The Young Lady’s Friend by Mrs John Farrar, otherwise known as Eliza Ware Farrar, was first published in Boston, America, in 1838. Intended as a coming-of-age guide for middle-class young ladies upon leaving school aged 15-20, the book offers guidance and advice on how they should navigate the new stage of their life in the society of the time.
Eliza Ware Farrar was born in France in 1791. During the French Revolution she left France with her family for England, where she was educated. She later moved to America, where she married her American husband in 1828, who was a professor at Harvard. Eliza Ware Farrar had several children’s books published during the 1830s, however her most important work was The Young Lady’s Friend. This was widely popular in both America and England, reprinted as late as 1880. She died in 1870, aged 78.
A lot of the book’s interest comes from its historic context and learning about the position of young ladies in the culture of the time. Some of the advice given and certain attitudes are very much outdated, showing their cultural context. However, I think there is still value to be taken from other parts of Eliza Ware Farrar’s advice. She encourages her readers to embark upon a life of constant self-improvement, founded in her Christian faith, and promotes intellectual learning alongside practical service and consideration for others. The full text is freely available online and can be read here. Below I’ve shared a selection of quotations that I thought were interesting or helpful.
On Time Management
‘By having regular hours for the different employments of the day, you will avoid the great waste of time, which is occasioned by uncertainty as to what you shall do next.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If the minutes were counted, that are daily spent in idle reverie or idler talk, in thinking of setting about a task that is not relished, and in looking for things that should never have been mislaid, they would soon amount to hours, and prove sufficient to the acquisition of some elegant art, or the study of some useful science.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Never use up a rainy morning in doing a variety of little jobs, and think, because you despatch a great many, you have well bestowed your time; leave small affairs for odd half-hours, and use your uninterrupted morning for something that cannot be done in half-hours.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘As a general rule for living neatly and saving time, it is better to keep clean than to make clean.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Pouring Tea
‘There is more to be learned about pouring out teas and coffee, than most young ladies are willing to believe… I have often seen persons pour out tea, who, not being at all aware that the first cup is the weakest, and that the tea grows stronger as you proceed, have bestowed the poorest cup upon the greatest stranger, and given the strongest to a very young member of the family who would have been better without any. Where several cups of equal strength are wanted, you should pour a little into each, and then go back inverting the order as you fill them up, and then the strength will be apportioned properly.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Hospitality
‘When friends come to see you, uninvited, do the best you can to entertain them well, but make no comment or apology; for that always sounds to your guests like a reproach for taking you unawares.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Nursing
‘Whatever infirmities of temper are betrayed by the sick, consider yourself bound by the charities of your office, as nurse, to bear them patiently, and never to speak of them. The only legitimate use to be made of them is that of learning to avoid similar faults, when you are yourself equally tempted.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Dress
‘A pure taste in dress may be gratified at a small expense; for it does not depend on the costliness of the materials employed, but on the just proportions observed in the forms, and an harmonious arrangement of colours.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘All styles of dress, therefore, which impede the motions of the wearer, which do not sufficiently protect the person, which add unnecessarily to the heat of summer, or to the cold of winter, which do not suit the age and occupations of the wearer, or which indicate an expenditure unsuited to her means, are inappropriate, and therefore destitute of one of the essential elements of beauty.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘The same honesty and self-respect… should prevent your wearing anything, even out of sight, that you would be ashamed to have seen, if sudden indisposition caused it to be exposed before strangers.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If your clothes are washed every week, you only want changes enough to last two weeks; that allows you time to mend your clothes after they come out of the wash.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Filial Behaviour
‘It is to be feared, that some young ladies think themselves excused from the duty of filial reverence, because they are more highly educated than their parents; they have more knowledge, more refinement, and therefore they may dictate, contradict, and set up their judgements in opposition to their fathers’ and mothers’. But this is a great mistake; no superiority of culture can change the relation of child and parent, or annul the duties that grow out of it. The better your education has been, the more cause for gratitude to those who have procured for you this blessing… the more your influence is needed in the family, the more important it is, that you should not impair it,’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘There is besides a great meanness in turning against your parents the weapons which their kindness has put in your hands. The acquirements of their children often make parents feel their own deficiencies very painfully; and nothing but the most respectful behaviour, on the part of the offspring, can lessen the mortification,’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘The sympathy you will so often need from affectionate parents, you must abundantly repay, or you will become selfish and exacting.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If you happen to be alone in your mother’s parlour when a friend of hers enters, who is a stranger to you, you should rise to receive her, as if you were mistress of the house; place a chair for her, and enter conversation with her, till your mother appears, when you may quietly withdraw, unless she so introduces you, as to indicate her wish that you should stay and make the acquaintance.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Brothers
‘The important relation which sisters bear to brothers cannot be fully appreciated, without a greater knowledge of the world and its temptations to young men, than girls in their teens can be supposed to possess; and therefore I would beg you to profit by my experience in this matter, and to believe me when I assure you, that your companionship and influence may be powerful agents in preserving your brothers from dissipation, in saving them from dangerous intimacies, and maintaining in their minds a high standard of female excellence.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If your brothers are younger than you, encourage them to be perfectly confidential with you; win their friendship by your sympathy in all their concerns, and let them see that their interests and their pleasures are liberally provided for in the family arrangements.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If you are so happy as to have elder brothers, you should be equally as assiduous in cultivating their friendship, though the advances must of course be differently made. As they have long been accustomed to treat you as a child, you may meet with some repulses when you aspire to become a companion and friend; but do not be discouraged by this. The earlier maturity of girls, will soon render you their equal in sentiment, if not in knowledge, and your ready sympathy will soon convince them of it. They will be agreeably surprised, when they find their former plaything and messenger become their quick-sighted and intelligent companion, understanding at a glance what is passing in their hearts; and love and confidence on your part will soon be repaid in kind.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘ Brothers and sisters may greatly aid each other in judging of their friends of the opposite sex. Brothers can throw important light on the character and merits of young men, because they see them when acting out their natures before their comrades, and relieved from the restraints of the drawing-room; and you can in return, greatly assist your brothers in coming to wise and just conclusions concerning their female friends.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Family
