This
filial confidence supposes, also, in a young lady a sincere
diffidence in her self, a consciousness of her own weakness which, so
far from being a fault, is the result of true humility. Those young
ladies who are wanting in confidence in their own mothers are indeed
great objects of compassion. For this confidence is not only an
essential condition to their advancement in virtue, but also one of
their principal safeguards against deception and intrigue.
The heart of woman, especially at your age, feels an imperative need
of making a confidant of some one, and if that one is not her mother,
it will be some friend who, perhaps, will not possess greater
experience nor more wisdom or force than herself, and consequently,
instead of giving the proper counsel, will add evil to evil by the
fatal help of encouragement in a course that should be abandoned.
Rest assured that you can never find any one able to fill the
mother's place in this regard. This unreserved abandonment to a
mother's confiding heart is not always possible, since death often
interferes. When such is the case it is a great misfortune for a
young lady--a misfortune that can scarcely be retrieved in her
lifetime.
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