Stray Thoughts for Girls by Lucy H. M. Soulsby
page 33 of 157 (21%)
page 33 of 157 (21%)
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not up.
Yet you are quite rightly looking forward to a time of freedom. But freedom means being able to command yourself, it does not mean being free to drift without a helm. Also you will be under control to a certain extent. Very likely you will sometimes resent control or reproof at home more than you would resent it from an outsider! But you are a stage nearer that sad freedom of later life when it is nobody's business to look after you, and you have now got to learn how to use wisely that fuller freedom of later life. I hope you have been learning at school to use the comparative freedom of "being out." I hope that, with both men and girls, you will remember what I tell you here about not being silly and uncontrolled, or loud and boisterous. The actual school rules pass away, but there is not one of them that is not founded on some principle that I hope you will carry with you and live by. The books, the music, the pictures in which you are interested here are not mere lessons to be shut up joyfully when you leave! They are the great interests and amusements of the friends whom you most value, and it would be very disappointing if you did not use your free time in making opportunities to carry them on better than at school, for you come here mainly to find out what interesting things there are in the world you are going into. But to go to practical details. Take a girl who wants to be good and dutiful and useful, to be a comfort at home, to keep her brain in good working order, and to enjoy herself: what should she resolve upon if she |
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