340 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



Strong advocate as I am for marriage, I do agree 

 with Miss Prances Power Cobbe, ' That for a woman to 

 fail to make and keep a happy home is to be a greater 

 failure, in a true sense, than to have failed to catch a 

 husband.' I have noted somewhere the following sentence, 

 and I think it as true as it is lofty in tone : ' There is 

 only one real power in this world for man or woman — 

 the power given by character. It carries far more weight 

 than talent does without it. The woman who cultivates 

 unswerving rectitude, firm energy, and persevering good- 

 ness, wiU become a centre and a factor in the lives of 

 others, wherever her lot is cast. AU round us we see 

 such women forced by outside pressure into positions of 

 comparative, if not positive, prominence, and they have 

 no need to whine over the unalterable fact of sex.' 



The better a girl or a woman is treated by a father or 

 a husband in the matter of money, the more heavily does 

 the duty remain with her to remember that, after aU, the 

 money is only conditionally hers, and that no woman has 

 a right to eat a man's food, dress vnth his money, enjoy 

 his luxuries to the full, and then not in every way try to 

 please him ; and certainly she should never do systeinatir 

 caUy that which he distinctly disapproves. If she cannot 

 persuade him, she must submit and do his will. No 

 woman is reaUy free who cannot keep herself ; and even 

 if she earns her own livelihood, she has to submit to her 

 employers. 



One can hardly write a ' note ' on girls and avoid the 

 great subject of dress. Certainly let the young dress in 

 the fashion, in order to be attractive ; for there is no doubt 

 that, even if the fashion is ugly, to be dressed in the 

 fashion looks smart. When I was young I was scolded 

 for trying always to get the last new pattern from Paris. 

 I used appeaUngly to remark, ' I can't be graceful, let me 

 be smart.' There are always certain women who can 



