e good, are
often unhappy. Many very excellent persons, whose lives are honorable
and whose characters are noble, pass numberless hours of sadness and
weariness of heart. The fault is not with their circumstances, nor yet
with their general characters, but with themselves, that they are
miserable. They have failed to adopt the true philosophy of life. They
wait for Happiness to come instead of going to work and making it; and
while they wait they torment themselves with borrowed troubles, with
fears, forebodings, morbid fancies and moody spirits, till they are all
unfitted for Happiness under any circumstances. Sometimes they cherish
unchaste ambition, covet some fancies or real good which they do not
deserve and could not enjoy if it were theirs, wealth they have not
earned, honors they have not won, attentions they have not merited, love
which their selfishness only craves. Sometimes they undervalue the good
they do possess; throw away the pearls in hand for some beyond their
reach, and often less valuable; trample the flowers about them under
their feet; long for some never seen, but only heard or read of; and
forget present duties and joys in future and far-off visions. Sometimes
they shade the present with every cloud of the past, and although
surrounded by a thousand inviting duties and pleasures, revel in sad
memories with a kind of morbid relish for the stimulus of their
miseries. Sometimes, forgetting the past and present, they live in the
future, not in its probable realities, but in its most improbable
visions and unreal creations, now of good and then of evil, wholly
unfitting their minds for real life and enjoyments. These morbid and
improper states of mind are too prevalent among young women. They excite
that nervous irritability which is so productive of pining regrets and
fretful complaints. They make that large class of fretters who enjoy no
peace themselves, nor permit others to about them. In the domestic
circle they fret their life away. Every thing goes wrong with them
because they make it so. The smallest annoyances chafe them as though
they were unbearable aggravations. Their business and duties trouble
them as though such things were not good. Pleasure they never seem to
know because they never get ready to enjoy it. Even the common movements
of Providence are all wrong with them. The weather is never as it should
be. The seasons roll on badly. The sun is never properly tempered. The
climate is al