"Where shall we spend the holidays?" has doubtless been discussed in many households, by both parents and children,—I wonder if the children followed it up by a still more important question, "How shall I spend the holidays?" Just at the close of a term you will not want me to suggest anything that is like lessons, but at the same time I do not see why you should spend seven weeks in idleness and novel-reading, any more than you would live for seven weeks on puddings and sweets. You like plenty of sweets, and I hope you will get them, but I hope you will have meat as well!
There are many books which are not novels, and which you would yet enjoy,—books which would send you back more thoughtful; and though you might not know any one lesson better next term because of having read them, yet you would be a step nearer to being the sort of women you would like to be. I dare say when you go for your holiday you will get something to read at the station bookstall. Now, several of the books I mean can be got there, as easily as yellow novels, and can be got for the price of Punch; they are so small you could have them in your pocket and get them read in odds1 and ends of time, out-of-doors, so that you need not miss any expedition, or any fresh air, through staying in the house to study. In the same way you could get some really good poem for a penny, and learn it by heart. Nothing would please me so much as if you all brought me next term the name of some book you had read, of this kind, and repeated to me a poem of the sort that you think I should like—which very likely is not the sort you like, as yet. It would do you good, whether you enjoyed it or not, for you would be teaching yourselves to like the better kind of books if you persevered2 with it, and your holidays would be pleasanter, as well as better, if there was some effort of this kind to give backbone3 to each day. Cooks say there should be a pinch of salt in everything you eat, and I am sure we ought to have a pinch of the moral salt of self-conquest in each day, just to keep it sweet and good.
Perhaps you will think I am always wanting you to read, and you would like to remind me that there are many other commendable4 pursuits. I certainly am rather of the opinion Lowell expresses in "Democracy." He says, "Southey, in his walk one stormy day, met an old woman, to whom, by way of greeting, he made the rather obvious remark that it was dreadful weather. She answered, philosophically5, that, in her opinion, 'any sort of weather was better than none!'" I should be half inclined to say that any reading was better than none.
Yet you are quite right about those other pursuits, and I hope you will follow them; but at the same time, if you have not already got a taste for reading, it is the most important of all tastes for you to strive to acquire, as it is very doubtful if you will manage otherwise to do so in later life. I should pity you terribly if you failed to acquire it, for you will all find life hard in one way or another, and you will find that a love of reading is even more valuable than a sense of humour in helping6 you over rough places. And—over and above the minor7, more "worldly" support of its power of amusing and interesting you, even in the most "set grey life"—it is linked to those higher helps, without which, neither reading nor anything else will do us much good. St. Hugh of Lincoln made much of good books because he said they "made illness and sorrow endurable," and, besides this, they save you from many temptations. It has been well said, "It is very hard for a person who does not like reading to talk without sinning…. Reading hinders castle-building, which is an inward disease, wholly incompatible8 with devotion…. Towards afternoon a person who has nothing to do drifts rapidly away from God. To sit down in a chair without an object is to jump into a thicket9 of temptation. A vacant hour is always the devil's hour. Then a book is a strong tower, nay10, a very church, with angels lurking11 among the leaves."
But although I must allow reading to be my special hobby,—one, however, which is run very hard in my affections by both cooking and gardening,—still I quite appreciate other hobbies, and I should be quite as much pleased next term if, instead of telling me about books read and bringing me a piece of poetry learnt (by-the-by, I do very much wish you would all learn Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" during the holidays)—if, instead of this, you showed me collections of wild flowers or shells. A little time ago I saw a charming book of dried flowers, collected by a set of children just out of a kindergarten. Each flower had a page to itself, with its name neatly12 written, and any extra local names which it happened to possess. On the opposite page was written any verses of poetry that the children could find about it; and I was quite surprised to see what a good collection they had of bits from Tennyson and Shakespeare and Wordsworth, etc. Of course, the older sisters and the mothers must have helped them in this part, but such a book, made in the holidays, would be the work of the whole family, so you would have plenty of help; and you will notice that the poetical13 part of it is a special attraction to me, as it affords exercise to my own hobby both in reading and in verifying quotations15.