‘If your heart is right towards God, and you feel that the great business of life is the education of your immortal spirits for eternity, you will easily bear with the infirmities of others, because you will be fully impressed with a sense of your own;’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘It is a mistake to suppose that the nearness of the relationship makes it allowable; the more intimate our connection with any one, the more necessary it is to guard ourselves against taking unwarrantable liberties. For the very reason that you are obliged to be so much together, you should take care to do nothing disagreeable to each other.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Genuine politeness is a great fosterer of family love; it allays accidental irritation, by preventing harsh retorts or rude contractions; it softens the boisterous, stimulates the indolent, suppresses selfishness, and, by forming a habit of consideration for others, harmonises the whole.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Female Friendships
‘You can always judge better of a person’s character by her manner of talking with others, than what she addresses directly to you, and by what she says of others, than by what she says to them.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Inadvertently betraying the secrets of one friend to another is a cruel injury and a fruitful source of difficulty. Do not suffer yourself to be easily bound to secrecy, for keeping a secret is a very troublesome and disagreeable thing; but, when you are thus pledged, be scrupulously faithful.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Speak of yourself only to your intimate friends, and of them, let the number be very limited and very well chosen.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If you would cultivate refinement of manners, you must never allow yourself to be rude or boisterous with your young companions.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Whilst you strive to bear being laughed at yourself, be very careful how you inflict that pain on others. When a good-humoured laugh has involuntarily been indulged in, at the expense of one of the company, you should always try to say or do something directly after, which shall assure the person laughed at, that she has lost no esteem or regard by being the object of your merriment.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Gossip
‘It is very difficult, and requires all “the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove,” to talk of people, without violating the laws of charity or of truth; it is therefore best to avoid it.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘When you receive your young friends at your own house, you should consider yourself responsible for the direction which the conversation takes; and, if it is becoming uncharitable or unprofitable, you should feel bound to give it a safer and better impulse. The introduction of a beautiful annual, or portfolio of prints and drawings, will often answer the purpose;’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Beware lest you become a meddler, in the vain hope of being a peace-maker.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Remember the liability of a letter to miscarry, to be opened by the wrong person, to be seen by other eyes than those for whom it is meant, and be very careful what you write to the disadvantage of any one.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Behaviour to Gentlemen
‘What a pity it is, that that thousandth chance of a gentleman becoming your lover, should deprive you of the pleasure of a free, unembarrassed, intellectual intercourse with all the single men of your acquaintance! Yet such is too commonly the case with young ladies, who have read a great many novels and romances, and whose heads are always running on love and lovers.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘The less your mind dwells on lovers and matrimony, the more agreeable and profitable will be your intercourse with gentlemen.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Converse always with your female friends, as if a gentleman were of the party, and with young men, as if your female companions were present.’
Anonymous
‘Love, in the heart of a woman, should partake largely of the nature of gratitude; she should love, because she is already loved by one deserving her regard; and if you never allowed yourself to think of gentlemen in the light of lovers or husbands until you were asked to do so, you would escape much suffering.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Refusing Gentlemen
‘The offer of a man’s heart and hand, is the greatest compliment he can pay you, and, however undesirable to you those gifts may be, they should be courteously and kindly declined, and, since a refusal is, to most men, not only a disappointment, but a mortification, it should always be prevented, if possible. Men have various ways of cherishing and declaring their attachment; those who indicate the bias of their feelings in many intelligible ways, before they make a direct offer, can generally be spared the pain of a refusal.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘It is his secret [that you rejected a gentleman], and you have no right to tell it to anyone; but if your parents are your confidential friends on all other occasions, he will not blame you for telling them. Your young female friends should never be allowed to tease or banter you into the betrayal of this secret.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘If, when your own behaviour has been unexceptional, your refusal to marry a man produces resentment, it argues some fault of character in him, and can only be lamented in silence.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Never think the less of a man because he has been refused, even if it be by a lady whom you do not highly value. It is nothing to his disadvantage.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Good Manners
‘If you wish to be a well-bred lady, you must carry your good manners everywhere with you. It is not a thing that can be laid aside and put on at pleasure… When you try to assume it for some special purpose, it will sit awkwardly upon you, and often fail you, at your utmost need.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘It [proper etiquette] is a trifle, compared to the more serious business of life, but still, even these trifles mark a defect of character.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘All unmeaning and unnecessary movements are contrary to the rules of grace and good-breeding. When not intentionally in motion, your body and limbs should be in perfect rest.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Your enjoyment of a party depends far less on what you find there, than on what you carry with you.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
On Conversation
‘The frequent use of some favourite word or phrase, is a common defect in conversation, and can only be guarded against by asking your friends to point it out to you, whenever they observe such a habit; for your own ear, having become accustomed to it, may not detect it.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Good conversation is one of the highest attainments of civilised society. It is the readiest way in which gifted minds exert their influence, and as such, is worthy of all consideration and cultivation.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
‘Some persons seem to forget that mere talking is not conversing; that it requires two to make a conversation, and that each must be, in turn, a listener; but no one can be an agreeable companion, who is not as willing to listen as to talk.’
Eliza Ware Farrar
Feminine Finishing School 