Industry is a leading feature of Solomon’s ideal, and nothing but plenty to do can possibly keep our minds fresh and sweet, and wholesome and strong,—­and hence, strengthening for others.  Feeling is the only part of a woman’s nature which will develop of itself:—­her mind will not grow unless definitely cultivated, and no more will her conscience, but if she leave the field fallow, weeds of foolish feelings and fancies spring up on all sides.  This is why it is your duty, when you leave, not to allow yourself to be idle:  not only because God expects you to bring your sheaves with you at the Last Day, but because your field cannot stand empty—­if good grain is not there, weeds will be.  And manual work—­gardening or housework—­gives more fresh air to the mind than anything else.  If you ever, as Punch expresses it, “find your doll stuffed with sawdust,” if life seems a disappointment, and you are a prey to foolish fancies, and have lost your spring, then try being really tired out in body by useful work, and see if you do not find it an effectual tonic.  Some say that these “mental measles” are a phase which the modern girl must inevitably pass through:  perhaps so, but I should be disappointed if you went through them,—­at all events, if you did so in the hopelessly idiotic way that many do!  I should be disappointed if, in the future, you came and said, “I am in the dark, and Life is all a tangle!” I do feel you ought to have learnt that “the light of Duty shines on every day for all.”  “We always have as much light as we need, though often not as much as we would like,” and if you honestly want to do your next duty, you will have light enough to do it by.  Come to me, by all means, if you like, and say, “I feel idle and good-for-nothing, and don’t particularly want to see my Duty!” but do not moan about Life being all perplexity!  It is always nobler to do your duty than to leave it undone:  make this principle your sheet-anchor, and spiritual feelings and light will come some day, if God sees fit.  It does not always do to apply direct remedies to these “measles:”  if your mind is out of gear, leave it alone, and attack it through the body by industry.  And industry at home is best; here was the true strength of the Virtuous Woman.  The strength of her modern descendant lies abroad:  she is strong and admirable, she does splendid work, but there is always a tinge of excitement to help one through outside work.  Things done among father and mother, brothers and sisters, are either very peaceful or very flat, according as your feelings are either wholesome or unwholesome—­there is none of the pleasurable excitement, generally more or less feverish, of working with friends we love and admire; it is the difference between milk and wine.  I do not think wine wrong, but I think it is much better to cultivate a taste for milk; you must watch yourselves, and not get to feel home things dull.  Some are so strong in home, so wrapped up in their