Advice to Young Ladies/Chapter 4
Chapter IV.
Habits of Order and Neatness.
The habits of early life are those that remain with us longest. In fact, it is almost impossible, afterwards, fully to correct them, if bad. Habits of order are among the most important that can be formed; for, without them, every effort made through life to accomplish any thing will be hindered by defects. In seeking to form these habits, if a disposition to be orderly do not exist, a young lady should begin by having in her own room a place for every thing, and next she should be very careful always to have every thing in its place. This will require a little thoughtful arrangement at first, and afterwards call for only a moderate degree of resolution and watchfulness. The fact of being in a hurry should never be admitted as an excuse for breaking through this rule. The time gained by throwing a thing down upon the bed, a chair, or a table, instead of restoring it to its appropriate place in the drawer, or closet, is so small that it is not worth considering. Fifteen or twenty seconds, or a minute at most, are always sufficient for this purpose.
A proper regard for time is a thing of great importance, and absolutely necessary to the formation of an orderly habit of doing things. Some persons will waste one hour, and then crowd into the next the duties of both. Of course, the duties are discharged imperfectly. It could not be otherwise. This habit is the parent of much disorder. How often is it the case that a young lady has an engagement to pay some visits with a friend, for whom she is to call at a certain hour. The friend is ready precisely at the time appointed, but the young lady does not make her appearance for thirty or forty minutes. “O dear!” she exclaims, coming in all out of breath, and exhibiting sundry defects in her toilet arrangements, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I got so interested in a book, that I entirely forgot the time, until I heard the clock strike the hour at which I was to be here. I have had almost to throw my clothes on, and no doubt look like a perfect fright!” Again, the same young lady is making a visit, and becomes so much interested in her companions that she lets the hour at which she is to take her lesson in French or music go by, leaving her teacher to wait impatiently for her, and neglecting a matter of real importance for the enjoyment, it may be, of a little frivolous chit-chat. There is a time for all things, as well as a place for every thing, and the doing of things at proper times, and the keeping of things in their proper places, are essential to the orderly and efficient discharge of life’s most serious as well as most trivial duties.
The importance of orderly habits is never fully understood by the young who have friends to care for them and supply their wants. But there comes a time in life when duties, various and pressing, meet a woman at every turn—duties which it will be impossible for her to discharge well, unless all be done in an orderly series. If thus done, they will rarely seem burdensome. It is the confliction of duties that frets the mind, not the number of them; and there is always this confliction where there is no habit of order.
One of the strongest reasons for urging upon the young the formation of habits of order, is the indisputable fact, that at the time in life when such habits are most needed, it is almost, if not quite, impossible to form them, the opposite habit of disorder having become, by long indulgence, too fixed for eradication.
Want of order in a woman is not a defect the evils of which are visited upon herself alone. Every woman, as well as every man, must lead an active life, in some sphere or other. Nearly every thing that we do has reference to and affects others. There is scarcely a single action that is not felt, with the good or evil that appertains to it, by others. If, from any cause, we perform our allotted offices in the world defectively, we do others a wrong; and defect must attend every effort, which is not made and continued in an orderly way. If the mother have no habits of order, will not her children suffer in consequence? If the wife have similar defects, will they not be felt by her husband? Such must be the inevitable result, not only in these instances, but in every thing that pertains to a woman’s domestic and social relations.
Order, then, is the essential prerequisite of every truly efficient action. Without it, nothing can be done well; with it, there is no duty in life that may not be rightly performed. Without it, the lightest task is burdensome; with it, that which to look at seems almost herculean becomes a matter of easy accomplishment.
But let it not be forgotten that the habit of order must be formed in early years. When life’s most serious duties press upon the mind, and demand the exercise of all its energies, there is no time to think about systems of order, and little inclination to attempt doing so.
Neatness almost invariably accompanies order; indeed, the one is nearly inseparable from the other. When we see a neat person, we expect to find one who is orderly in all her habits, and we are rarely mistaken. Neatness in dress should be regarded as much as neatness in every thing that is done. A want of neatness, as well as a want of order, shows a defect in the mind, the correction of which is essential to happiness. The only way to correct any such defect is to act in opposition to it. Into every action there must come down, as its principle of life, some power or faculty of the mind. If, instead of doing every thing carelessly, and letting all things around us fall into confusion, we compel ourselves to act with order and neatness, an orderly principle of the mind comes into activity, in an orderly form of ultimate life, and the disorderly principle, finding no form in the ultimate life for its activity, lies dormant on the circumference of the mind, and, unless there be a relapse into disorderly action, will lie there forever dormant.
We would urge upon our young readers most earnestly to reflect upon what we have just said, and to endeavor, before passing on, to fully understand it; for the last paragraph we have written contains the most simple, and, at the same time, the only true philosophy of reformation. It is applicable as well to the whole life, and all that appertains to it, as to the particular thing to which we have applied it. It is only by compelling ourselves to act right, that we can do any thing towards correcting the inherited disorders of our minds. We may have right thoughts, but if we only think right, and make no effort to do right, we do not advance a single step in the work of reformation.
This is the reason why we so often meet with persons who seem fully to understand the theory of right living, but who actually live in a manner very different from the ideal perfection which they presented with so much vividness and beauty. We remember once hearing a lady discourse with great eloquence on the use and power of order in all domestic arrangements. She spoke of its effects upon children, and drew a most glowing picture of a family in which order reigned in all things supreme. Some months afterwards, on becoming more intimately acquainted with this lady, who was a woman of some literary attainments, we accepted an invitation to take tea and spend an evening with her. The conversation alluded to was still fresh in our recollection, and we fully expected to see a family-model of neatness and order. But we were sadly disappointed. Worse behaved children, or a more disorderly household, we have never seen. The mother was a capital thinker, but that was all.