Allowing, however, that women are equal to our sex in natural abilities;

from their situation in society, from their domestic duties, their taste

for dissipation, their love of romance, poetry, and all the lighter

parts of literature, their time must be so fully occupied, that they

could never have leisure for, even supposing that they were capable of,

that severe application to which our sex submit.--Between persons of

equal genius and equal industry, time becomes the only measure of their

acquirements.--Now calculate the time which is wasted by the fair sex,

and tell me how much the start of us they ought to have in the beginning

of the race, if they are to reach the goal before us?--It is not

possible that women should ever be our equals in knowledge, unless you

assert that they are far our superiors in natural capacity.--Not only

time but, opportunity must be wanting to complete female studies:--we

mix with the world without restraint, we converse freely with all

classes of people, with men of wit, of science, of learning, with the

artist, the mechanic, the labourer; every scene of life is open to our

view; every assistance that foreign or domestic ingenuity can invent, to

encourage literary studies, is ours almost exclusively. From academies,

colleges, public libraries, private associations of literary men, women

are excluded, if not by law, at least by custom, which cannot easily be

conquered.--Whenever women appear, even when we seem to admit them as

our equals in understanding, every thing assumes a different form; our

politeness, delicacy, habits towards the sex, forbid us to argue or to

converse with them as we do with one another:--we see things as they

are; but women must always see things through a veil, or cease to be

women.--With these insuperable difficulties in their education and in

their passage through life, it seems impossible that their minds should

ever acquire that vigour and _efficiency_, which accurate knowledge and

various experience of life and manners can bestow.

Much attention has lately been paid to the education of the female sex;

and you will say that we have been amply repaid for our care,--that

ladies have lately exhibited such brilliant proofs of genius, as must

dazzle and confound their critics. I do not ask for proofs of genius, I

ask for solid proofs of utility. In which of the useful arts, in which

of the exact sciences, have we been assisted by female sagacity

or penetration?--I should be glad to see a list of discoveries, of

inventions, of observations, evincing patient research, of truths

established upon actual experiment, or deduced by just reasoning from

previous principles:--if these, or any of these, can be presented by a

female champion for her sex, I shall be the first to clear the way for

her to the temple of Fame.

I must not speak of my contemporaries, else candour might oblige me

to allow that there are some few instances of great talents applied

to useful purposes:--but, except these, what have been the literary

productions of women! In poetry, plays, romances, in the art of

imposing upon the understanding by means of the imagination, they have

excelled;--but to useful literature they have scarcely turned their

thoughts. I have never heard of any female proficients in science--few

have pretended to science till within these few years.

You will tell me, that in the most difficult and most extensive science

of politics women have succeeded;--you will cite the names of some

illustrious queens. I am inclined to think, with the Duke of Burgundy,

that “queens who reigned well were governed by men, and kings who

reigned ill were governed by women.”

The isolated examples of a few heroines cannot convince me that it

is safe or expedient to trust the sex with power:--their power over

themselves has regularly been found to diminish, in proportion as their

power over others has been increased. I should not refer you to the

scandalous chronicles of modern times, to volumes of private anecdotes,

or to the abominable secret histories of courts, where female influence

and female depravity are synonymous terms; but I appeal to the open

equitable page of history, to a body of evidence collected from the

testimony of ages, for experiments tried upon the grandest scale

of which nature admits, registered by various hands, without the

possibility of collusion, and without a view to any particular

system:--from these you must be convinced, that similar consequences

have uniformly resulted from the same causes, in nations the most

unlike, and at periods the most distant. Trace the history of female

nature, from the court of Augustus to the court of Louis the Fourteenth,

and tell me whether you can hesitate to acknowledge that the influence,

the liberty, and the _power_ of women have been constant concomitants

of the moral and political decline of empires;--I say the concomitants:

where events are thus invariably connected, I might be justified in

saying that they were _causes_--you would call them _effects_; but we

need not dispute about the momentary precedence of evils, which are

found to be inseparable companions:--they may be alternately cause

and effect,--the reality of the connexion is established; it may be

difficult to ascertain precisely its nature.

You will assert, that the fatal consequences which have resulted from

our trusting the sex with liberty and power, have been originally

occasioned by the subjection and ignorance in which they had previously

been held, and of our subsequent folly and imprudence, in _throwing the

reins of dominion into hands unprepared and uneducated to guide them_.

I am at a loss to conceive any system of education that can properly

prepare women for the exercise of power. Cultivate their understandings,

“cleanse the visual orb with euphrasy and rue,” till they can with one

comprehensive glance take in “one half at least of round eternity;”

still you have no security that their reason will govern their conduct.

The moral character seems, even amongst men of superior strength of

mind, to have no certain dependence upon the reasoning faculty;--habit,

prejudice, taste, example, and the different strength of various

passions, form the moral character. We are impelled to action,

frequently contrary to the belief of our sober reason; and we

pursue what we could, in the hour of deliberation, demonstrate to be

inconsistent with _that greatest possible share of happiness_, which it

is the object of every rational creature to secure. We frequently “think

with one species of enthusiasm, and act with another:” and can we expect

from women more consistency of conduct, if they are allowed the same

liberty?--No one can feel, more strongly than you do, the necessity and

the value of female integrity; no one can more clearly perceive how

much in society depends upon the honour of women; and how much it is the

interest of every individual, as well as of every state, to guard their

virtue, and to preserve inviolate the purity of their manners. Allow me,

then, to warn you of the danger of talking in loud strains to the sex,

of the noble contempt of prejudice. You would look with horror at one

who should go to sap the foundations of the building; beware then how

you venture to tear away the ivy which clings to the walls, and braces

the loose stones together.

I am by no means disposed to indulge in the fashionable ridicule

of prejudice. There is a sentimental, metaphysical argument, which,

independently of all others, has lately been used, to prevail upon us

to relinquish that superiority which strength of body in savage, and

strength of mind in civilized nations, secure to man. We are told,

that as women are reasonable creatures, they should be governed only by

reason; and that we _disgrace_ ourselves, and _enslave_ them, when we

instil even the most useful truths as prejudices.--Morality should,

we are told, be founded upon demonstration, not upon sentiment; and

we should not require human beings to submit to any laws or customs,

without convincing their understandings of the universal utility of

these political conventions. When are we to expect this conviction?

We cannot expect it from childhood, scarcely from youth; but from the

maturity of the understanding we are told that we may expect it with

certainty.--And of what use can it then be to us? When the habits are

fixed, when the character is decided, when the manners are formed, what

can be done by the bare conviction of the understanding? What could

we expect from that woman, whose moral education was to begin, at

the moment when she was called upon to _act_; and who, without having

imbibed in her early years any of the salutary prejudices of her sex,

or without having been educated in the amiable acquiescence to well

established maxims of female prudence, should boldly venture to conduct

herself by the immediate conviction of her understanding? I care not for

the names or titles of my guides; all that I shall inquire is, which is

best acquainted with the road. Provided women be conducted quietly

to their good, it is scarcely worth their while to dispute about the

pompous metaphysical names, or precedency of their motives. Why should

they deem it disgraceful to be induced to pursue their interest by what

some philosophers are pleased to call _weak_ motives? Is it not much

less disgraceful to be peaceably governed by weak reasons, than to be

incapable of being restrained by the strongest? The dignity of human

nature, and the boasted free-will of rational agents, are high-sounding

words, likely to impose upon the vanity of the fair sex, as well as upon

the pride of ours; but if we analyze the ideas annexed to these terms,

to what shall we reduce them? Reason in its highest perfection seems

just to arrive at the certainty of instinct; and truth impressed upon

the mind in early youth by the united voice of affection and authority,

gives all the real advantages of the most investigating spirit of

philosophy. If the result of the thought, experience, and sufferings of

one race of beings is, (when inculcated upon the belief of the next,)

to be stigmatized as prejudice, there is an end to all the benefits of

history and of education. The mutual intercourse of individuals and of

nations must be only for the traffic or amusement of the day. Every age

must repeat the same experiments; every man and every nation must make

the same mistakes, and suffer the same miseries, whilst the civilization

and happiness of the world, if not retrograde in their course, must, for

ever be stationary.

Let us not then despise, or teach the other sex to despise, the

traditional maxims of experience, or those early prepossessions, which

may be termed prejudices, but which in reality serve as their moral

instinct. I can see neither tyranny on our part, nor slavery on theirs,

in this system of education. This sentimental or metaphysical appeal

to our candour and generosity has then no real force; and every other

argument for the _literary_ and _philosophical_ education of women,

and for the extraordinary cultivation of their understandings, I have

examined.

You probably imagine that, by the superior ingenuity and care you may

bestow on your daughter’s education, you shall make her an exception

to general maxims; you shall give her all the blessings of a literary

cultivation, and at the same time preserve her from all the follies, and

faults, and evils, which have been found to attend the character of a

literary lady.

Systems produce projects; and as projects in education are of all others

the most hazardous, they should not be followed till after the most

mature deliberation. Though it may be natural, is it wise for any man

to expect extraordinary success, from his efforts or his precautions,

beyond what has ever been the share of those who have had motives as

strong for care and for exertion, and some of whom were possibly his

equals in ability? Is it not incumbent upon you, as a parent and as a

philosopher, to calculate accurately what you have to fear, as well

as what you have to hope? You can at present, with a sober degree or

interest, bear to hear me enumerate the evils, and ridicule the foibles,

incident to literary ladies; but if your daughter were actually in this

class, you would not think it friendly if I were to attack them. In

this favourable moment, then, I beg you to hear me with temper; and as I

touch upon every danger and every fault, consider cautiously whether

you have a certain preventive or a specific remedy in store for each of

them.

