brated authors, but because I wanted to give you, girls, a certain idea, and had not the opportunity to search for a better expression of it among well-known writers. While for every day some passage has been taken to give encouragement or hints towards earnest living, the general idea which I hope pervades the little work, is expressed in the title, "New Every Morning," and more fully given in the opening poem. With the dawn of each day we are born anew into opportunities for fresh efforts. No matter about yesterday's shortcomings, "To-day is ours." Make of it a day holy with duty done, and strong with cheerful strivings; a day full of hope for the future. My heartiest thanks are due to those authors who have so generously allowed me the use of their works, and to the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., and Messrs. Roberts Brothers, whose permission to select passages from their publications has been of great value. ANNIE H. RYDER. August, 1886. JANUARY. NEW EVERY MORNING. Every day is a fresh beginning, All the past things are past and over, The tasks are done and the tears are shed, Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover; Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled, Yesterday now is a part of forever: Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight, With glad days, and sad days, and bad days which never Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight, Their fullness of sunshine or sorrowful night. Let them go, since we cannot relieve them, God in his mercy receive, forgive them! SUSAN COOLIDGE. 2. She had reached that point where the girl suddenly blooms into a woman, asking something more substantial than pleasure to satisfy the new aspirations that are born; a time as precious and important to the after life, as the hour when the apple-blossoms fall, and the young fruit waits for the elements to ripen or destroy the harvest. LOUISA M. ALCOTT. There are many boys and girls, full of high hopes, lovely possibilities, and earnest plans, pausing a moment before they push their little boats from the safe shore. Let those who launch them see to it that they have good health to man the oars, good education for ballast, and good principles as pilots to guide them as they voyage down an everwidening river to the sea. LOUISA M. ALCOTT. 3. There are so many kinds of beauty after which one may strive, that we are bewildered by the bare attempt to remember them. There is beauty of manner, of utterance, of achievement, of reputation, of character, any one of these outweighs beauty of person, even in the scales of society, to say nothing of celestial values. Cultivate most of the kind that lasts the longest. The beautiful face with nothing back of it lacks the "staying qualities" that are necessary to those who would be winners in the race of life. It is not the first mile post, but the last that tells the story; not the outward bound steed, but the one on the "home stretch" that we note as victor. FRANCES E. WILLARD. 4. Girls, have your aspirations, and when you have outgrown one, or exhausted all there is good and pure in it, take hold of another and grow as large as you can in it. If circumstances baffle, why baffle circumstances; only be careful to do all these things cheerfully. That is the natural way to grow. The trees get along so, you know. They spread out into great space, give as much foliage and fruit as they can, and then when other trees crowd around too closely, they shoot up and out into the limitless air and sunshine. All the while the wind goes sounding through them making life musical and bright. A. H. R. The true way to begin life is not to look off upon it to see what it offers, but to take a good look at self. Find out what you are, how you are made up, your capacities and lacks, and then determine to get the most out of yourself possible. THEODORE T. MUNGER. 5. I am afraid that the majority of girls act very ridiculously with regard to their health. I should be very sorry to make them nervous and fanciful, and lead them to coddle themselves; I only want them to act reasonably. If they get wet through and do not change their clothes, if they go from a heated atmosphere to a cold one without additional clothing, if they sit dreaming over the fire, and do not take regular exercise, or if they make exercise impossible, by wearing tight stays, or hobbling about on high-heeled boots, they can no more expect to be strong than they can expect to put their hands into the fire and draw them out smooth and sound. PHILLIS BROWNE. 6. Maiden, when such a soul as thine is born, As summer air, majestic as the sea, A mystery to those who creep and crawl LOWELL. 7. To live well, you must be in the open air every day. This rule is well nigh absolute. Women offend against it terribly in America, and women are very apt to break down. Rain or shine, mud or dust, go out of your house and see what God is doing outside. I do not count that an irreverent phrase, which says one feels nearer God under the open sky, than he is apt to do when shut up in a room. I know a very wise man who used to say: "People speak of going out, when they should speak of going in." He meant that you do plunge into the air, as when you bathe at the seaside you go into the water. Be quite sure of your air bath. I will not dictate the time, but, on an average, an hour is not too long. You will fare all the better, will eat the better, digest the better, and sleep the better, if instead of an hour it is two hours or more. EDWARD EVERETT HALE. |