Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/43

Rh nor were any of the advantages of a liberal education withheld from the younger members of the family. The income from the sisters’ business was ample for all their wants, and it was dispensed with the most unselfish freedom.

Can any young lady, no matter how morbidly sensitive she may be about the false opinions of fashionable acquaintances, feel otherwise than proud of such representatives of her sex as Jane and Edith ? Did they not act well and wisely? If every young lady, be her station as high as it may, would qualify herself for gaining a livelihood in some useful calling or pursuit, as they did, the yearly reverses that visit so many families would bring far less of suffering, both bodily and mental, than now result from these causes. A man without a trade or profession, who is thrown suddenly upon his own resources, finds it a very hard matter to keep his head fairly above the water. A woman reduced to the same condition is, in every respect, far more helpless. But we need urge this point no further. If, from what has already been presented, heed will not be taken by the young, nothing further that we could say would be of any avail.

To be useful is the highest achievement of our lives, and the only certain means of becoming happy. If every young woman could be made