Women of literature are much more numerous of late than they were a few

years ago. They make a class in society, they fill the public eye, and

have acquired a degree of consequence and an appropriate character. The

esteem of private friends, and the admiration of the public for their

talents, are circumstances highly flattering to their vanity; and as

such I will allow them to be substantial pleasures. I am also ready to

acknowledge that a taste for literature adds much to the happiness of

life, and that women may enjoy to a certain degree this happiness as

well as men. But with literary women this silent happiness seems at

best but a subordinate consideration; it is not by the treasures they

possess, but by those which they have an opportunity of displaying, that

they estimate their wealth. To obtain public applause, they are betrayed

too often into a miserable ostentation of their learning. Coxe tells

us, that certain Russian ladies split their pearls, in order to make a

greater display of finery.

The pleasure of being admired for wit or erudition, I cannot exactly

measure in a female mind; but state it to be as delightful as you can

imagine it to be, there are evils attendant upon it, which, in

the estimation of a prudent father, may over-balance the good. The

intoxicating effect of wit upon the brain has been well remarked, by a

poet, who was a friend to the fair sex: and too many ridiculous, and

too many disgusting examples confirm the truth of the observation. The

deference that is paid to genius, sometimes makes the fair sex forget

that genius will be respected only when united with discretion.

Those who have acquired fame, fancy that they can afford to sacrifice

reputation. I will suppose, however, that their heads shall be strong

enough to bear inebriating admiration, and that their conduct shall

be essentially irreproachable; yet they will show in their manners and

conversation that contempt of inferior minds, and that neglect of common

forms and customs, which will provoke the indignation of fools, and

which cannot escape the censure of the wise. Even whilst we are secure

of their innocence, we dislike that daring spirit in the female sex,

which delights to oppose the common opinions of society, and from

apparent trifles we draw unfavourable omens, which experience too often

confirms. You will ask me why I should suppose that wits are more liable

to be spoiled by admiration than beauties, who have usually a larger

share of it, and who are not more exempt from vanity? Those who are vain

of trifling accomplishments, of rank, of riches, or of beauty, depend

upon the world for their immediate gratification. They are sensible of

their dependence; they listen with deference to the maxims, and attend

with anxiety to the opinions of those, from whom they expect their

reward and their daily amusements. In their subjection consists their

safety; whilst women, who neither feel dependent for amusement nor for

self-approbation upon company and public places, are apt to consider

this subjection as humiliating, if not insupportable: perceiving their

own superiority, they despise, and even set at defiance, the opinions of

their acquaintance of inferior abilities: contempt, where it cannot be

openly retorted, produces aversion, not the less to be dreaded because

constrained to silence: envy, considered as the involuntary tribute

extorted by merit, is flattering to pride: and I know that many

women delight to excite envy, even whilst they affect to fear its

consequences: but they, who imprudently provoke it, are little aware of

the torments they prepare for themselves.--“Cover your face well

before you disturb the hornet’s nest,” was a maxim of the _experienced_

Catherine de Medici.

Men of literature, if we may trust to the bitter expressions of anguish

in their writings, and in their private letters, feel acutely all the

stings of envy. Women, who have more susceptibility of temper, and less

strength of mind, and who, from the delicate nature of their reputation,

are more exposed to attack, are also less able to endure it. Malignant

critics, when they cannot attack an author’s peace in his writings,

frequently scrutinize his private life; and every personal anecdote is

published without regard to truth or propriety. How will the delicacy of

the female character endure this treatment? How will her friends bear

to see her pursued even in domestic retirement, if she should be wise

enough to make that retirement her choice? How will they like to

see premature memoirs, and spurious collections of familiar letters,

published by needy booksellers, or designing enemies? Yet to all these

things men of letters are subject; and such must literary ladies expect,

if they attain to any degree of eminence.--Judging, then, from the

experience of our sex, I may pronounce envy to be one of the evils which

women of uncommon genius have to dread. “Censure,” says a celebrated

writer, “is a tax which every man must pay to the public, who seeks to

be eminent.” Women must expect to pay it doubly.

Your daughter, perhaps, shall be above scandal. She shall despise the

idle whisper, and the common tattle of her sex; her soul shall be raised

above the ignorant and the frivolous; she shall have a relish for higher

conversation, and a taste for higher society; but where is she to

find, or how is she to obtain this society? You make her incapable

of friendship with her own sex. Where is she to look for friends, for

companions, for equals? Amongst men? Amongst what class of men? Not

amongst men of business, or men of gallantry, but amongst men of

literature.

Learned men have usually chosen for their wives, or for their

companions, women who were rather below than above the standard of

mediocrity: this seems to me natural and reasonable. Such men, probably,

feel their own incapacity for the daily business of life, their

ignorance of the world, their slovenly habits, and neglect of domestic

affairs. They do not want wives who have precisely their own defects;

they rather desire to find such as shall, by the opposite habits and

virtues, supply their deficiencies. I do not see why two books should

marry, any more than two estates. Some few exceptions might be quoted

against Stewart’s observations. I have just seen, under the article “A

Literary Wife,” in D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, an account of

Francis Phidelphus, a great scholar in the fifteenth century, who was

so desirous of acquiring the Greek language in perfection, that he

travelled to Constantinople in search of a _Grecian wife_: the lady

proved a scold. “But to do justice to the name of Theodora,” as this

author adds, “she has been honourably mentioned in the French Academy

of Sciences.” I hope this proved an adequate compensation to her husband

for his domestic broils.

Happy Mad. Dacier! you found a husband suited to your taste! You and

Mons. Dacier, if D’Alembert tells the story rightly, once cooked a dish

in concert, by a receipt which you found in Apicius, and you both sat

down and ate of your learned ragout till you were both like to die.

Were I sure, my dear friend, that every literary lady would be equally

fortunate in finding in a husband a man who would sympathize in her

tastes, I should diminish my formidable catalogue of evils. But, alas!

M. Dacier is no more; “and we shall never live to see his fellow.”

Literary ladies will, I am afraid, be losers in love, as well as in

friendship, by the superiority.--Cupid is a timid, playful child, and

is frightened at the helmet of Minerva. It has been observed, that

gentlemen are not apt to admire a prodigious quantity of learning and

masculine acquirements in the fair sex;--we usually consider a certain

degree of weakness, both of mind and body, as friendly to female grace.

I am not absolutely of this opinion; yet I do not see the advantage

of supernatural force, either of body or mind, to female excellence.

Hercules-Spinster found his strength rather an incumbrance than an

advantage.

Superiority of mind must be united with great temper and generosity, to

be tolerated by those who are forced to submit to its influence. I

have seen witty and learned ladies, who did not seem to think it at all

incumbent upon them to sacrifice any thing to the sense of propriety. On

the contrary, they seemed to take both pride and pleasure in showing

the utmost stretch of their strength, regardless of the consequences,

panting only for victory. Upon such occasions, when the adversary

has been a husband or a father, I must acknowledge that I have felt

sensations which few ladies can easily believe they excite. Airs and

graces I can bear as well as another; but airs without graces no man

thinks himself bound to bear, and learned airs least of all. Ladies

of high rank in the court of Parnassus are apt, sometimes, to claim

precedency out of their own dominions, which creates much confusion,

and generally ends in their being affronted. That knowledge of the world

which keeps people in their proper places they will never learn from the

Muses.

Molière has pointed out, with all the force of comic ridicule, in the

Femmes Savantes, that a lady, who aspires to the sublime delights

of philosophy and poetry, must forego the simple pleasures, and will

despise the duties of domestic life. I should not expect that my house

affairs would be with haste despatched by a Desdemona, weeping over some

unvarnished tale, or petrified with some history of horrors, at the

very time when she should be ordering dinner, or paying the butcher’s

bill.--I should have the less hope of rousing her attention to my

culinary concerns and domestic grievances, because I should probably

incur her contempt for hinting at these sublunary matters, and her

indignation for supposing that she ought to be employed in such

degrading occupations. I have heard, that if these sublime geniuses are

awakened from their reveries by the _appulse_ of external circumstances,

they start, and exhibit all the perturbation and amazement of

_cataleptic_ patients.

Sir Charles Harrington, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, addressed a copy

of verses to his wife, “On Women’s Vertues:”--these he divides into

“the private, _civill_, and heroyke;” the private belong to the country

housewife, whom it concerned; chiefly--

“The fruit, malt, hops, to tend, to dry, to utter,

To beat, strip, spin the wool, the hemp, the flax,

Breed poultry, gather honey, try the wax,

And more than all, to have good cheese and butter.

Then next a step, but yet a large step higher,

Came civill vertue fitter for the citty,

With modest looks, good clothes, and answers witty.

These baser things not done, but guided by her.”

As for heroyke vertue, and heroyke dames, honest Sir Charles would have

nothing to do with them.

Allowing, however, that you could combine all these virtues--that

you could form a perfect whole, a female wonder from every creature’s

best--dangers still threaten you. How will you preserve your daughter

from that desire of universal admiration, which will ruin all your

work? How will you, along with all the pride of knowledge, give her that

“retiring modesty,” which is supposed to have more charms for our sex

than the fullest display of wit and beauty?

