Preface

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All of us have aspirations. We build air-castles, and are probably the happier for the building. However, the sooner we learn that life is not a play-day, but a thing of earnest activity, the better for us and for those associated with us. "Energy," says Goethe, "will do anything that can be done in this world"; and Jean Ingelow truly says, that "Work is heaven's hest."

If we cannot, like George Eliot, write Adam Bede, we can, like Elizabeth Fry, visit the poor and the prisoner. If we cannot, like Rosa Bonheur, paint a "Horse Fair," and receive ten thousand dollars, we can, like Mrs. Stowe and Miss Alcott, do some kind of work to lighten the burdens of parents. If poor, with Mary Lyon's persistency and noble purpose, we can accomplish almost anything. If rich, like Baroness Burdett-Coutts, we can bless the world in thousands of ways, and are untrue to God and ourselves if we fail to do it.

Margaret Fuller said, "All might be superior beings," and doubtless this is true, if all were willing to cultivate the mind and beautify the character.

S.K.B.