wife, if ignorant and
uneducated, soon sinks from the companion of her husband, the guide and
example of her children, into the mere nurse and housekeeper. A clever
upper-servant would, in nine cases out of ten, fulfil all the offices
which engross her time and interest a thousand times better than she can
herself. For her, however, even for the nurse and housekeeper, the time
of _ennui_ must come; for her it is only deferred. The children grow up,
and are scattered to a distance; requiring no further mechanical cares,
and neither employing time nor exciting the same kind of interest as
formerly. The mere household details, however carefully husbanded and
watchfully self-appropriated, will not afford amusement throughout the
whole day; and, utterly unprovided with subjects for thought or objects
of occupation, life drags on a wearisome and burdensome chain. We have
all seen specimens of this, the most hopeless and pitiable kind of
_ennui_, when the time of acquiring habits of employment, and interest
in intellectual pursuits is entirely gone, and resources can neither be
found in the present, or hoped for in the future. Hard is the fate of
those who are bound to such victims by the ties of blood and duty. They
must suffer, secondhand, all the annoyances which _ennui_ inflicts on
its wretched victims. No natural sweetness of temper can long resist the
depressing influence of dragging on from day to day an uninterested,
unemployed existence; and besides, those who can find no occupation for
themselves will often involuntarily try to lessen their own discomfort
by disturbing the occupations of others. This species of _ennui_, of
which the sufferings begin in middle-life and often last to extreme old
age, (as they have no tendency to shorten existence,) is far more
pitiable than that from which the girl or the young woman suffers before
her matron-life begins. Then hope is always present to cheer her on to
endurance; and there is, besides, at that time, a consciousness of power
and energy to change the habits of life into such as would enable her to
brave all future fears of _ennui_. It is of great importance, however,
that these habits should be acquired immediately; for though they may be
equally possible of acquisition in the later years of youth, there are
in the mean time other dangerous resources which may tempt the
unoccupied and uninterested girl into their excitements. Those whose
minds are of too active and vivaciou