Past caring

In Competition No. 2509 you were asked to provide an extract from a Victorian self-help book.

Self-help by Samuel Smiles was a hit when it was published in 1859. Almost 150 years later it is described on Amazon.com as ‘the precursor of today’s motivational and self-help literature’. This strikes me as a rather desperate attempt by marketing people to tap into the seemingly insatiable appetite of modern self-help addicts. They may be in for disappointment, though. There are no quick fixes from Smiles, who preaches hard work, thrift and perseverance, a message that won’t go down well with today’s debt-laden, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now generation. There is a predictable absence of women as inspirational examples in the book (except as men’s ‘help-mates’). D.A. Prince, who gets this week’s bonus fiver, captures well the lot of the fairer sex in what could be a 19th-century version of that contemporary self-help classic If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single? The other winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 apiece. 

Eyes are the window of the soul, gleaming bright and open to all the brilliance of God’s creation. It is every young woman’s duty to enhance both her spiritual centre and best feature by the exercise of deep contemplation and close attention. Consider the lilies of the field: how will your eyes light up when your amour presents a bouquet?
  Consider the fall of a sparrow: can your eyes show appropriate sorrow? Are they communicative, compassionate? Can they encompass the ample scope of the Beatitudes, to whose expressive range all should aspire? When you practise meekness in your heart, confirm it also in your mirror, looking for that depth of sincerity that melts a man’s heart. When you are hungry, as the modern waist demands, let your eyes give it the spiritual dimension that wins a man’s affection and protection. Do