ADVICE TO YOUNG LADIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 688, 14 July 1882, Page 2

ADVICE TO YOUNG LADIES.

John Ruskin gives the following advice to young ladies:—“ -In order to investigate one self, it is well tofind out what one is to know. Don’t think vaguely about it. Take pen and paper and write down as accurate a description of yourself as possible, and if you dare not, find out why you dare not, agd try and get strength .of heart enough-to look.yourself in the face, mind as well . as body. Always have two mirrors., on your dressing-table, and with proper care dress mind and body at the same time. Put your best intelligence *to finding out what you are good for and what you can be made into. The mere regolve not to be useless and the honest desire to help other people will, in the quickest and most delicate way, improve oneself. All accomplishments should be considered as means-of assisting others. In music get the voipe disciplined and clear, and think only of accuracy; expression and effect will take care of themselves. So in drawing. Learn to set down the right shape of anything, and thereby explain its character to another person; but if you try to make only showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for amusement, your drawing will have little or no real interest for you, and no education power.- Resolve to do each day something-useful in the vulgar sense. Learn the economy of the kitchen, the good and bid qualities of every common article of food, and the simplest and best modes of their preparation; help poor families in their cooking, show them how to make as much of everything as possible, and how to make little niceties; coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty ways, and pleading for well folded tablecloths, however coarse, and • for a flower or |wo out of the garden to strew on them! One should at the end of every day, be able to say, as proudly as any peasant, that she had not eaten the bread of idleness. Get quit of the

absurd idea that Heaven will interfere to correct great errors, while allowing its laws to take their own course in punishiog small ones. If food is carelessly prepared, no one expects Provi» dence to make it palatable ; neither, ifj through years of folly, you misguide your own life, need you expect Divine interference to bring around everything at last for the best. I tell you, positively, the world is not so constituted. The consequences of great ■mistakes are just as sure as small ones, and the happiness of your whole life, and of all the lives over which you have power, depends as literally on your common, sense and discretion as the excellence and order of the day.”