children that are growing up, is the true policy of self- 

 love in the decline of life, and as commendable a policy 

 as it is in the nature of self-love to adopt.' 



I have recommended no books for girls. The ques- 

 tion is much too big a one. But I cannot refrain from 

 saying that within the compass of one small book I 

 know nothing that comes up in wisdom and sagacity to 

 Emerson's essays called 'The Conduct of Life,' and 

 ' Society and Solitude.' He says : 'Youth has an 

 access of sensibility before which every object glitters 

 and attracts. We leave one pursuit for another, and 

 the young man's year is a heap of beginnings. At 

 the end of a twelvemonth he has nothing to show for 

 it, not one completed work. But the time is not lost.' 

 If this is true of young men, it is doubly true of young 

 women. Every experience is a growth, and every 

 growth tends towards completion of life rightly under- 

 stood. There should never be hopelessness and despair, 

 whatever happens. The future is always ours, to conquer 

 and make noble. No one can really crush us. Trodden 

 under foot, if we choose we may rise again better, even 

 nobler, than all the fortunate ones around us. It all 

 depends on ourselves. That is why I admire Mr. George 

 Moore's ' Esther Waters' almost above all modern novels, 

 although Messrs. Smith & Son, whose stalls are covered 

 with translations of French novels, refused to sell it. 



In spite of age and experience, I feel that on all these 

 difficult subjects I have said very little that can be of 

 use to anybody. There is no receipt by which we can 

 regulate our lives. 'As our day is, so shall our strength 

 be ' is a fact to those who train their natures to meet 

 with courage the difficulties as they arise. 



One of our old divines states that 'Our infancy is 

 full of folly ; youth, of disorder and toil ; age, of 

 infirmity. Each time hath his burden, and that which 



