Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Women as well as men have a twin within them, often concealed, which represents all that is strongest and most lovable in their natures. They generally have something which they like doing better than any- thing else in the world, and which for that reason is very apt to interfere with their duty, however innocent or even meritorious it may be in itself, whether it takes the form of writing, art, politics, philanthropy, or the practice of religion. If a married woman throws all this power, so often described as suppressed steam, into any 346 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN employment that makes her daily duties tiresome and hateful to her, she is yielding to a form of self-indulgence which more or less feeds her vanity and robs her home and her children of that which is the most vivifying portion of herself and of the one most likely to call forth from them both admiration and esteem. This to many will be a hard saying, as it means leaving the higher employment of women to those who are most free from natural duties ; that is, generally, to the unmarried, who for that very reason are in some ways the least understanding of our sex. Mothers and fathers should never lose sight of the fact, as their daughters grow up, that confidence is only likely to begin when given first by parents to children, from the old to the young. Sympathy is not the consequence of confidences, but the magnet that attracts them ; so by confiding in our children, we may fail to get their sympathy, but we are always able to give them ours. I think that mothers might remind their sons and daughters, especially when they are grown up, how very much the old like receiving the attention of the young, and seeing that the young have no fear of them ; for I do not doubt that, if young people really believed this, they would probably pay these attentions more often, with both advantage and interest to themselves. There is a great deal to be got out of the experience and memories of those much older than ourselves, if we can only make them realise how much we wish both to hear and to learn. In the management of house and children, as in a larger rule, let us remember that liberalism is a frame of mind which has for its root the simple morality of doing unto others as you would they should do unto you. It is a very doubtful question whether, in the houses of the fairly wealthy, the daughters can be of very much help to the mother unless she herself finds that she has DAUGHTERS 347 more than she likes to do, and apportions certain depart- ments— such as housekeeping, card-leaving, writing notes, or gardening, &c. — to one or other of the daughters. The vague expectation in a mother that her daughter ought to help her, often results in a good deal of ordering about, a waste of time on the daughter's part, and that state of things generally which ends in friction. If a daughter is unusually unselfish, and constantly thinking how she can please and serve her mother, the result is that the daughter becomes a mere drudge, while the mother but half appreciates the sacrifice she has made of her life.