The _fair Pauca of Thoulouse_ was so called because she was so fair that

no one could live either with or without beholding her:--whenever she

came forth from her own mansion, which, history observes, she did very

seldom, such impetuous crowds rushed to obtain a sight of her, that

limbs were broken and lives were lost wherever she appeared. She

ventured abroad less frequently--the evil increased--till at length the

magistrates of the city issued an edict commanding the fair Pauca, under

the pain of perpetual imprisonment, to appear in broad daylight for one

hour, every week, in the public market-place.

Modern ladies, by frequenting public places so regularly, declare their

approbation of the wholesome regulations of these prudent magistrates.

Very different was the crafty policy of the prophet Mahomet, who forbad

his worshippers even to paint his picture. The Turks have pictures of

the hand, the foot, the features of Mahomet, but no representation of

the whole face or person is allowed. The portraits of our beauties, in

our exhibition-room, show a proper contempt of this insidious policy;

and those learned and ingenious ladies who publish their private

letters, select maxims, secret anecdotes, and family memoirs, are

entitled to our thanks, for thus presenting us with full-lengths of

their minds.

Can you expect, my dear sir, that your daughter, with all the genius

and learning which you intend to give her, should refrain from these

imprudent exhibitions? Will she “yield her charms of mind with sweet

delay?” Will she, in every moment of her life, recollect that the fatal

desire for universal applause always defeats its own purpose, especially

if the purpose be to win our love as well as our admiration? It is in

vain to tell me, that more enlarged ideas in our sex would alter

our tastes, and alter even the associations which now influence our

passions. The captive who has numbered the links of his chains, and

has even discovered how these chains are constructed, is not therefore

nearer to the recovery of his liberty.

Besides, it must take a length of time to alter associations and

opinions, which, if not _just_, are at least _common_ in our sex. You

cannot expect even that conviction should operate immediately upon the

public taste. You will, in a few years, have educated your daughter; and

if the world be not educated exactly at the right time to judge of her

perfections, to admire and love them, you will have wasted your labour,

and you will have sacrificed your daughter’s happiness: that happiness,

analyze it as a man of the world or as a philosopher, must depend on

friendship, love, the exercise of her virtues, the just performance

of all the duties of life, and the self-approbation arising from the

consciousness of good conduct.

I am, my dear friend,

Yours sincerely.

ANSWER

TO

THE PRECEDING LETTER.

I have as little taste for Mad. Dacier’s learned ragout as you can

have, my dear sir; and I pity the great scholar, who travelled to

Constantinople for the termagant Theodora, believing, as you do, that

the honourable mention made of her by the French Academy of Sciences,

could be no adequate compensation to her husband for domestic disquiet:

but the lady’s learning was not essential to his misfortune; he might

have met with a scolding dame, though he had not married a Grecian. A

profusion of vulgar aphorisms in the dialects of all the counties in

England, proverbs in Welsh, Scotish, French, Spanish, Italian, and

Hebrew, might be adduced to prove that scolds are to be found amongst

all classes of women. I am, however, willing to allow, that the more

learning, and wit, and eloquence a lady possesses, the more troublesome

and the more dangerous she may become as a wife or daughter, unless

she is also possessed of good sense and good temper. Of your honest

Sir Charles Harrington’s two pattern wives, I think I should prefer the

country housewife, with whom I could be sure of having good cheese and

butter, to the _citty dame_ with her good clothes and answers witty.--I

should be afraid that these answers witty might be turned against me,

and might prove the torment of my life.--You, who have attended to

female disputants, must have remarked, that, learned or unlearned, they

seldom know how to reason; they assert and declaim, employ wit,

and eloquence, and sophistry, to confute, persuade, or abash

their adversaries; but distinct reasoning they neither use nor

comprehend.--Till women learn to reason, it is in vain that they acquire

learning.

You are satisfied, I am sure, with this acknowledgment. I will go

farther, and at once give up to you all the learned ladies that exist,

or that ever have existed: but when I use the term literary ladies, I

mean women who have cultivated their understandings not for the purposes

of parade, but with the desire to make themselves useful and agreeable.

I estimate the value of a woman’s abilities and acquirements, by the

degree in which they contribute to her happiness.

You think yourself happy because you are wise, said a philosopher to a

pedant.--I think myself wise because I am happy.

You tell me, that even supposing I could educate my daughter so as to

raise her above the common faults and follies of her sex; even supposing

I could give her an enlarged understanding, and literature free from

pedantry, she would be in danger of becoming unhappy, because she would

not, amongst her own sex, find friends suited to her taste, nor amongst

ours, admirers adequate to her expectations: you represent her as in the

situation of the poor flying-fish, exposed to dangerous enemies in her

own element, yet certain, if she tries to soar above them, of being

pounced upon by the hawk-eyed critics of the higher regions.

You allow, however, that women of literature are much more numerous of

late than they were a few years ago; that they make a class in

society, and have acquired a considerable degree of consequence, and an

appropriate character; how can you then fear that a woman of cultivated

understanding should be driven from the society of her own sex in search

of dangerous companions amongst ours? In the female world she will be

neither without an equal nor without a judge; she will not have much to

fear from envy, because its malignant eye will not fix upon one object

exclusively, when there are numbers to distract its attention, and

share the stroke. The fragile nature of female friendships, the petty

jealousies which break out at the ball or in the drawing-room, have been

from time immemorial the jest of mankind. Trifles, light as air, will

necessarily excite not only the jealousy, but the envy of those who

think only of trifles. Give them more employment for their thoughts,

give them a nobler spirit of emulation, and we shall hear no more of

these paltry feuds; give them more useful and more interesting subjects

of conversation, and they become not only more agreeable, but safer

companions for each other.

Unmarried women, who have stored their minds with knowledge, who have

various tastes and literary occupations, who can amuse and be amused in

the conversation of well-informed people, are in no danger of becoming

burthensome to their friends or to society: though they may not be seen

haunting every place of amusement or of public resort, they are not

isolated or forlorn; by a variety of associations they are connected

with the world, and their sympathy is expanded and supported by the

cultivation of their understandings; nor can it sink, settle, and

concentrate upon cats, parrots, and monkeys. How far the human heart may

be contracted by ignorance it is difficult to determine; but I am little

inclined to envy the _simple_ pleasures of those whose understandings

are totally uncultivated.--Sir William Hamilton, in his account of

the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius, gives us a curious picture of the

excessive ignorance and stupidity of some nuns in a convent at Torre del

Greco:--one of these nuns was found warming herself at the red-hot lava,

which had rolled up to the window of her cell. It was with the greatest

difficulty that these scarcely rational beings could be made to

comprehend the nature of their danger; and when at last they were

prevailed upon to quit the convent, and were advised to carry with

them whatever they thought most valuable, they loaded themselves with

sweetmeats.--Those who wish for ignorant wives, may find them in other

parts of the world, as well as in Italy.

I do not pretend, that even by cultivating my daughter’s understanding

I can secure for her a husband suited to her taste; it will therefore

be prudent to make her felicity in some degree independent of matrimony.

Many parents have sufficient kindness and foresight to provide, in point

of fortune, for their daughters; but few consider that if a single life

should be their choice or their doom, something more is necessary to

secure respect and happiness for them in the decline of life. The silent

_unreproved_ pleasures of literature are the sure resource of those

who have cultivated minds; those who have not, must wear out their

disconsolate unoccupied old age as chance directs. When you say that

men of superior understanding dislike the appearance of extraordinary

strength of mind in the fair sex, you probably mean that the display of

that strength is disgusting, and you associate with the idea of strength

of mind, masculine, arrogant, or pedantic manners: but there is no

necessary connexion between these things; and it seems probable that

the faults usually ascribed to learned ladies, like those peculiar to

learned men, may have arisen in a great measure from circumstances which

the progress of civilization in society has much altered.

In the times of ignorance, men of deep science were considered by the

vulgar as a class of necromancers, and they were looked upon alternately

with terror and admiration; and learned men imposed upon the vulgar by

assuming strange airs of mystery and self-importance, wore long beards

and solemn looks; they spoke and wrote in a phraseology peculiar to

themselves, and affected to consider the rest of mankind as beneath

their notice: but since knowledge has been generally diffused, all this

affectation has been laid aside; and though we now and then hear of men

of genius who indulge themselves in peculiarities, yet upon the whole

the manners of literary men are not strikingly nor wilfully different

from those of the rest of the world. The peculiarities of literary women

will also disappear as their numbers increase. You are disgusted by

their ostentation of learning. Have patience with them, my dear sir;

their taste will become more simple when they have been taught by

experience that this parade is offensive: even the bitter expression of

your disgust may be advantageous to those whose manners are yet to be

formed; they will at least learn from it what to avoid; and your letter

may perhaps hereafter be of service in my daughter’s education.--It

is scarcely to be supposed, that a girl of good understanding would

deliberately imitate the faults and follies which she hears ridiculed

during her childhood, by those whom she esteems.

