cted that you will not make mistakes; all children do.
Have patience." Just as you would talk to that child, talk to yourself.
Be reconciled to a lot of inevitable imperfection; be content to try
continually, and often to fail. It is the inevitable condition of human
existence, and is to be accepted as such. A patient acceptance of
mortifications and of defeats of our life's labor is often more
efficacious for our moral advancement than even our victories.

In the next place, we must school ourselves not to look with restless
desire to degrees of excellence in any department of life which
circumstances evidently forbid our attaining. For a woman with plenty of
money and plenty of well-trained servants to be content to have
fly-specked windows, or littered rooms, or a slovenly-ordered table, is
a sin. But in a woman in feeble health, incumbered with a flock of
restless little ones, and whose circumstances allow her to keep but one
servant, it may be a piece of moral heroism to shut her eyes on many
such things, while securing mere essentials to life and health. It may
be a virtue in her not to push neatness to such lengths as to wear
herself out, or to break down her only servant, and to be resigned to
have her tastes and preferences for order, cleanliness, and beauty
crossed, as she would resign herself to any other affliction. No
purgatory can be more severe to people of a thorough and exact nature
than to be so situated that they can only half do everything they
undertake; yet such is the fiery trial to which many a one is subjected.
Life seems to drive them along without giving them time for anything;
everything is ragged, hasty performance, of which the mind most keenly
sees and feels the raggedness and hastiness. Even one thing done as it
really ought to be done would be a rest and refreshment to the soul; but
nowhere, in any department of its undertakings, is there any such thing
to be perceived.

But there are cases where a great deal of wear and tear can be saved to
the nerves by a considerate making up of one's mind as to how much in
certain circumstances had better be undertaken at all. Let the
circumstances of life be surveyed, the objects we are pursuing arranged
and counted, and see if there are not things here and there that may be
thrown out of our plans entirely, that others may be better done.

What if the whole care of expensive table luxuries, like cake and
preserves, be thrown out of a housekeeper'