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Page 48
In the first place, I should advise, as of primary importance, the
laying down of a regular system of employment. Impose upon yourself the
duty of getting through so much work every day; even, if possible, lay
down a plan as to the particular period of the day in which each
occupation is to be attended to; many otherwise wasted moments would be
saved by having arranged beforehand that which is successively to engage
the attention. The great advantage of such regularity is experienced in
the acknowledged truth of Lord Chesterfield's maxim: "He who has most
business has most leisure." When the multiplicity of affairs to be got
through absolutely necessitates the arrangement of an appointed time for
each, the same habits of regularity and of undilatoriness (if I may be
allowed the expression) are insensibly carried into the lighter pursuits
of life. There is another important reason for the self-imposition of
those systematic habits which to men of business are a necessity; it is,
however, one which you cannot at all appreciate until you have
experienced its importance: I refer to the advantage of being, by a
self-imposed rule, provided with an immediate object, in which the
intellectual pursuits of a woman must otherwise be deficient. I would
not depreciate the mightiness of "the future;"[77] but it is evident that
the human mind is so constituted as to feel that motives increase in
strength as they approach in nearness; otherwise, why should it require
such strong faith, and that faith a supernatural gift, to enable us to
sacrifice the present gratification of a moment to the happiness of an
eternity. While, therefore, you seek by earnest prayer and reverential
desire to bring the future into perpetually operating force upon your
principles and practice, do not, at the same time, be deterred by any
superstitious fears from profiting by yourself and urging on others
every immediate and temporal motive, not inconsistent with the great
one, "to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever."[78]
While your principal personal object and personal gratification in your
studies is to be derived from the gradual improvement of your mind and
tastes, this gradual improvement will be often so imperceptible that you
will need support and cheering during many weeks and months of
apparently profitless mental application. Such support you may provide
for yourself in the daily satisfaction resulting from having fulfilled a
certain task, from having obeyed a law, though only a self-imposed one.
Men, in their studies, have almost always that near and immediate object
which I recommend to you to create for yourself. For them, as well as
for you, the distant future of attained mental eminence and excellence
is indeed the principal object. They, however, have it in their power to
cheat the toil and cheer the way by many intermediate steps, which
serve both as landmarks in their course and objects of interest within
their immediate reach. They can almost always have some special object
in view, as the result and reward of the studies of each month, or
quarter, or year. They read for prizes, scholarships, fellowships, &c.;
and these rewards, tangibly and actually within their reach, excite
their energies and quicken their exertions.
For women there is nothing of the kind; it is therefore a useful
exercise of her ingenuity to invent some substitute, however inferior to
the original. For this purpose, I have never found any thing so
effectual as a self-imposed system of study,--the stricter the better.
It is not desirable, however, that this system should be one of very
constant employment; the strictness of which I spoke only refers to its
regularity. As the great object is that you should break through your
rules as seldom as possible, it would be better to fix the number of
your hours of occupation rather below, certainly not above, your average
habits. The time that may be to spare on days in which you meet with no
interruption from visitors may also be systematically disposed of: you
may always have some book in hand which will be ready to fill up any
unoccupied moments, without, even on these occasions, wasting your time
in deliberating as to what your next employment shall be.
You understand me, therefore, to recommend that those hours of the
system which you are to impose upon yourself to employ in a certain
manner are not to exceed the number you can ordinarily secure without
interruption on _every_ day of the week, exclusive of visitors, &c. &c.
Every advantage pertaining to the system I recommend is much enhanced by
the uniformity of its observance: indeed, it is on rigid attention to
this point that its efficacy principally depends. I will now enter into
the details of the system of study which, however modified by your own
mind and habits, will, I hope, in some form or other, be adopted by you.
The first arrangement of your time ought to be the laying apart of a
certain period every day for the deepest thinking you can compel
yourself to, either on or off book.
Having said so much on this point in my last letter, I should run the
risk of repetition if I dwelt longer upon it here. I only mention it at
all to give it again the most prominent position in your studies, and to
recommend its invariably occupying a daily place in them. For every
other pursuit, two or three times a week might answer as well, perhaps
better, as it would be too great an interruption to devote to each only
so short a period of time as could be allotted to it in a daily
distribution. It may be desirable, before I take leave of the subject of
your deeper studies, to mention here some of the books which will give
you the most effectual aid in the formation of your mind.
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