As to your dread of prodigies, that will subside:--prodigies are heard

of most frequently during the ages of ignorance. A woman may now possess

a considerable stock of information without being gazed upon as a

miracle of learning; and there is not much danger of her being vain of

accomplishments which cease to be astonishing. Nor will her peace be

disturbed by the idle remarks of the ignorant vulgar.--A literary

lady is no longer a sight; the spectacle is now too common to attract

curiosity; the species of animal is too well known even to admit of

much exaggeration in the description of its appearance, A lady riding

on horseback upon a side-saddle is not thought a wonderful thing by

the common people in England; but when an English lady rode upon a

side-saddle in an Italian city, where the sight was unusual, she was

universally gazed at by the populace; to some she appeared an object of

astonishment, to others of compassion:--“Ah! poverina,” they exclaimed,

“n’ha che una gamba!”

The same objects excite different emotions in different situations;

and to judge what will astonish or delight any given set of people some

years hence, we must consider not merely what is the fashion of to-day,

but whither the current of opinion runs, and what is likely to be the

fashion of hereafter.--You must have observed that public opinion is at

present more favourable to the cultivation of the understanding of the

female sex than it was some years ago; more attention is paid to the

education of women, more knowledge and literature are expected from them

in society. From the literary lady of the present day something more is

expected than that she should know how to spell and to write better than

Swift’s celebrated Stella, whom he reproves for writing _villian_ and

_daenger_:--perhaps this very Stella was an object of envy in her own

day to those who were her inferiors in literature. No man wishes his

wife to be obviously less cultivated than those of her own rank; and

something more is now required, even from ordinary talents, than what

distinguished the accomplished lady of the seventeenth century. What the

standard of excellence may be in the next age we cannot ascertain,

but we may guess that the taste for literature will continue to be

progressive; therefore, even if you assume that the education of the

female sex should be guided by the taste and reigning opinions of ours,

and that it should be the object of their lives to win and keep our

hearts, you must admit the expediency of attending to that fashionable

demand for literature and the fine arts, which has arisen in society.

No woman can foresee what may be the taste of the man with whom she may

be united; much of her happiness, however, will depend upon her being

able to conform her taste to his: for this reason I should therefore, in

female education, cultivate the general powers of the mind, rather than

any particular faculty. I do not desire to make my daughter merely a

musician, a painter, or a poet; I do not desire to make her merely a

botanist, a mathematician, or a chemist; but I wish to give her early

the habit of industry and attention, the love of knowledge, and the

power of reasoning: these will enable her to attend to excellence in any

pursuit to which she may direct her talents. You will observe, that many

things which formerly were thought above the comprehension of women,

or unfit for their sex, are now acknowledged to be perfectly within the

compass of their abilities, and suited to their situation.--Formerly

the fair sex was kept in Turkish ignorance; every means of acquiring

knowledge was discountenanced by fashion, and impracticable even

to those who despised fashion;--our books of science were full of

unintelligible jargon, and mystery veiled pompous ignorance from public

contempt; but now writers must offer their discoveries to the public in

distinct terms, which every body may understand; technical language no

longer supplies the place of knowledge, and the art of teaching has been

carried to such perfection, that a degree of knowledge may now with

ease be acquired in the course of a few years, which formerly it was

the business of a life to attain. All this is much in favour of female

literature. Ladies have become ambitious to superintend the education of

their children, and hence they have been induced to instruct themselves,

that they may be able to direct and inform their pupils. The mother, who

now aspires to be the esteemed and beloved instructress of her children,

must have a considerable portion of knowledge. Science has of late

“_been enlisted under the banners of imagination_,” by the irresistible

charms of genius; by the same power, her votaries will be led “_from the

looser analogies which dress out the imagery of poetry to the stricter

ones which form the ratiocination of philosophy_[1].”--Botany has become

fashionable; in time it may become useful, if it be not so already.

Chemistry will follow botany. Chemistry is a science well suited to

the talents and situation of women; it is not a science of parade; it

affords occupation and infinite variety; it demands no bodily strength;

it can be pursued in retirement; it applies immediately to useful and

domestic purposes; and whilst the ingenuity of the most inventive mind

may in this science be exercised, there is no danger of inflaming the

imagination, because the mind is intent upon realities, the knowledge

that is acquired is exact, and the pleasure of the pursuit is a

sufficient reward for the labour.

[Footnote 1: Vide preface to Darwin’s Botanic Garden.]

A clear and ready knowledge of arithmetic is surely no useless

acquirement for those who are to regulate the expenses of a family.

Economy is not the mean “penny wise and pound foolish” policy which some

suppose it to be; it is the art of calculation joined to the habit

of order, and the power of proportioning our wishes to the means of

gratifying them. The little pilfering temper of a wife is despicable and

odious to every man of sense; but there is a judicious, graceful species

of economy, which has no connexion with an avaricious temper, and

which, as it depends upon the understanding, can be expected only from

cultivated minds. Women who have been well educated, far from despising

domestic duties, will hold them in high respect; because they will see

that the whole happiness of life is made up of the happiness of each

particular day and hour, and that much of the enjoyment of these must

depend upon the punctual practice of those virtues which are more

valuable than splendid.

It is not, I hope, your opinion, that ignorance is the best security for

female virtue. If this connexion between virtue and ignorance could once

be clearly proved, we ought to drown our books deeper than ever plummet

sounded:--I say _we_--for the danger extends equally to both sexes,

unless you assert that the duties of men rest upon a more certain

foundation than the duties of the other sex: if our virtues can be

demonstrated to be advantageous, why should theirs suffer for being

exposed to the light of reason?--All social virtue conduces to our own

happiness or that of our fellow-creatures; can it weaken the sense

of duty to illustrate this truth?--Having once pointed out to the

understanding of a sensible woman the necessary connexion between her

virtues and her happiness, must not those virtues, and the means of

preserving them, become in her eyes objects of the most interesting

importance? But you fear, that even if their conduct continued to be

irreproachable, the manners of women might be rendered less delicate

by the increase of their knowledge; you dislike in the female sex that

daring spirit which despises the common forms of society, and which

breaks through the reserve and delicacy of female manners:--so do

I:--and the best method to make my pupil respect these things is to show

her how they are indispensably connected with the largest interests

of society: surely this perception of the utility of forms apparently

trifling, must be a strong security to the prudential reserve of the

sex, and far superior to the automatic habits of those who submit to

the conventions of the world without consideration or conviction.

Habit, confirmed by reason, assumes the rank of virtue. The motives that

restrain from vice must be increased by the clear conviction, that vice

and wretchedness are inseparably united.

Do not, however, imagine, my dear sir, that I shall attempt to lay moral

demonstration before _a child_, who could not possibly comprehend my

meaning; do not imagine that because I intend to cultivate my daughter’s

understanding, I shall neglect to give her those early habits of reserve

and modesty which constitute the female character.--Believing, as I do,

that woman, as well as man, may be called a bundle of habits, I shall

be peculiarly careful, during my child’s early education, to give her as

many good habits as possible; by degrees as her understanding, that is

to say as her knowledge and power of reasoning shall increase, I can

explain the advantages of these habits, and confirm their power by the

voice of reason. I lose no time, I expose myself to no danger, by this

system. On the contrary, those who depend entirely upon the force of

custom and prejudice expose themselves to infinite danger. If once their

pupils begin to reflect upon their own hoodwinked education, they will

probably suspect that they have been deceived in all that they have been

taught, and they will burst their bonds with indignation.--Credulity

is always rash in the moment she detects the impositions that have been

practised upon her easy temper. In this inquiring age, few have any

chance of passing through life without being excited to examine the

motives and principles from which they act: is it not therefore prudent

to cultivate the reasoning faculty, by which alone this examination can

be made with safety? A false argument, a repartee, the charms of wit or

eloquence, the voice of fashion, of folly, of numbers, might, if she had

no substantial reasons to support her cause, put virtue not only out of

countenance, but out of humour.

You speak of moral instinct. As far as I understand the term, it implies

certain habits early acquired from education; to these I would add the

power of reasoning, and then, and not till then, I should think

myself safe:--for I have observed that the pupils of habit are utterly

confounded when they are placed in circumstances different from those to

which they have been accustomed.--It has been remarked by travellers

and naturalists, that animals, notwithstanding their boasted instinctive

knowledge, sometimes make strange and fatal mistakes in their conduct,

when they are placed in new situations:--destitute of the reasoning

faculty, and deceived by resemblances, they mistake poison for food.

Thus the bull-frog will swallow burning charcoal, mistaking it for

fire-flies; and the European hogs and poultry which travelled to Surinam

poisoned themselves by eating plants that were unknown to them[1].

[Footnote 1: Vide Stedmen’s Voyage to Surinam, vol. ii. p. 47.]

You seem, my dear sir, to be afraid that truth should not keep so firm a

hold upon the mind as prejudice; and you produce an allusion to justify

your fears. You tell us that civil society is like a building, and you

warn me not to tear down the ivy which clings to the walls, and braces

the loose stones together.--I believe that ivy, in some situations,

tends to pull down the walls to which it clings.--You think it is not

worth while to cultivate the understandings of women, because you say

that you have no security that the conviction of their reason will have

any permanent good effect upon their conduct; and to persuade me of

this, you bid me observe that men who are superior to women in strength

of mind and judgment, are frequently misled by their passions. By this

mode of argument, you may conclude that reason is totally useless to the

whole human race; but you cannot, with any show of justice, infer that

it ought to be monopolized by one-half of mankind. But why should you

quarrel with reason, because passion sometimes conquers her?--You should

endeavour to strengthen the connexion between theory and practice, if

it be not sufficiently strong already; but you can gain nothing by

destroying theory.--Happiness is your aim; but your unpractised or

unsteady hand does not obey your will: you do not at the first trial

hit the mark precisely.--Would you, because you are awkward, insist upon

being blind?

