Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/77

Rh seeks companions; and these are young persons of her own age, and in a like condition. Too rarely does she find among them a desire for self-improvement, and too often a love of what is low and vulgar. The time she passes with them is frequently spent in the most senseless frivolities, or in conversation about dress and beaux, and such matters as tend to give false views of life, and excite the lowest passions. Of the excellence of virtue, the love of being useful to others, the beauty of a modest deportment, she hears little, if any thing at all, in this thoughtless circle. There is little to elevate her, little to awaken in her mind an earnest aspiration after the truly good and beautiful; but every thing to hold her where she is, or to drag her down lower.

Every one thus situated, however, who really desires to elevate herself above the low position in which she finds herself placed, will always meet with some one or more among her associates of a better class than the rest. If she make these, rather than the others, her companions, she will find much to aid, encourage, and strengthen her. Once in the upward movement, and [sic] self-elevation will be, comparatively, an easy thing.

To sketch briefly the history of one thus situated, and to show how she elevated herself, will