nt of an excellent, serviceable, sanguine, phlegmatic
temperament, which made her at once cheerful and unmoveable; of a
robust constitution and steady, unimpassionable nerves, which kept
her firm under shocks and unharassed under annoyances--manage with
comparative ease a large family of spoilt children, while their
governess lived amongst them a life of inexpressible misery:
tyrannised over, finding her efforts to please and teach utterly
vain, chagrined, distressed, worried--so badgered, so trodden on,
that she ceased almost at last to know herself, and wondered in what
despicable, trembling frame her oppressed mind was prisoned, and
could not realise the idea of ever more being treated with respect
and regarded with affection--till she finally resigned her situation
and went away quite broken in spirit and reduced to the verge of
decline in health.

'Those who would urge on governesses more acquirements, do not know
the origin of their chief sufferings. It is more physical and mental
strength, denser moral impassibility that they require, rather than
additional skill in arts or sciences. As to the forcing system,
whether applied to teachers or taught, I hold it to be a cruel
system.

'It is true the world demands a brilliant list of accomplishments.
For 20 pounds per annum, it expects in one woman the attainments of
several professors--but the demand is insensate, and I think should
rather be resisted than complied with. If I might plead with you in
behalf of your daughters, I should say, "Do not let them waste their
young lives in trying to attain manifold accomplishments. Let them
try rather to possess thoroughly, fully, one or two talents; then let
them endeavour to lay in a stock of health, strength, cheerfulness.
Let them labour to attain self-control, endurance, fortitude,
firmness; if possible, let them learn from their mother something of
the precious art she possesses--these things, together with sound
principles, will be their best supports, their best aids through a
governess's life.

'As for that one who, you say, has a nervous horror of exhibition, I
need not beg you to be gentle with her; I am sure you will not be
harsh, but she must be firm with herself, or she will repent it in
after life. She should begin by degrees to endeavour to overcome her
di