Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/47

Rh discharge well, unless all be done in an orderly series. If thus done, they will rarely seem burdensome. It is the confliction of duties that frets the mind, not the number of them; and there is always this confliction where there is no habit of order.

One of the strongest reasons for urging upon the young the formation of habits of order, is the indisputable fact, that at the time in life when such habits are most needed, it is almost, if not quite, impossible to form them, the opposite habit of disorder having become, by long indulgence, too fixed for eradication.

Want of order in a woman is not a defect the evils of which are visited upon herself alone. Every woman, as well as every man, must lead an active life, in some sphere or other. Nearly every thing that we do has reference to and affects others. There is scarcely a single action that is not felt, with the good or evil that appertains to it, by others. If, from any cause, we perform our allotted offices in the world defectively, we do others a wrong; and defect must attend every effort, which is not made and continued in an orderly way. If the mother have no habits of order, will not her children suffer in consequence? If the wife have similar defects, will they not be felt by her husband?