So you can see, Caroline, the tremendous responsibility you will be taking upon yourself when you marry, and how terribly, tragically foolish it will be of you to enter into this bond lightly and without due reflection. Now for the other subject I alluded to: the permitting and encouraging of vagrant fancies. In these days, when no discipline has been taught girls, and very little principle, they are prone to indulge any caprice which comes into their heads. Good-looking and attractive young women like you, Caroline, are bound to have many temptations to look elsewhere for diversions very soon after they are married. And here wisdom--quite apart from high principle--should teach you to resist as much as possible, because of the end. Ask yourself if it is worth while to start a ball rolling which can only roll down hill--if it is worth while, for the momentary gratification of vanity, to open a door which will let in complete disillusion for the life which you have undertaken to live. Because all forbidden excitements are like drugs--they have to be taken in stronger and stronger doses to produce their effect, until the patient is a wretched maniac or dies under the strain. Suggestion and a strong will are such great helps to happiness. Suggest to your subconscious mind that you are perfectly happy and contented with your legitimate mate--make the current between you one of tenderness and charm, and sternly control every unbalanced fancy. I quote here another of my maxims: “It is a wise man who knows when he is happy and can appreciate the divine bliss of the tangible _now_. Most of us retrospect or anticipate, and so lose the present.” Do not retrospect--do not anticipate. Go on from day to day enjoying the good things which fate has given you: _ménage_ them like a careful housewife--use forethought--quite a different thing to anticipation! Recognize that you are happy and decide what makes you so, and how you can continue to employ the methods to keep this joyous state. Be perfectly calm, and believe that nothing can alter or interrupt the enchanting present. For do not forget--each one draws to himself or herself what his or her thoughts dwell upon. Those who lay up for a rainy day attract the rainy day as surely as those who always believe that good will come secure good. A very useful thing for you to do is to look round at all your young married friends, and see what niches they have carved for themselves in the world--which ones are considered and have prestige, which are treated as nobodies, which are laughed at or pitied. Then try to decide upon the grade in public opinion you would desire to occupy yourself, and what are the causes of your friends being in whatever places they are. You will get a number of advantageous hints if you do this before you embark upon marriage yourself.