The Young Lady's Counsellor by Daniel Wise

134 THE YOUNG LADY'S COUNSELLOR.
a male protector, — yet since she may be, by adverse
events, thrown wholly upon her own resources, —
and since, in the actual conflicts of life, with the best
of parents, brothers or husbands, she will need to
lean much upon herself, — I earnestly counsel you,
my dear young reader, to assiduously cultivate a
habit of self-reliance.
Seek such attainments as will
enable you to confide in yourself,— to rise equal to
your exig-encies. Acquire an inward principle of
self-support. Then, if the rock of your early
strength be smitten, and the proud oak on which you
lean, with the fondness of a first afTection, be blasted,
you may, nevertheless, stand erect, in mournful but
triumphant superiority, amid the hapless wreck.
" Hopes are fallacies. Disappointment is the only
certainty of life." This is a saying you can scarcely
credit. You are yet too young to readily believe
that life is anything worse than a sea,
** Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bouud."
A few years more of life, however, will write that
saying ia deep lines upon your heart You wil