The strength of mind which enables people to govern themselves by

their reason, is not always connected with abilities even in their most

cultivated state: I deplore the instances which I have seen of this

truth, but I do not despair; on the contrary, I am excited to inquire

into the causes of this phenomenon; nor, because I see some evil,

would I sacrifice the good upon a bare motive of suspicion. It is a

contradiction to say, that giving the power to discern what is good is

giving a disposition to prefer what is bad. I acknowledge with regret,

that women who have been but half instructed, who have seen only

superficially the relations of moral and political ideas, and who have

obtained but an imperfect knowledge of the human heart, have conducted

themselves so as to disgrace their talents and their sex; these are

conspicuous and melancholy examples, which are cited oftener with malice

than with pity. But I appeal to examples amongst our contemporaries, to

which every man of literature will immediately advert, to prove, that

where the female understanding has been properly cultivated, women have

not only obtained admiration by their useful abilities, but respect by

their exemplary conduct.

I apprehend that many of the errors into which women of literature have

fallen, may have arisen from an improper choice of books. Those who read

chiefly works of imagination, receive from them false ideas of life and

of the human heart. Many of these productions I should keep as I would

deadly poison from my child; I should rather endeavour to turn her

attention to science than to romance, and to give her early that taste

for truth and utility, which, when once implanted, can scarcely be

eradicated. There is a wide difference between innocence and ignorance:

ignorant women may have minds the most debased and perverted, whilst

the most cultivated understanding may be united with the most perfect

innocence and simplicity.

Even if literature were of no other use to the fair sex than to

supply them with employment, I should think the time dedicated to

the cultivation of their minds well bestowed: they are surely better

occupied when they are reading or writing than when coqueting or gaming,

losing their fortunes or their characters. You despise the writings of

women:--you think that they might have made a better use of the pen,

than to write plays, and poetry, and romances. Considering that the pen

was to women a new instrument, I think they have made at least as good a

use of it as learned men did of the needle some centuries ago, when they

set themselves to determine how many spirits could stand upon its point,

and were ready to tear one another to pieces in the discussion of

this sublime question. Let the sexes mutually forgive each other their

follies; or, what is much better, let them combine their talents for

their general advantage.--You say, that the experiments we have made

do not encourage us to proceed--that the increased care and pains which

have been of late years bestowed upon female education have produced

no adequate returns; but you in the same breath allow that amongst your

contemporaries, whom you prudently forbear to mention, there are some

instances of great talents applied to useful purposes. Did you expect

that the fruits of good cultivation should appear before the seed was

sown? You triumphantly enumerate the disadvantages to which women,

from the laws and customs of society, are liable:--they cannot converse

freely with men of wit, science, and learning, nor even with the artist,

or artificers; they are excluded from academies, public libraries, &c.

Even our politeness prevents us, you say, from ever speaking plain truth

and sense to the fair sex:--every assistance that foreign or domestic

ingenuity can invent to encourage literary studies, is, as you boast,

almost exclusively ours: and after pointing out all these causes for the

inferiority of women in knowledge, you ask for a list of the inventions

and discoveries of those who, by your own statement of the question,

have not been allowed opportunities for observation. With the insulting

injustice of an Egyptian task-master, you demand the work, and deny the

necessary materials.

I admit, that with respect to the opportunities of acquiring knowledge,

institutions and manners are, as you have stated, much in favour of

our sex; but your argument concerning _time_ appears to me to be

unfounded.--Women who do not love dissipation must have more time

for the cultivation of their understandings than men can have, if

you compute the whole of life:--whilst the knowledge of the learned

languages continues to form an indispensable part of a gentleman’s

education, many years of childhood and youth must be devoted to their

attainment.--During these studies, the general cultivation of the

understanding is in some degree retarded. All the intellectual powers

are cramped, except the memory, which is sufficiently exercised, but

which is overloaded with words, and with words that are not always

understood.--The genius of living and of dead languages differs so much,

that the pains which are taken to write elegant Latin frequently spoil

the English style.--Girls usually write much better than boys; they

think and express their thoughts clearly at an age when young men can

scarcely write an easy letter upon any common occasion. Women do not

read the good authors of antiquity as school-books, but they can have

excellent translations of most of them when they are capable of tasting

the beauties of composition.--I know that it is supposed we cannot judge

of the classics by translations, and I am sensible that much of the

merit of the originals may be lost; but I think the difference in

pleasure is more than overbalanced to women by the _time_ that is saved,

and by the labour and misapplication of abilities which are spared. If

they do not acquire a classical taste, neither do they imbibe classic

prejudices; nor are they early disgusted with literature by pedagogues,

lexicons, grammars, and all the melancholy apparatus of learning.--Women

begin to taste the pleasures of reading, and the best authors in the

English language are their amusement, just at the age when young

men, disgusted by their studies, begin to be ashamed of alluding to

literature amongst their companions. Travelling, lounging, field sports,

gaming, and what is called pleasure in various shapes, usually fill the

interval between quitting the university and settling for life.--When

this period is past, business, the necessity of pursuing a profession,

the ambition to shine in parliament, or to rise in public life, occupy a

large portion of their lives.--In many professions the understanding is

but partially cultivated; and general literature must be neglected by

those who are occupied in earning bread or amassing riches for their

family:--men of genius are often heard to complain, that in the pursuit

of a profession, they are obliged to contract their inquiries and

concentrate their powers; statesmen lament that they must often pursue

the _expedient_ even when they discern that it is not _the right_; and

men of letters, who earn their bread by their writings, inveigh bitterly

against the tyranny of booksellers, who degrade them to the state of

“literary artisans.”--“Literary artisans,” is the comprehensive term

under which a celebrated philosopher [1] classes all those who cultivate

only particular talents or powers of the mind, and who suffer their

other faculties to lose all strength and vigour for want of exercise.

The other sex have no such constraint upon their understandings; neither

the necessity of earning their bread, nor the ambition to shine in

public affairs, hurry or prejudice their minds: in domestic life they

have leisure to be wise.

[Footnote 1: Professor Dugald Stewart--History of the Philosophy of the

Human Mind.]

Far from being ashamed that so little has been done by female abilities

in science and useful literature, I am surprised that so much has been

effected. On natural history, on criticism, on moral philosophy, on

education, they have written with elegance, eloquence, precision, and

ingenuity. Your complaint that women do not turn their attention to

useful literature is surely ill-timed. If they merely increased the

number of books in circulation, you might declaim against them

with success; but when they add to the general fund of useful and

entertaining knowledge, you cannot with any show of justice prohibit

their labours: there can be no danger that the market should ever be

overstocked with produce of intrinsic worth.

The despotic monarchs of Spain forbid the exploring of any new gold or

silver mines without the express permission of government, and they

have ordered several rich ones to be shut up as not equal to the cost

of working. There is some _appearance_ of reason for this exertion

of power: it may prevent the world from being encumbered by nominal

wealth.--But the Dutch merchants, who burn whole cargoes of spice lest

they should lower the price of the commodity in which they deal, show a

mean spirit of monopoly which can plead no plausible excuse.--I hope you

feel nothing like a disposition to Spanish despotism or Dutch jealousy,

when you would exclude female talents from the literary market.

You observe, that since censure is a tax which every man must pay who

aspires to eminence, women must expect to pay it doubly. Why the tax

should not be equally assessed, I am at a loss to conjecture: but in

fact it does not fall very heavy upon those who have any portion of

philosophy: they may, with _the poet of reason_, exclaim--

“Though doubly tax’d, how little have I lost!”

Your dread of the envy attendant upon literary excellence might with

equal justice be extended to every species of merit, and might be urged

against all that is good in art or nature.--Scandal is said to attack

always the fairest characters, as the birds always peck most at the

ripest fruit; but would you for this reason have no fruit ripen, or no

characters aspire to excellence? But if it be your opinion that women

are naturally inferior to us in capacity, why do you feel so much

apprehension of their becoming eminent, or of their obtaining power,

in consequence of the cultivation of their understandings?--These

expressions of scorn and jealousy neutralize each other. If your

contempt were unmixed and genuine, it would be cool and tranquil,

inclining rather to pity than to anger.

You say that in all animals the female is the inferior; and you have

never seen any reason to believe that the human species affords an

exception to this observation.--Superiority amongst brutes depends upon

force; superiority amongst the human species depends upon reason: that

men are naturally stronger than women is evident; but strength of mind

has no necessary connexion with strength of body; and intellectual

ability has ever conquered mere physical force, from the times of Ajax

and Ulysses to the present day. In civilized nations, that species of

superiority which belongs to force is much reduced in value amongst the

higher classes of society.--The baron who struck his sword into an oak,

and defied any one to pull out the weapon, would not in these days fill

the hearts of his antagonists with terror; nor would the twisting of a

horse-shoe be deemed a feat worthy to decide a nation in their choice of

a king.--The days of chivalry are no more: the knight no longer sallies

forth in ponderous armour, mounted upon “a steed as invulnerable as

himself[1].”--The damsel no longer depends upon the prowess of his

mighty arm to maintain the glory of her charms, or the purity of her

fame; grim barons, and castles guarded by monsters and all-devouring

dragons, are no more; and from being the champions and masters of the

fair sex, we are now become their friends and companions. We have not

surely been losers by this change; the fading glories of romance have

vanished, but the real permanent pleasures of domestic life remain in

their stead; and what the fair have lost of adulation they have gained

in friendship.

