usefulness and our highest
happiness will depend on our clearness of vision in seeing, and our
unwavering fidelity in following, the grand aim of life.

II.

HEALTH.

Mr. Clapp says enthusiastically that we cannot imagine Rosalind or
Portia or Cordelia or Juliet with neuralgia or headache. And I believe
that Shakespeare's women have now taken the place of the more
lackadaisical and sentimental heroines of the past in the minds of many
girls.

Now that girls wish to be well, it is worth while to consider two
questions. First, why is health so important? Unless the answer to this
question is clear, how can any one be ready to sacrifice health to any
higher duty? Girls do sacrifice it frequently even when they know what
they are doing, but it is generally for a caprice, because they want to
dance later or skate longer, or study unreasonably; or sometimes they
cannot resist the temptation of food which is not convenient for them,
or they are willing to indulge their nerves too much, or it is too much
trouble not to take cold.

I wish every girl who knows that she does not live up to her light in
this respect would say to herself once a day for a month, "I ought to be
vigorously well if I want to do my part in the world, or to be in
thoroughly good spirits." I wish she would think of the meaning of what
she says, and then see if she does not do some things she is loth to do
and avoid some pleasing temptations. I believe a month's application of
this formula would give her a new insight into the value of health. I
speak not only of health, but of _vigorous_ health. We want to do our
part in the world, and that part ought to be our utmost. Agassiz could
work fifteen hours a day. Most of us could never do anything so
magnificent as that, and the attempt to do it would probably end in our
being unfitted to do any work at all. But suppose Agassiz had said,
"Twelve hours is too much for most men to work, so I can afford to be
careless of my surplus health as long as I have strength to work twelve
hours." The world would not only have lost much in the matter of his
discoveries, but the spirit of all his work would have been different. I
do not mean that it was necessarily the best thing for Agassiz even to
work fifteen hours a day on fishes. He might have given part of his time
to music, or friends, or novels, because he saw that, on the whole, such
recreation met the higher needs of life. But I mean that he was a ma