Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1875 — Advice to a Young Lady. [ARTICLE]

Advice to a Young Lady.

The Galveston News publishes the annexed letter, which was written for the use of a young lady, a resident of that city, who is about finishing her scholastic course at Staunton, Ya. Young ladies generally may find instruction and improvement by a careful perusal: Galveston, April 22,1875. Mr Dear : At your good mother’s request I have consented to make some suggestions as to a course of reading for you. Before doing so let me teach you a few simple truths which observation and experience have taught me. It is quite as important, in every respect, to cultivate your body as to cultivate your mind. No amount of mental acquisitions will compensate for the lack of a strong, elastic, healthful physical system. I shall have accomplished my purpose, if you will take my word for it that you have it in your power in a great measure to make and keep your body strong, elastic and healthy. To this end, plenty of sleep and open-air exercise are the only physicians you need to consult. Most human ills flow directly from the stomach. It must have rest like any other organ. Make it a part of your religion never to taste food more than three times a day, and never to taste any article of food which you have found to be indigestible. You must be your own judge of this. Wh%t you ought to eat requires as much careful consideration as what you ought to read. You must depend on habit, acquired little by little, to make any course of life you may choose to adopt agreeable to you. Should you ever give way to despondency as to acquiring any desirable habit remember that men by dint of perseverance learn to use tobacco and strong drink and to be anhappy without them. No task you are likely to set for yourself can be equal to this. How you read is quite as important as what you read. Most people waste all the time they spend in reading. Mental dyspepsia is almost as common a disease as physical dyspepsia, and is brought on by the same means, viz.: by devouring more food and more rapidly than it can be digested. There is no greater error than to read many books, except it be to read hurriedly and without pause. What is not retained in the memory is lost, and memory depends on the amount of attention bestowed, and the time a thought is kept before the mind. The power to fix the attention and to keep a thought before the mind grows imperceptibly but surely by use. Consider, then, no book properly read unless you have made the tone, the spirit, the thought of the author your own. Read no longer at one time than you feel a vivid interest in your book. And let me insist that you keep Webster’s or Worcester’s Unabridged Dictionary always at hand, and let no strange word pass without critical inspection. We think in words and, therefore, to think clearly and to speak accurately you must know the exact meaning of words. They are, in fact, the key to all knowledge. By no means neglect to read aloud a short time every day, with careful attention to the one golden rule of elocution, viz.: Read in the tone and manner in which you would utter the same sentiments in conversation. This practice will educate your ears as well as your tongue. The cultivation of your voice in ordinary speech is altogether more important to you than all the vocal gymnastics of the opera-house. Don Cupid hath not in all his quiver’s choice An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. Commit to memory some fine passage in prose or verse almost daily, not, by any means, for quotation, but to give you facility and power of expression. You will have reaped only a part of the benefits of mental culture if you fail to acquire the power of expressing your thoughts in just and appropriate language and with a distinct, clear, well-modulated voice. In the selection of words avoid the temptation to be fine, flowery and high-flown. Good taste rejects the star-spangled-banner style in speech and writing, as it does in dress and manners. Never permit yourself to read a novel unless it is from the hand of one of the great masters, and then read it as you would read a text-book. Before entering upon a course of history it would be but proper for you to read the lives of the most noted historical characters.