"Caper nimbly in a lady's chamber!"
If you are fond of playing at chess and other games, it will be worth your while to observe yourself until you have fixed habits of entire politeness, under such circumstances. All unnecessary movements, every manifestation of impatience or petulance, and all exultation when successful, should be repressed. Thus, while seeking amusement, you may acquire self-control.
Begin early to remember that health and good spirits are easily impaired, and that habit will materially assist us in the patient endurance of suffering we should manifest for the sake of those about us—attendants, friends, "the bosom-friend dearer than all," whom no philosophy can teach insensibility to the semblance of unkindness from one enthroned in her affections.
Don't fall into the habit, because you are a branch of the Lunettes family, of using glasses prematurely. Students are much in error here. Every young divinity-student, especially, seems emulous of this troublesome appendage. Depend on it, this is all wrong, either absurd affectation, or ignorance equally unfortunate.
Ladies, it is said, are the readers of America, but who ever sees the dear creatures donning spectacles in youth? Enter a female college and look for the glasses that, were the youthful devotees of learning there assembled of the other sex, would deform half the faces you observe. Much better were it to inform yourselves of the laws of optics, and use the organs now so generally abused by the young, judiciously, resting them, when giving indications of being overtaxed, rather than endeavoring to supply artificial aid to their natural strength. Students, especially, should always read and write with the back to the light, so seated that the light falls not upon the eyes, but upon the book or paper before them. That reminds me, too, how important it is that one should not stoop forward more constantly than is necessary, while engaged in sedentary pursuits, but lean back rather than forward, as much as possible, throwing out the chest at the same time. Many books admit of being raised in the hand, in aid of this practice, and the habit of rising occasionally, and expanding the chest, and straightening the limbs will be found to relieve the weariness of the sedentary.
But nothing so effectually prevents injury to health, from studious habits, as early rising. This gives time for the out-door exercise that is so requisite as well as for the use of the eyes by daylight. There is a great deal of nonsense mixed up with our literature, which seizes the fancy of the young, because embodied in poetry, or clothed with the charm of fiction. Of this nature is what we read about, "trimming the midnight lamp," to search for the Pierean spring. Obey the
"Breezy call of incense-breathing morn,"
and she will environ you with a joyous band of blooming Hours, and guide you gaily and lightly towards sparkling waters, whose properties are Knowledge and Health!
But if you would habitually rise early, you must not permit every trivial temptation to prevent your also retiring early. The laws of fashionable life are sorely at variance with those of Health, on this point, as well as upon many others; but, happily, they are not absolute, and those who have useful purposes to accomplish each day, must withstand the tyranny of this arbitrary despot. Time for the toilet, for exercise, for intellectual culture and mental relaxation, is thus best secured. By using the earlier hours of each day for our most imperative occupations, we are far less at the mercy of contingent circumstances than we can become by any other system of life. "Solitude," says Gibbon, "is the school of Genius," and the advantages of this tuition are most certainly secured before the idlers of existence are abroad!