Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/86

78 later. Wealth affords great advantages, but it makes no one any the better. Gold never purchases virtue nor excellence of character; it is possessed alike by the good and the bad; and whoever values himself, as a man, on account of his wealth, shows himself to be a very weak man.

A young girl, who has all the advantages that wealth affords, will be very apt to feel that she is superior to those in a lower condition, simply because she is surrounded with more of the elegances of life than they are, and moves in what is called a higher circle. But this feeling she should strive against as ignoble; for what have the elegances of life with which others have surrounded her, and the circle of friends into which a happy concurrence of circumstances has introduced her, to do with her real worth? Nothing whatever! One far below her in the reception and enjoyment of these blessings, may really be far above, her in all that goes to make up the true woman. Let her, then, make virtue the standard of excellence, and let her seek to do some good with the ability and superior advantages that God has given her, instead of sitting idly down in the vain imagination of her own superiority.