clear, and think only of accuracy; never of effect or expression:
if you have any soul worth expressing, it will show itself in your
singing; but most likely there are very few feelings in you, at
present, needing any particular expression; and the one thing you
have to do is to make a clear-voiced little instrument of yourself,
which other people can entirely depend upon for the note wanted.
So, in drawing, as soon as you can set down the right shape of
anything, and thereby explain its character to another person, or
make the look of it clear and interesting to a child, you will begin
to enjoy the art vividly for its own sake, and all your habits of
mind and powers of memory will gain precision: but if you only try
to make showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for amusement,
your drawing will have little of real interest for you, and no
educational power whatever.

Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do every day some
that is useful in the vulgar sense. Learn first thoroughly the
economy of the kitchen; the good and bad qualities of every common
article of food, and the simplest and best modes of their
preparation: when you have time, go and help in the cooking of
poorer families, and show them how to make as much of everything as
possible, and how to make little, nice; coaxing and tempting them
into tidy and pretty ways, and pleading for well-folded table-
cloths, however coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden to
strew on them. If you manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright
plates on it, and a good dish in the middle, of your own cooking,
you may ask leave to say a short grace; and let your religious
ministries be confined to that much for the present.

Again, let a certain part of your day (as little as you choose, but