'Should your daughter, however, go out as governess, she should first
take a firm resolution not to be too soon daunted by difficulties,
too soon disgusted by disagreeables; and if she has a high spirit,
sensitive feelings, she should tutor the one to submit, the other to
endure, _for the sake of those at home_. That is the governess's
best talisman of patience, it is the best balm for wounded
susceptibility. When tried hard she must say, "I will be patient,
not out of servility, but because I love my parents, and wish through
my perseverance, diligence, and success, to repay their anxieties and
tenderness for me." With this aid the least-deserved insult may
often be swallowed quite calmly, like a bitter pill with a draught of
fair water.
'I think you speak excellent sense when you say that girls without
fortune should be brought up and accustomed to support themselves;
and that if they marry poor men, it should be with a prospect of
being able to help their partners. If all parents thought so, girls
would not be reared on speculation with a view to their making
mercenary marriages; and, consequently, women would not be so
piteously degraded as they now too often are.
'Fortuneless people may certainly marry, provided they previously
resolve never to let the consequences of their marriage throw them as
burdens on the hands of their relatives.
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