[Footnote 1: Condorcet.--History of the Progress of the Human Mind.]

Do not, my dear sir, call me a champion for the rights of woman; I am

too much their friend to be their partisan, and I am more anxious for

their happiness than intent upon a metaphysical discussion of their

rights: their happiness is so nearly connected with ours, that it

seems to me absurd to manage any argument so as to set the two sexes

at variance by vain contention for superiority. It ought not to be our

object to make an invidious division of privileges, or an ostentatious

declaration of rights, but to determine what is most for our general

advantage.

You fear that the minds of women should be enlarged and cultivated, lest

their power in society and their liberty should consequently increase.

Observe that the word _liberty_, applied to the female sex, conveys

alarming ideas to our minds, because we do not stay to define the term;

we have a confused notion that it implies want of reserve, want of

delicacy; boldness of manners, or of conduct; in short, liberty to do

wrong.--Surely this is a species of liberty which knowledge can never

make desirable. Those who understand the real interests of society, who

clearly see the connexion between virtue and happiness, must know

that _the liberty to do wrong_ is synonymous with _the liberty to make

themselves miserable_. This is a privilege of which none would choose

to avail themselves. When reason defines the term, there is no danger

of its being misunderstood; but imagination and false associations often

make this word liberty, in its perverted sense, sound delightful to

those who have been kept in ignorance and slavery. Girls who have been

disciplined under the strict high hand of authority, are apt to fancy

that to escape from habitual restraint, to exercise their own will, no

matter how, is to be free and to be happy.--Hence innumerable errors

in their conduct; hence their mistaken notions of liberty, and that

inordinate ambition to acquire power, which ignorant, ill-educated women

show in every petty struggle, where they are permitted to act in private

life. You believe this temper to be inherent in the sex; and a man, who

has just published a book upon the Spanish bull-fights, declares his

belief, that the passion for bull-fighting is innate in the breast of

every Spaniard.--Do not, my friend, assign two causes for an effect

where one is obviously adequate. The disposition to love command need

not be attributed to any innate cause in the minds of females, whilst it

may be fairly ascribed to their erroneous education.

I shall early cultivate my daughter’s judgment, to prevent her from

being wilful or positive; I shall leave her to choose for herself in all

those trifles upon which the happiness of childhood depends; and I shall

gradually teach her to reflect upon the consequences of her actions, to

compare and judge of her feelings, and to compute the morn and evening

to her day.--I shall thus, I hope, induce her to reason upon all

subjects, even upon matters of taste, where many women think it

sufficient to say, I admire; or, I detest:--Oh, charming! or, Oh,

horrible!--People who have reasons for their preferences and aversions,

are never so provokingly zealous in the support of their own tastes, as

those usually are who have no arguments to convince themselves or others

that they are in the right.

But you are apprehensive that the desire to govern, which women show in

domestic life, should obtain a larger field to display itself in public

affairs.--It seems to me impossible that they can ever acquire the

species of direct power which you dread: their influence must be

private; it is therefore of the utmost consequence that it should

be judicious.--It was not Themistocles, but his wife and child, who

governed the Athenians; it was therefore of some consequence that the

boy who governed the mother, who governed her husband, should not be a

spoiled child; and consequently that the mother who educated this child

should be a reasonable woman. Thus are human affairs chained together;

and female influence is a necessary and important link, which you cannot

break without destroying the whole.

If it be your object, my dear sir, to monopolize power for our sex, you

cannot possibly secure it better from the wishes of the other, than by

enlightening their minds and enlarging their views: they will then be

convinced, not by the voice of the moralist, who puts us to sleep whilst

he persuades us of the vanity of all sublunary enjoyments, but by their

own awakened observation: they will be convinced that power is generally

an evil to its possessor; that to those who really wish for the good

of their fellow-creatures, it is at best but a painful trust.--The mad

philosopher in Rasselas, who imagined that he regulated the weather and

distributed the seasons, could never enjoy a moment’s repose, lest he

should not make “to the different nations of the earth an impartial

dividend of rain and sunshine.”--Those who are entrusted with the

government of nations must, if they have an acute sense of justice,

experience something like the anxiety felt by this unfortunate monarch

of the clouds.

Lord Kenyon has lately decided that a woman may _be an overseer of a

parish_; but you are not, I suppose, apprehensive that many ladies of

cultivated understanding should become ambitious of this honour.--One

step farther in reasoning, and a woman would desire as little to be a

queen or an empress, as to be the overseer of a parish.--You may perhaps

reply, that men, even those of the greatest understanding, have been

ambitious, and fond even to excess of power. That ambition is the

glorious fault of heroes, I allow; but heroes are not always men of

the most enlarged understandings--they are possessed by the spirit

of military adventure--an infectious spirit, which men catch from one

another in the course of their education:--to this contagion the fair

sex are not exposed.

At all events, if you suppose that women are likely to acquire influence

in the state, it is prudent to enlighten their understandings, that they

may not make an absurd or pernicious use of their power. You appeal to

history, to prove that great calamities have ensued whenever the

female sex has obtained power; yet you acknowledge that we cannot with

certainty determine whether these evils have been the effects of our

trusting them with liberty, or of our neglecting previously to instruct

them in the use of it:--upon the decision of this question rests your

whole argument. In a most awful tone of declamation, you bid me follow

the history of female nature, from the court of Augustus to that of

Lewis XIVth, and tell you whether I can hesitate to acknowledge, that

the liberty and influence of women have always been the greatest during

the decline of empires.--But you have not proved to me that women

had more knowledge, that they were better educated, at the court of

Augustus, or during the reign of Lewis XIVth, than at any other place,

or during any other period of the world; therefore your argument gains

nothing by the admission of your assertions; and unless I could trace

the history of female education, it is vain for me to follow what you

call the history of female nature.

It is, however, remarkable, that the means by which the sex have

hitherto obtained that species of power which they have abused,

have arisen chiefly from their personal, and not from their mental

qualifications; from their skill in the arts of persuasion, and from

their accomplishments; not from their superior powers of reasoning, or

from the cultivation of their understanding. The most refined species

of coquetry can undoubtedly be practised in the highest perfection

by women, who to personal graces unite all the fascination of wit and

eloquence. There is infinite danger in permitting such women to obtain

power without having acquired habits of reasoning. Rousseau admires

these sirens; but the system of Rousseau, pursued to its fullest extent,

would overturn the world, would make every woman a Cleopatra, and

every man an Antony; it would destroy all domestic virtue, all domestic

happiness, all the pleasures of truth and love.--In the midst of that

delirium of passion to which Antony gave the name of love, what must

have been the state of his degraded, wretched soul, when he could

suspect his mistress of designs upon his life?--To cure him of these

suspicions, she at a banquet poisoned the flowers of his garland, waited

till she saw him inflamed with wine, then persuaded him to break the

tops of his flowers into his goblet, and just stopped him when the cup

was at his lips, exclaiming--“Those flowers are poisoned: you see that I

do not want the means of destroying you, if you were become tiresome

to me, or if I could live without you.”--And this is the happy pair who

instituted the orders of _The inimitable lovers_!--and _The companions

in death_![1]

[Footnote 1: Vide Plutarch.]

These are the circumstances which should early be pointed out, to

both sexes, with all the energy of truth: let them learn that the most

exquisite arts of the most consummate coquette, could not obtain the

confidence of him, who sacrificed to her charms, the empire of the

world. It is from the experience of the past that we must form our

judgment of the future. How unjustly you accuse me of desiring to

destroy the memory of past experiments, the wisdom collected by the

labour of ages! _You_ would prohibit this treasure of knowledge to

one-half of the human species; and _I_ on the contrary would lay it

open to all my fellow-creatures.--I speak as if it were actually in our

option to retard or to accelerate the intellectual progress of the sex;

but in fact it is absolutely out of our power to drive the fair sex

back to their former state of darkness: the art of printing has totally

changed their situation; their eyes are opened,--the classic page is

unrolled, they _will_ read:--all we can do is to induce them to read

with judgment--to enlarge their minds so that they may take a full view

of their interests and of ours. I have no fear that the truth upon any

subject should injure my daughter’s mind; it is falsehood that I

dread. I dread that she should acquire preposterous notions of love,

of happiness, from the furtive perusal of vulgar novels, or from the

clandestine conversation of ignorant waiting-maids:--I dread that she

should acquire, even from the enchanting eloquence of Rousseau, the

fatal idea, that cunning and address are the natural resources of

her sex; that coquetry is necessary to attract, and dissimulation to

preserve the heart of man.--I would not, however, proscribe an author,

because I believe some of his opinions to be false; I would have my

daughter read and compare various books, and correct her judgment

of books by listening to the conversation of persons of sense and

experience. Women may learn much of what is essential to their

happiness, from the unprejudiced testimony of a father or a brother;

they may learn to distinguish the pictures of real life from paintings

of imaginary manners and passions which never had, which never can have,

any existence.--They may learn that it is not the reserve of hypocrisy,

the affected demeanour either of a prude or a coquette, that we admire;

but it is the simple, graceful, natural modesty of a woman, whose mind

is innocent. With this belief impressed upon her heart, do you think, my

dear friend, that she who can reflect and reason would take the means

to disgust where she wishes to please? or that she would incur contempt,

when she knows how to secure esteem?--Do you think that she will employ

artifice to entangle some heedless heart, when she knows that every

heart which can be so won is not worth the winning?--She will not

look upon our sex either as dupes or tyrants; she will be aware of the

important difference between evanescent passion, and that affection

founded upon mutual esteem, which forms the permanent happiness of life.

