First of all, a girl must feel she is a woman, with a heart
to cultivate in its affections, restrain in its desires, curb in its
selfishness; with a mind to enrich by such means as shall promote its
best peculiarities, and supply its needs; with a soul to enlarge into
more generous impulses, and into the performance of more worthy deeds.
Such a girl looks practically, but at the same time cheerfully, on
life. She is willing to make the best and most of her lot, and, though
out of patience with it sometimes, is not always battling against
circumstances.
Discontent, to be sure, is as unmanly as it is unwomanly; but I fear
it is an ill more widely spread among girls than among boys. It is
an evil seed, and brings forth nothing but choking weeds and noxious
plants. No position, nothing that a girl can do, harms her, provided
she be womanly; therefore, choice of position cannot help, unless she
is sure she has power to do better in another place. Some servants
are more womanly than the women who employ them. We are all servants
to one another: each holds the mastery. Surely we must be novices before
we can be superiors. In one sense, servitude is an ornament; for
politeness is but a visible sign, of glad service. Surely, politeness is
a real property of womanliness.
A truly womanly girl is genuine in what she says and does. Avoiding
the bombast, the occasional coarseness of rougher natures, the self-
esteem, and the dictatorial manner, she yet says no, when she means
no.
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