flashy works are sought after. Too many girls read without any system, and even without any design of improving their minds thereby. They read newspapers, love-stories, novels, anything that will gratify them for the time; and the consequence is, that their minds derive no benefit therefrom, although they may read many pages and volumes in a year. Alison says of Maria Antoinette, whose career proved fatal to Louis and the French monarchy, "She had little education; read hardly anything but novels and romances; and had a fixed aversion, during her prosperous days, to every species of business, or serious employment." Any other female may spend her time in reading novels, and works of similar character, and they will still possess but "little education." For this reason, and far more serious ones, novels should never be read. They not only preclude the habit of think ing, but they corrupt the soul, give false views of life, and unfit the reader for serious duties. This is the testimony of thousands who have made the dangerous experiment. "Novel reading has been my ruin!" exclaimed a young woman in the agonies of death. She is only one of a multitude whose minds have been dwarfed, hearts corrupted, and souls lost, by this kind of pastime. Pollok has given a correct description of novels in the following lines:

"A novel was a book

Three volumed, and once read, and oft crammed full

Of poisonous error, blackening every page;
And oftener still of trifling, second-hand
Remark, and old, diseased, and putrid thought,
And miserable incident, at war

With Nature; with itself and truth at war;
Yet charming still the greedy reader on,

Till done. He tried to recollect his thoughts,
And nothing found but dreary emptiness;

These, like ephemera, spring in a day

From lean and shallow soiled brains of sand,
And in a day expire."

There is no excuse for reading bad books when good ones are so abundant. Wisdom and conscience should be employed in their selection; and they should be read for mental and moral profit, and not for mere pleasure. With this high purpose, reading will contribute largely to intellectual improvement. Girls should resolve to belong to the fourth class of readers described by Coleridge. He says, "The first may be compared to an hourglass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in, and it runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth

class may be compared to the slave in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gem." Girls who would reap the benefits of consistent selfculture must belong to the fourth and last class of readers.

woman.

Avoid, also, the idea of "finishing" your education when you leave school, or become a married We hear girls announcing that at such a time their education will be finished, as if they would have nothing more to learn after one, two, or three years of study at a seminary. Even parents are apt to think that a few months or years of culture in a good school will "finish" their daughters' education; and they talk in this way to their children and others. The result is that daughters often act as if their education was "finished" when they leave school, and cast aside their books, without scarcely referring to them for months and years after. Two young physicians were once conversing in the presence of Dr. Rush, when one of them said, "When I finished my studies 99 "When you finished your studies!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Why, you must be a happy man to have finished so young. I do not expect to finish mine while I live." So has it been with eminent women. Those of the number whom we have named in this and preceding chapters con

tinued their mental culture until death. Girls of the present day must do likewise, if they would fulfil the mission of life with success.

A young woman of cultivated mind always finds the way to honor open before her, provided her heart is educated in the same proportion. Intelligence is a bright though modest ornament, admired by all classes, and disparaged by none; next to the pearl of piety, it is the fairest jewel that adorns the female character. It shines with no borrowed or artificial lustre, but with a brightness that is emphatically its own. The young woman who is so fortunate as to possess this priceless gem, carries with her a grace and witchery into every sphere. A healthful influence emanates from her welcome presence, while a beautiful harmony of character, as the power of magic, catches the eyes of gratified beholders. She is a flower of loveliness in the social circle where she lives, and when she dies, the fragrance of her beloved and honored name is grateful to crowds of unfeigned weepers.

CHAPTER XII.

POLITENESS.

REMARKS OF A WRITER-FALSE VIEWS OF IT-MARY LYON PO LITE HER POLITENESS AN INCIDENTAL QUALITY - NEVER MAKE IT A DISTINCT ACT IMPROVEMENT OF MIND AND HEART-GIRLS TOO OFTEN AFFECTED AND NOT POLITE-AN EXAMPLE-IMPOLITENESS OF "POLITE LADIES"-A LADY IN CONGREGATION A CASE IN PHILADELPHIA - A FEMALE IN THE OMNIBUS-WHAT IS TRUE POLITENESS HERE-WORDS OF ANOTHER.

THE

A WRITER says, "True politeness has been de

fined to consist in 'benevolence in trifles.' It is a beautiful definition, and is worthy of being remembered by all who would fill the family circle with bliss. By politeness here I do not mean the heartless and unmeaning ceremony of the world, such as is taught in Lord Chesterfield's pages, nor even the graceful polish of manners which characterizes the intercourse of well-bred people; but a gentle, obliging demeanor, and delicacy of behavior toward all around; that mode of conducting ourselves toward others which is opposed to all that is coarse, vulgar, rude, and offensively familiar. The politeness that I mean is not affection's root,