How much uneasiness is here caused by being just about one minute (and no more) too late! And whence came it? Not by her not knowing she was running a risk by being tardy. Not that she had no apprehensions of evil. Not because her conscience was uneducated, or unfaithful. It was neither, nor any of these. There was, in the first place, a little want of decision. She suffered herself to vacillate between a sense of duty and the inclination to say a few words more, or bestow another parting kiss. And in the second place, it was the wretched habit she had always indulged, of delaying and deferring every thing she put her head or her hand to, till the very last moment.
I will give you a brief but correct account of her general habits. Not that the picture is a very uncommon one, but that you may view it in connection with the anecdote I have related, and thus get a tolerable idea of the inconveniences to which the wretched habit of which I have spoken, is continually exposing her.
She makes it a rule—no, I will not say that, for she has no rules, but she has a sort of expectation on the subject—to rise at five o'clock. Yet I do not suppose she is up at five, six times in the year. She is never awake at that timer or but seldom, unless she is awakened. Her husband, indeed, makes it a sort of rule to wake her at that hour; but he, alas, poor man! has no roles for himself or others; and if he undertakes to awaken her at five, it is usually ten or fifteen minutes afterward; and if she is let alone, she is often in bed till half past five—oftener, indeed, than up earlier. The breakfast hour is six; but I never knew the family to sit down at six. It is ten minutes, fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, and sometimes forty-five minutes after six, before the breakfast is on the table. The fire will not burn, and the tea is not ready; or the milk or cream for the latter has not arrived; or something or other is the matter—so she says, and so she believes—and indeed sometimes so it is.
The dinner time is half past twelve-that is, professedly so; but it is not once in twenty times that they sit down much before one o'clock—and I have known it to be even later. So it is with supper; and I might add, with every thing else. If an engagement is made, directly or indirectly, positively or only implied, it is never fulfilled at the time. She is never in her seat at church, till almost every body else is in, and the services have commenced; although the kind, but too indulgent parson waits some five or ten minutes for his whole congregation—whom, alas! he has unwittingly trained to delay. In short, she does nothing, and performs nothing, punctually, not even going to bed; for this is deferred to a very late hour-sometimes till near midnight.
Now herein is the secret—the foundation, rather—of her trouble at Lowell. Had she been trained to punctuality in other things, she would, in all probability, have been punctual there. The misfortune which I have described, is but a specimen of what is ever and anon occurring in the history of her life.
Nor are her sufferings—though they are severe—from her unhappy habit, the end of the matter. I have already more than intimated that her companion has caught the disease; but it is still more visible in the conduct of her sons and daughters. They, like herself, seldom do any thing at the proper time. They are never punctual in their engagements, nor decided in their conduct. I know not, however, what the daughters may yet do—several of them being quite young. If they should chance to meet with better instructions than they are accustomed to receive—should take warning, and do all they can in the way of self-improvement—they may be able to break the chains of an inveterate and almost unconquerable habit, and make themselves useful in their day and generation.
I do think, most sincerely, that if all the rest of the world were disorderly, or fell short in matters of punctuality, the young woman should not do so. Let her, in every duty, learn to be in time. Let her resolve to do every thing a little before the time arrives; nothing, a moment after it.
The keeper of a boarding house, who is at the same time the principal of one of our most flourishing schools for both males and females, makes it a point to have every one of his boarders in their seats at dinner, when the clock strikes twelve, which is the appointed hour.
And the late principal of a very highly distinguished female school in Boston, used to have every exercise regulated by a clock kept in the room; and whatever else was going on—whether it was finished or unfinished—whenever the hour for another exercise arrived, it was attended to. The whole school, as if with one impulse, seemed to obey the hour, rather than the teacher. Such order and punctuality, every where and in every thing, constitute the beauty of life; and I was going to say, the beauty of heaven—of which this life should be a sort of emblem. Heaven, in any event, is not only a world of order, but of punctuality also; and she who goes there, must be prepared to observe both, or it will be no heaven to her.
As I have strongly insisted in respect to the formation of other important habits, so in regard to this. It must be commenced in the smaller matters of life. Let the young woman be in time—that is, be punctual—in the performance of what she regards as trifles, and when she becomes a matron, she will seldom be tardy in what are deemed the weightier matters.