I think I had better here give you warning that when you come back next term every one will have to write an essay, describing some one place they have been to during the holidays. I tell you now, that you may try to find out all you can of the real interest of the place; its historical, or legendary16, or literary associations, or its flowers, or shells, or fossils.
There is one other point of holiday-making on which I should like to talk to you. Some of you may have read Charles Lamb's amusing essay on "Popular Fallacies;" I suppose every one could add to his list from their own experience of life. One of the popular fallacies I should like to combat is, that "holidays are 'the children's hour;'" though I quite allow that, like most popular fallacies, it has many grains of truth in it. The little victims consider that conscientious17 application to grammar and history deserves a compensating18 course of lying in bed in the morning, sitting up late at night, and general indulgence, with every right-minded member of the household waiting upon them, and making plans for their amusement. Now, I quite see their side of the question. It is not pleasant, day after day, to go on steadily19 with work, which you do not happen to care for; to be cut off from this or that expedition, because lessons interfere20; to have to get up early every morning; to lose this or that visit;—and, therefore, I hope your holidays may be full of fun, and that you may be richly rewarded for any struggles you may have made during the term.
But there is another side of it all, and term-time is "the children's hour," from one point of view.
Instead of the term being, for children, a time of self-denial, and the holidays, a time of well-earned self-indulgence,—I feel that term-time means self-denial for the parents, and selfishness for the children. Do not misunderstand me; the selfishness which I mean is forced upon you,—it is your duty, in term-time, to put lessons first. It may very well be that some of you feel you were wrongly selfish in your way of doing it,—that you allowed school work and school interests to blind you to the helpful things you might have done at home without any injury to the lessons. I occasionally hear such things as, that school is "so bad for girls, because So-and-so gets so engrossed21 with her work that she is irritable22 when any demand is made on her time, and is deep in her books when any demand is made on her sympathies; and when she is not studying, she and her school friends are running in and out of each other's houses, so that her mother might as well have no daughter at all." I do beg that none of you will bring this discredit23 on school life, for the system gets blamed when it is really your individual shortcoming which is in fault; you ought to be big enough to hold both school and home interests! But, setting aside this form of term-time selfishness, which we shall all agree to condemn24, there remains25 another form of it, which is a duty. You must put lessons first, or you will be wasting both your parents' money and that leisure for self-improvement, which, as a rule, is only granted to us while we are young. You are not free, yet, to be as useful at home as you would like to be; your mother has to do without a daughter, to a large extent, or to avail herself of one with the uncomfortable feeling that the daughter is losing valuable time thereby26, and probably is considering herself a martyr27 in having to do unscholastic duties. I dare say the daughter feels, "It isn't to please myself that I slave at my lessons; mother would be vexed28 if I didn't; and it's very hard that I should be both hindered in them and made to do other things as well,—it's quite bad enough in term-time to have to fag at lessons." But just consider, for a moment, this "fagging at lessons:" you feel that in so doing you are making a concession29 to your mother, for which she ought to show unbounded gratitude30 by all manner of sweetmeats in the holidays. But who profits by these lessons,—your mother, who denies herself many a small luxury to be able to pay for them, or you, who are being fitted by them to take a good place in after-life? It seems to me that the gratitude and the sweatmeats ought to flow from you to her; I quite see the force of it, if any girl feels what I have just described,—I flatter myself I generally do see the force of my victim's complaints; but it does not do my victim much good, because I generally also see the force of something else, which is of superior importance, but which the victim, very likely, will not see till she is older.
If you have read that pearl of stories, "Cranford," you will remember how Mrs. Jenkyns, to avoid explaining things to the small Deborah, "took to stirring the fire or sending the 'forrard' child on an errand." Now, unlike Mrs. Jenkyns, I believe in explaining my views to the "forrard" children, as I think the superiority of girls over boys consists in the remarkably31 early age at which girls begin to be reasonable! After expressing such a high opinion of you, I hope you will all prove me right, by seeing the truth that underlies32 the theory I am putting before you, which I am sure you will all be inclined to reckon as a fallacy!
