l, you may suspect that fifteen minutes
of study would not hurt you.

Do you know that you are never resting when you are thinking that you
are tired? When you are tired rest at once, if you can, by sitting or
lying down, or taking recreation, as experience has shown you to be
best. But then think no more about it. Perhaps you may be overworking.
If you truly believe this and see any possibility of saving yourself, do
so, even if you have to give up something which seems particularly
important. If you _must_ overwork,--and there are such cases, though
they are not so common as we think,--accept the condition as a part of
the discipline of life, rest whenever you can, and say and think as
little about it as you can. This advice is to save you from one form of
the nervous diseases which are the peculiar misfortune of our time.

If your work is sedentary take physical exercise in your leisure
time,--out of doors, if possible; but remember that housework is the
best substitute for that.

The women who are not obliged to work are those who most need this
precept. They can drive, and by and by they cannot walk. They can lie on
the lounge when they feel indisposed, and they lie there long after they
would get up if they had any work to do. They have the best chance for
complete physical development, but they have great temptations to
neglect their opportunities. Among the sweetest of such women there is
an alarming amount of nervous disease, which is, alas! at the foundation
a refined selfishness. To speak plainly, as one has said, we are all as
lazy as we dare to be, and these women have no check upon laziness. No
power of body or mind can be preserved without exercise, and the muscles
grow soft, and the moral fibre grows weak. These women are lovely, they
speak in gentle voices, and they never use a harsh word, but they rule
all about them with a rod of iron. Dr. Weir Mitchell, in his blunt way,
says that nervous diseases among women have destroyed the happiness of
more families than intemperance.

By and by the invalid cannot rally even if she has the will, but it is
hard to decide where responsibility ends. If your mothers or your aunts
are nervous invalids, do not judge them. Causes may have been at work
which you cannot see. Pity their terrible misfortune, and do all you can
to make them happy. But you, who have the added light of another
generation, are inexcusable if you fall into such a state.

How can you avoid