every life. Will you make it a change from "the rich bounties of
constraint" to self-restraint, which is better still; or will you let it
be a change to the weak lawlessness of a drifting life? If you would
respect yourselves, and be worthy to take part in the great battle between
good and evil, make and keep some rules for yourselves. Have a rule about
getting up in the morning and (almost equally important) about going to
bed at night; a rule against novels in the morning; a rule to read
something sensible every day. Make what rule you please, only keep it, or
you will never be more than a cumberer of the ground. Reading is the best
thing to save your life from being eaten away by trifles. The best
advisers say to a man taking a country living, "Read, read, read;" I say
to you, read doggedly; the snare of a free life is desultory reading. Make
any plan of stiff reading you like, and stick to it for one year, writing
out notes of what you read, and you will be fitter for real work if it
comes, as come it will.

I dare say you find reading is cold work,--very few women really enjoy
knowledge for its own sake,--you are tempted to throw it up, and to drift
in an easy good-tempered way, which pleases the others much more than your
shutting yourself up to read. And the others are quite right in expecting
you, now school is over, to be a woman, "with a heart at leisure from
itself" and from self-improvement. One of the hardest home lessons for
some girls to learn is the power of sitting idle and chatting. They feel
it waste of time; they long to be doing something tangible; and yet a home
atmosphere is mainly the result of the mother having acquired the art of
leisure. You will be very unrestful house-mothers when your turn comes,
and very unsatisfactory daughters and sisters in the mean time, if you are
always at high pressure, and giving your family to understand that you
must not be spoken to!