If you join in games or dancing (to neither of which, when properly conducted, is there any objection), you must be careful that your fun and frolic do not degenerate into roughness, that there is no loud laughing or boisterous romping, and you must remember that upon you as ladies rests the responsibility of excluding all coarseness and vul- garity from your presence. You can easily show your dis- pleasure and disapproval, and I want you to appreciate the fact that in society the power lies principally with your sex; that in all social gatherings, and in the family life, it is you who must keep up the standard of refinement and demand propriety in the behavior of those about you. 44 ON HABITS AND MANNERS. CHAPTER VIII.— In General Society.— (Continued.) FOR YOUNG WOMEN. I must advise you especially to guard yourself against the dangers arising from over-familiarity. Young people, as a rule, are apt to make friends easily and to be unnecessa- rily communicative, and in this way often get themselves into difficulties which might, at the outset, be easily avoided. Young women are probably somewhat more liable to make this error than young men, and I would therefore advise you in particular not to be too familiar even with your intimate friends, but to keep up a certain reserve, which you will find to be often a great safeguard. Do not talk of your own affairs to all the world ; do not attempt to pry into the af- fairs of other people ; do not gossip about your friends and their faults ; remember that modesty is essential to your womanhood, and that true modesty is spiritual as well as physical. By this I mean that the same instinct which will prevent you from making coarse gestures, from intruding on the privacy of others, from committing any action publicly, ought also to guard your tongue from loose speech, your eye from suspicion, and your thought from indelicacy, just as much when you are alone, as when you are in a crowd, just as effectually at home as abroad. I would like you to notice here that this modesty of which I speak is a very different thing from that awkward ON HABITS AND MANNERS. 45 shyness which afflicts many young girls, and which more often comes from too much thought of self than from too little. True modesty is often the surest relief from shyness, for it prevents any over-estimate of one's own importance, and frees its possessor from any undue sensitiveness as to the opinions of other people — that is, a young person who is really modest will not constantly wonder what other people are thinking of her, or imagine that she is an object of atten- tion to any one about her, but will go quietly about her work or her pleasure, careful to be true and honest, but not too anxious about appearances, remembering that to ube" is better than to "seem."

AI-modernized reading of the original text

If you join in games or dancing (to neither of which, when properly conducted, is there any objection), you must be careful that your fun and frolic do not degenerate into roughness, that there is no loud laughing or boisterous romping, and you must remember that upon you as ladies rests the responsibility of excluding all coarseness and vulgarity from your presence. You can easily show your displeasure and disapproval, and I want you to appreciate the fact that in society the power lies principally with your sex; that in all social gatherings, and in the family life, it is you who must keep up the standard of refinement and demand propriety in the behavior of those about you. CHAPTER VIII.— In General Society.— (Continued.) FOR YOUNG WOMEN. I must advise you especially to guard yourself against the dangers arising from over-familiarity. Young people, as a rule, are apt to make friends easily and to be unnecessarily communicative, and in this way often get themselves into difficulties which might, at the outset, be easily avoided. Young women are probably somewhat more liable to make this error than young men, and I would therefore advise you in particular not to be too familiar even with your intimate friends, but to keep up a certain reserve, which you will find to be often a great safeguard. Do not talk of your own affairs to all the world ; do not attempt to pry into the affairs of other people ; do not gossip about your friends and their faults ; remember that modesty is essential to your womanhood, and that true modesty is spiritual as well as physical. By this I mean that the same instinct which will prevent you from making coarse gestures, from intruding on the privacy of others, from committing any action publicly, ought also to guard your tongue from loose speech, your eye from suspicion, and your thought from indelicacy, just as much when you are alone, as when you are in a crowd, just as effectually at home as abroad. I would like you to notice here that this modesty of which I speak is a very different thing from that awkward shyness which afflicts many young girls, and which more often comes from too much thought of self than from too little. True modesty is often the surest relief from shyness, for it prevents any over-estimate of one's own importance, and frees its possessor from any undue sensitiveness as to the opinions of other people — that is, a young person who is really modest will not constantly wonder what other people are thinking of her, or imagine that she is an object of attention to any one about her, but will go quietly about her work or her pleasure, careful to be true and honest, but not too anxious about appearances, remembering that to ube" is better than to "seem."

On habits and manners