There is no need for me to dwell on the desirability of holidays being made pleasant for you—fathers and mothers are only too ready to do it; but there is a need for somebody to dwell on the desirability of holidays being made pleasant for fathers and mothers. They are too unselfish generally to speak for themselves, especially in holiday time. I hear them saying, in deprecation of my hard-heartedness, "Oh, let the poor children have a good time! they can only be young once; they work hard at school, let them have a little fun in the holidays." I quite agree: I believe in as much fun as you can get: I should like to be able to insist as sternly on your all enjoying yourselves in the holidays, as I should on your working in term-time. There was a great deal of sound wisdom in that Eastern potentate33, who proclaimed a general holiday, adding, "Make merry, my children, make merry; he who does not make merry will be flogged!"
At the same time, much as I care for your having fun, I do not see why "fun" should mean upsetting all the household arrangements, and doubling the servants' work, by your late hours in the morning; at all events, after the first few mornings, when perhaps it is only natural you should wish to feel your liberty. But sooner or later you will have to learn that liberty, for reasonable beings, only means being free to forge your own chains,—being free to make such rules as you know are necessary, if you are to live a wholesome34, health-giving life. Being late for prayers is hardly a form of self-government which we should admire in the abstract, though it is very tempting35 in practice; and keeping your mother waiting for her breakfast, or else letting her have a solitary36 meal, is hardly a good way of being that domestic sunbeam which schoolgirls are supposed to have time to be,—in holidays!
Holidays are sometimes spent in incessant37 excursions with young friends, leaving your mother at home to look after the little ones; and yet, perhaps, your mother had a very dull time of it in term-time, when you were either at work, and could not be spoken to, or were busy over school gossip with some friend, and, perhaps, she looked forward to the holidays as a time when she would get a little companionship from the daughter for whom she makes so many sacrifices. But she is too unselfish to be the least drag upon you; so she asks a school friend to stay with you, and, somehow, always has a good reason for really wanting not to join the expedition, and takes the younger ones off your hands with an air of its being almost self-indulgence on her part to do it. But, all the same, whatever she says, mothers like going about too, and, even if they do not, they like to feel that their presence makes part of their daughter's pleasure in the holiday pleasurings. You may think it very hard-hearted and mistaken of me to suppose that you would be so selfish with your mother, but I have, often and often, seen it done, and I feel like a little boy I know, who can hardly speak yet, but who is evidently born to be a general redresser38 of wrongs,—he is very quickly struck by any instance of the folly39 and injustice40 of the world, and his favourite remark is, "Somebody ought to tell them; why shouldn't I?" Now, somebody ought to say this about mothers, and the mothers who do the unselfish things are the last people who will ever remind you that they, too, have feelings, so I will usurp41 that little boy's office, and tell you myself, for I am quite sure that, if it ever struck you, you would be shocked at doing it, but,
"Evil is wrought42 by want of thought,
As well as want of heart."
However, I do not intend to make this my closing quotation14, as I am sure my children will have plenty of both heart and thought, and that they will shed around them a full supply of that sunshine which the weather seems so determined43 to deny us! I suppose we must allow, with Southey's old woman, that "any weather is better than none," but it is incontestable that we seem likely to have every opportunity afforded us, during these holidays, at all events, of
"Making a sunshine in a shady place."
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1
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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2
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
backbone
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| n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气 | |
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4
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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6
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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7
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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8
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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9
thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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10
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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11
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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12
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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13
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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14
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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15
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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16
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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17
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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18
compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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19
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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20
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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21
engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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23
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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24
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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25
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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28
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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29
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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30
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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31
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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32
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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potentate
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| n.统治者；君主 | |
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34
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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36
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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37
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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38
redresser
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| 改正[修正，调整，补偿]者；解调器 | |
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39
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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40
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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41
usurp
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| vt.篡夺，霸占；vi.篡位 | |
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42
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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43
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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