have formed of its inadequacy to meet your wishes, which is the cause of your want of integrity; for no one can act in strict accordance with the principles of integrity, until they have learned to practise economy. By economy, I do not mean simply the art of saving money, hut the nobler science of employing it for the best purposes, and in its just proportions.
In order to act out the principles of integrity in all their dignity, and all their purity, it is highly important, too, that young women should begin in early life to entertain a scrupulous delicacy with regard to incurring pecuniary obligations; and especially, never to throw themselves upon the politeness of gentlemen, to pay the minutest sum in the way of procuring for them gratification, or indulgence. I do not say that they may not frequently be so circumstanced, as, with the utmost propriety, to receive such kindness from near relations, or even from elderly persons; but I speak of men in general, upon whom they have not the claim of kindred; and I have observed the carelessness with which some young ladies tax the politeness—nay, the purses of gentlemen, respecting which it would be difficult to say, whether it indicated most an absence of delicate feeling, or an absence of integrity.
I am aware, that, in many cases, this unsatisfactory kind of obligation is most difficult to avoid, and, sometimes, even impossible; yet, a prompt and serious effort should always be made—and made in such a way that you shall clearly be understood to have both the wish, and the power, to pay your own expenses. If the wish is waiting, I can have nothing to say in so humiliating a case; but if you have not the means of defraying your own charges, it is plain that you have no right to enjoy your pleasures at the expense of another. There are, however, different ways of proposing to discharge such debts; and there is
