shield for its arms, with the motto, "_Albam exorna_," "Adorn the white;"
you are all starting with white shields, and you _can_ adorn the white: it
is not only in Spenser that we find Britomarts. You are as much a band of
champions as were King Arthur's Knights; you have all the same enemy, have
made the same vows, and for a year have been in fellowship, learning and
practising the same lessons: can you help feeling that there is a
responsibility laid on you, to see that the world shall be the better
because of you? Be like Sir Galahad with his white shield on which "a
bloody cross" was signed, when he had fought and won.

You know that I admire the old-fashioned type of woman--the womanly
woman,--and you will not suspect me of wishing you to start off "on some
adventure strange and new," but I do want you not to be content to lead a
commonplace life; you _must_, anyway, live your life: resolve that by
God's grace you will live it _nobly_. You cannot alter the outward form of
your life,--you will probably be surrounded by very commonplace household
duties, and worries, and jars,--but you can be like King Midas, whose
touch turned the most common things to gold. We have it in our power, as
Epictetus tells us, to be the gold on the garment of Life, and not the
mere stuff of which Fate weaves it. We can choose whether we will live a
king's life or a slave's: Marcus Aurelius on his throne was a king, for
nothing could conquer him; but Epictetus in chains was equally
unconquerable and equally a king. We all have the choice between the Crown
and the Muck Rake, and I think we sometimes turn to the straws and the
rubbish, not because they are fascinating to us, but because they seem
the only things open to us: we do not feel as if our lives had anything to
do with Crowns. If you think of your various homes from the point of view
of turning their "necessities to glorious gains," and as a field for
winning your spurs, I suspect you are each feeling that this is very "tall
talk" for such a commonplace home as yours. "All lives have an ideal