Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/19

Rh ignorant of what is wanted to preserve the foundation of a family's happiness; then such a woman will prove as unfitted to lighten sorrow, as she has been careless to avert it: for herself, she can but quail as difficulties assail her; for others, she can only seek for protection where, if she were capable, she might be of assistance; and, instead of aiding to alleviate distress, she will become the main cause of rendering the common burden intolerable.

How often do we see families stricken to the very dust, by the first, and perhaps only a slight blow, of misfortune; and this, merely for the want of a little of that practical knowledge, and that experience, which would have enabled them to husband their diminished means so that they might still supply sufficient to meet all real wants, and still procure every material comfort. From a want of this experience, some of the very best intentioned persons will so misapply the resources left to them, at one time laying out money where they ought to refrain altogether, and at another parting with more than the occasion requires, that, by degrees, those resources dwindle away to nothing before they seem to be aware of the natural consequences, and not only poverty, but destitution and misery are let into an abode where comparative ease and contentment might still have remained. The great art of economy in domestic life, is comprised in the two very homely phrases, "to turn every thing to account," and "to make the most of what you have." But their meaning is often perverted, and the habit of turning every thing to an account, and of making the most of every thing, is ascribed to those who are actuated, not by a laudable desire to produce as much comfort as their circumstances will admit, but by an inclination to indulge in a strong propensity to stinginess. But of this class of persons I am far from being the advocate; between extravagance and parsimony the widest possible interval exists; and that economy, that management and application of means, which I deem perfectly consistent with the most rigid virtue and the most generous impulse, is of too admirable a character to partake either of the spendthrift's criminality or of the miser's meanness.

If my censures upon the present system of educating young ladies should appear to be presumptuous, I greatly fear that any disapproval of that which is now so