I am not apprehensive, my dear sir, that Cupid should be scared by

the helmet of Minerva; he has conquered his idle, fears, and has been

familiarized to Minerva and the Muses;

“And now of power his darts are found,

Twice ten thousand times to wound[1].”

[Footnote 1: See the introduction of Cupid to the Muses and

Minerva, in a charming poem of Mrs. Barbauld’s--“_The origin of

song-writing_.’”--Would it not afford a beautiful subject for a

picture?]

That the power of beauty over the human heart is infinitely increased by

the associated ideas of virtue and intellectual excellence has been long

acknowledged.--A set of features, however regular, inspire but little

admiration or enthusiasm, unless they be irradiated by that sunshine of

the soul which creates beauty. The expression of intelligent benevolence

renders even homely features and cheeks of sorry grain[1] agreeable; and

it has been observed, that the most lasting attachments have not always

been excited by the most beautiful of the sex. As men have become more

cultivated, they have attended more to the expression of amiable and

estimable qualities in the female countenance; and in all probability

the taste for this species of beauty will increase amongst the good

and wise. When agreeable qualities are connected with the view of any

particular form, we learn to love that form, though it may have no other

merit. Women who have no pretensions to Grecian beauty may, if their

countenances are expressive of good temper and good sense, have some

chance of pleasing men of cultivated minds.--In an excellent Review[2]

of Gillier’s Essays on the Causes of the Perfection of Antique

Sculpture, which I have just seen, it is observed, that our exclusive

admiration of the physiognomy of the Greeks arises from prejudice, since

the Grecian countenance cannot be necessarily associated with any of the

perfections which now distinguish accomplished or excellent men. This

remark in a popular periodical work shows that the public mind is not

bigoted in matters of taste, and that the standard is no longer supposed

to be fixed by the voice of ancient authority. The changes that are

made in the opinions of our sex as to female beauty, according to

the different situations in which women are placed, and the different

qualities on which we fix the idea of their excellence, are curious and

striking. Ask a northern Indian, says a traveller who has lately visited

them, ask a northern Indian what is beauty? and he will answer, a broad

flat face, small eyes, high cheek bones, three or four broad black lines

across each cheek, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook

nose, &c. These beauties are greatly heightened, or at least rendered

more valuable, when the possessor is capable of dressing all kinds of

skins, converting them into the different parts of their clothing,

and able to carry eight or ten stone in summer, or haul a much greater

weight in winter.--Prince Matanabbee, adds this author, prided himself

much upon the height and strength of his wives, and would frequently

say, few women could carry or haul heavier loads. If, some years ago,

you had asked a Frenchman what he meant by beauty, he would have talked

to you of _l’air piquant, l’air spirituel, l’air noble, l’air comme il

faut_, and he would have referred ultimately to that _je ne sçais quoi_,

for which Parisian belles were formerly celebrated.--French women mixed

much in company, the charms of what they called _esprit_ were admired

in conversation, and the _petit minois_ denoting lively wit and coquetry

became fashionable in France, whilst gallantry and a taste for the

pleasures of _society_ prevailed. The countenance expressive of sober

sense and modest reserve continues to be the taste of the English, who

wisely prefer the pleasures of domestic life.--Domestic life should,

however, be enlivened and embellished with all the wit and vivacity and

politeness for which French women were once admired, without admitting

any of their vices or follies. The more men of literature and polished

manners desire to spend their time in their own families, the more they

must wish that their wives and daughters may have tastes and habits

similar to their own. If they can meet with conversation suited to their

taste at home, they will not be driven to clubs for companions; they

will invite the men of wit and science of their acquaintance to their

own houses, instead of appointing some place of meeting from which

ladies are to be excluded. This mixture of the talents and knowledge

of both sexes must be advantageous to the interests of society, by

increasing domestic happiness.--Private _virtues_ are public benefits:

if each bee were content in his cell, there could be no grumbling hive;

and if each cell were complete, the whole fabric must be perfect.

[Footnote 1: Milton.] [Footnote 2: Appendix to Monthly Review, from

January 1798, page 516.]

When you asserted, my dear sir, that learned men usually prefer for

their wives, women rather below than above the standard of mental

mediocrity, you forgot many instances strongly in contradiction of this

opinion.--Since I began this letter, I met with the following pathetic

passage, which I cannot forbear transcribing:

“The greatest part of the observations contained in the foregoing pages

were derived from a lady, who is now beyond the reach of being affected

by any thing in this sublunary world. Her beneficence of disposition

induced her never to overlook any fact or circumstance that fell within

the sphere of her observation, which promised to be in any respect

beneficial to her fellow-creatures. To her gentle influence the public

are indebted, if they be indeed indebted at all, for whatever useful

hints may at any time have dropped from my pen. A being, she thought,

who must depend so much as man does on the assistance of others, owes,

as a debt to his fellow-creatures, the communication of the little

useful knowledge that chance may have thrown in his way. Such has been

my constant aim; such were the views of the wife of my bosom, the friend

of my heart, who supported and assisted me in all my pursuits.--I now

feel a melancholy satisfaction in contemplating those objects she once

delighted to elucidate.”[1]

[Footnote 1: J. Anderson--Essay on the Management of a Dairy]

Dr. Gregory, Haller, and Lord Lyttleton, have, in the language of

affection, poetry, and truth, described the pleasures which men of

science and literature enjoy in an union with women who can sympathize

in all their thoughts and feelings, who can converse with them as

equals, and live with them as friends; who can assist them in the

important and delightful duty of educating their children; who can make

their family their most agreeable society, and their home the attractive

centre of happiness.

Can women of uncultivated understandings make such wives or such

mothers?

LETTERS

OF

JULIA AND CAROLINE.

No penance can absolve their guilty fame,

Nor tears, that wash out guilt, can wash out shame.

PRIOR.

LETTER I.

JULIA TO CAROLINE.

In vain, dear Caroline, you urge me to _think_; I profess only to

_feel_.

“_Reflect upon my own feelings!_ Analyze my notions of happiness!

explain to you my system!”--My system! But I have no system: that is the

very difference between us. My notions of happiness cannot be resolved

into simple, fixed principles. Nor dare I even attempt to analyze them;

the subtle essence would escape in the process: just punishment to the

alchymist in morality!

You, Caroline, are of a more sedate, contemplative character. Philosophy

becomes the rigid mistress of your life, enchanting enthusiasm the

companion of mine. Suppose she lead me now and then in pursuit of a

meteor; am not I happy in the chase? When one illusion vanishes, another

shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that

retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only

with my existence.

“Reflect upon my feelings!”--Dear Caroline, is it not enough that I

do feel?--All that I dread is that _apathy_ which philosophers call

tranquillity. You tell me that by continually _indulging_, I shall

weaken my natural sensibility;--are not all the faculties of the soul

improved, refined by exercise? and why shall _this_ be excepted from the

general law?

But I must not, you tell me, indulge my taste for romance and poetry,

lest I waste that sympathy on _fiction_ which _reality_ so much better

deserves. My dear friend, let us cherish the precious propensity to

pity! no matter what the object; sympathy with fiction or reality arises

from the same disposition.

When the sigh of compassion rises in my bosom, when the spontaneous tear

starts from my eye, what frigid moralist shall “stop the genial current

of the soul?” shall say to the tide of passion, _So far shall thou

go, and no farther?_--Shall man presume to circumscribe that which

Providence has left unbounded?

But oh, Caroline! if our feelings as well as our days are numbered;

if, by the immutable law of nature, apathy be the sleep of passion, and

languor the necessary consequence of exertion; if indeed the pleasures

of life are so ill proportioned to its duration, oh, may that duration

be shortened to me!--Kind Heaven, let not my soul die before my body!

Yes, if at this instant my guardian genius were to appear before me, and

offering me the choice of my future destiny; on the one hand, the even

temper, the poised judgment, the stoical serenity of philosophy; on the

other, the eager genius, the exquisite sensibility of enthusiasm: if the

genius said to me, “Choose”--the lot of the one is great pleasure, and

great pain--great virtues, and great defects--ardent hope, and severe

disappointment--ecstasy, and despair:--the lot of the other is calm

happiness unmixed with violent grief--virtue without heroism--respect

without admiration--and a length of life, in which to every moment is

allotted its proper portion of felicity:--Gracious genius! I should

exclaim, if half my existence must be the sacrifice, take it;

_enthusiasm is my choice_.

Such, my dear friend, would be my choice were I a man; as a woman, how

much more readily should I determine!

What has woman to do with philosophy? The graces flourish not under her

empire: a woman’s part in life is to please, and Providence has assigned

to her _success_, all the pride and pleasure of her being.

Then leave us our weakness, leave us our follies; they are our best

arms:--

“Leave us to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom folly pleases and whose follies please”

The moment grave sense and solid merit appear, adieu the bewitching

caprice, the “_lively nonsense_,” the exquisite, yet childish

susceptibility which charms, interests, captivates.--Believe me, our

_amiable defects_ win more than our noblest virtues. Love requires

sympathy, and sympathy is seldom connected with a sense of superiority.

