MY AUNT,

MRS. MARTHA W. MILLER,
Whose culture and kindness I count
among the blessings of
my life.






PREFACE.


All of us have aspirations. We build air-castles, and are probably the
happier for the building. However, the sooner we learn that life is
not a play-day, but a thing of earnest activity, the better for us and
for those associated with us. "Energy," says Goethe, "will do anything
that can be done in this world"; and Jean Ingelow truly says, that
"Work is heaven's hest."

If we cannot, like George Eliot, write _Adam Bede_, we can, like
Elizabeth Fry, visit the poor and the prisoner. If we cannot, like
Rosa Bonheur, paint a "Horse Fair," and receive ten thousand dollars,
we can, like Mrs. Stowe and Miss Alcott, do some kind of work to
lighten the burdens of parents. If poor, with Mary Lyon's persistency
and noble purpose, we can accomplish almost anything. If rich, like
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, we can bless the world in thousands of ways,