Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/190

 The most essential thing for a woman to understand is that her business is not to order her daughter's life, but to assist that daughter to shape it herself. She should be prepared to say to her: "The most interesting and important thing in the world for you is to work out your own particular life. You must build it from the place where you stand and with the materials in your hands. Nobody else ever stood in your particular place or ever will stand in one identical; nobody ever has or can possess the same materials. You alone can fuse the elements. Hold your place; do not try to shift into the place that another occupies. Keep your eye on what you have to work with, not on what somebody else has. The ultimate result, the originality, flavor, distinction, usefulness of your life, depend on the care, the reverence, and the intelligence with which