I envy none their “_painful pre-eminence_.” Alas! whether it be

deformity or excellence which makes us say with Richard the Third,

“I am myself alone!”

it comes to much the same thing. Then let us, Caroline, content

ourselves to gain in love, what we lose in esteem.

Man is to be held only by the _slightest_ chains; with the idea that he

can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport; but his pride

revolts against the power to which his _reason_ tells him he ought to

submit. What then can woman gain by reason? Can she prove by argument

that she is amiable? or demonstrate that she is an angel?

Vain was the industry of the artist, who, to produce the image of

perfect beauty, selected from the fairest faces their most faultless

features. Equally vain must be the efforts of the philosopher, who would

excite the idea of mental perfection, by combining an assemblage of

party-coloured virtues.

Such, I had almost said, is my _system_, but I mean my _sentiments_. I

am not accurate enough to compose a _system_. After all, how vain are

systems, and theories, and reasonings!

We may _declaim_, but what do we really know? All is uncertainty--human

prudence does nothing--fortune every thing: I leave every thing

therefore to fortune; _you_ leave nothing. Such is the difference

between us,--and which shall be the happiest, time alone can decide.

Farewell, dear Caroline; I love you better than I thought I could love a

philosopher.

Your ever affectionate

JULIA.

* * * * *

LETTER II.

CAROLINE’S ANSWER TO JULIA.

At the hazard of ceasing to be “_charming_,” “_interesting_,”

“_captivating_,” I must, dear Julia, venture to reason with you,

to examine your favourite doctrine of “_amiable defects_,” and, if

possible, to dissipate that unjust dread of perfection which you seem to

have continually before your eyes.

It is the sole object of a woman’s life, you say, to _please_. Her

amiable defects _please_ more than her noblest virtues, her follies more

than her wisdom, her caprice more than her temper, and _something_, a

nameless something, which no art can imitate and no science can teach,

more than all.

_Art_, you say, spoils the graces, and corrupts the heart of woman;

and at best can produce only a cold model of perfection; which though

perhaps strictly conformable to _rule_, can never touch the soul, or

please the unprejudiced taste, like one simple stroke of genuine nature.

I have often observed, dear Julia, that an inaccurate use of words

produces such a strange confusion in all reasoning, that in the heat of

debate, the combatants, unable to distinguish their friends from their

foes, fall promiscuously on both. A skilful disputant knows well how to

take advantage of this confusion, and sometimes endeavours to create it.

I do not know whether I am to suspect you of such a design; but I must

guard against it.

You have with great address availed yourself of the _two_ ideas

connected with the word _art_: first, as opposed to simplicity, it

implies artifice; and next, as opposed to ignorance, it comprehends

all the improvements of science, which leading us to search for general

causes, rewards us with a dominion over their dependent effects:--that

which instructs how to pursue the objects which we may have in view

with the greatest probability of success. All men who act from general

principles are so far philosophers. Their objects may be, when attained,

insufficient to their happiness, or they may not previously have known

all the necessary means to obtain them: but they must not therefore

complain, if they do not meet with success which they have no reason to

expect.

Parrhasius, in collecting the most admired excellences from various

models, to produce perfection, concluded, from general principles

that mankind would be pleased again with what had once excited their

admiration.--So far he was a philosopher: but he was disappointed of

success:--yes, for he was ignorant of the cause necessary to produce it.

The separate features might be perfect, but they were unsuited to

each other, and in their forced union he could not give to the whole

countenance symmetry and an appropriate expression.

There was, as you say, a _something_ wanting, which his science had

not taught him. He should then have set himself to examine what that

_something_ was, and how it was to be obtained. His want of success

arose from the _insufficiency_, not the _fallacy_, of theory. Your

object, dear Julia, we will suppose is “to please.” If general

observation and experience have taught you, that slight accomplishments

and a trivial character succeed more certainly in obtaining this end,

than higher worth and sense, you act from principle in rejecting the

one and aiming at the other. You have discovered, or think you have

discovered, the secret causes which produce the desired effect, and you

employ them. Do not call this _instinct_ or _nature_; this also, though

you scorn it, is _philosophy_.

But when you come soberly to reflect, you have a feeling in your mind,

that reason and cool judgment disapprove of the part you are acting.

Let us, however, distinguish between disapprobation of the _object_, and

the means.

Averse as enthusiasm is from the retrograde motion of analysis, let me,

my dear friend, lead you one step backward.

_Why_ do you wish to please? I except at present from the question, the

desire to please, arising from a passion which requires a reciprocal

return. Confined as _this_ wish must be in a woman’s heart to one object

alone, when you say, Julia, _that the admiration of others_ will be

absolutely necessary to your happiness, I must suppose you mean to

express only a _general_ desire to please?

Then under this limitation--let me ask you again, why do you wish to

please?

Do not let a word stop you. The word _vanity_ conveys to us

a disagreeable idea. There seems something _selfish_ in the

sentiment--that all the pleasure we feel in pleasing others arises from

the gratification it affords to our own _vanity_.

We refine, and explain, and never can bring ourselves fairly to make

a confession, which we are sensible must lower us in the opinion of

others, and consequently mortify the very _vanity_ we would conceal.

So strangely then do we deceive ourselves as to deny the existence of a

motive, which at the instant prompts the denial. But let us, dear Julia,

exchange the word _vanity_ for a less odious word, self-complacency; let

us acknowledge that we wish to please, because the success raises our

self-complacency. If you ask why raising our self-approbation gives us

pleasure, I must answer, that I do not know. Yet I see and feel that

it does; I observe that the voice of numbers is capable of raising the

highest transport or the most fatal despair. The eye of man seems to

possess a fascinating power over his fellow-creatures, to raise the

blush of shame, or the glow of pride.

I look around me, and I see riches, titles, dignities, pursued with such

eagerness by thousands, only as the signs of distinction. Nay, are not

all these things sacrificed the moment they cease to be distinctions?

The moment the prize of glory is to be won by other means, do not

millions sacrifice their fortunes, their peace, their health, their

lives, for _fame_? Then amongst the highest pleasures of human beings

I must place self-approbation. With this belief, let us endeavour to

secure it in the greatest extent, and to the longest duration.

Then, Julia, the wish to please becomes only a secondary motive,

subordinate to the desire I have to secure my own self-complacency. We

will examine how far they are connected.

In reflecting upon my own mind, I observe that I am flattered by the

opinion of others, in proportion to the opinion I have previously formed

of their judgment; or I perceive that the opinion of numbers, merely

as numbers, has power to give me great pleasure or great pain. I would

unite both these pleasures if I could, but in general I cannot--they

are incompatible. The opinion of the vulgar crowd and the enlightened

individual, the applause of the highest and the lowest of mankind,

cannot be obtained by the same means.

Another question then arises,--whom shall we wish to please? We must

choose, and be decided in the choice.

You say that you are proud; I am prouder.--You will be content with

indiscriminate admiration--nothing will content me but what is _select_.

As long as I have the use of my reason--as long as my heart can feel

the delightful sense of a “well-earned praise,” I will fix my eye on the

highest pitch of excellence, and steadily endeavour to attain it.

Conscious of her worth, and daring to assert it, I would have a woman

early in life know that she is capable of filling the heart of a man of

sense and merit; that she is worthy to be his companion and friend. With

all the energy of her soul, with all the powers of her understanding, I

would have a woman endeavour to please those whom she esteems and loves.

She runs a risk, you will say, of never meeting her equal. Hearts and

understandings of a superior order are seldom met with in the world;

or when met with, it may not be a particular good fortune to win

them.--True; but if ever she _wins_, she will _keep_ them; and the prize

appears to me well worth the pains and difficulty of attaining.

I, Julia, admire and feel enthusiasm; but I would have philosophy

directed to the highest objects. I dread apathy as much as you can; and

I would endeavour to prevent it, not by sacrificing half my existence,

but by enjoying the whole with moderation.

You ask, why exercise does not increase sensibility, and why sympathy

with imaginary distress will not also increase the disposition to

sympathize with what is real?--Because pity should, I think, always

be associated with the active desire to relieve. If it be suffered to

become a _passive sensation_, it is a _useless weakness_, not a virtue.

The species of reading you speak of must be hurtful, even in this

respect, to the mind, as it indulges all the luxury of woe in sympathy

with fictitious distress, without requiring the exertion which reality

demands: besides, universal experience proves to us that habit, so far

from increasing sensibility, absolutely destroys it, by familiarizing it

with objects of compassion.

Let me, my dear friend, appeal even to your own experience in the very

instance you mention. Is there any pathetic writer in the world who

could move you as much at the “twentieth reading as at the first[1]?”

Speak naturally, and at the third or fourth reading, you would probably

say, It is very pathetic, but I have read it before--I liked it better

the first time; that is to say, it _did_ touch me once--I know it

_ought_ to touch me now, but it _does not_. Beware of this! Do not let

life become _as tedious as a twice-told tale_.

Farewell, dear Julia: this is the answer of fact against eloquence,

philosophy against enthusiasm. You appeal from my understanding to my

heart--I appeal from the heart to the understanding of my judge; and ten

years hence the decision perhaps will be in my favour.

Yours sincerely,

CAROLINE.

[Footnote 1: Hume said, that Parnell’s poems were as fresh at the

twentieth reading as at the first.]

* * * * *

LETTER III.

CAROLINE TO JULIA.

_On her intended marriage._

Indeed, my dear Julia, I hardly know how to venture to give you my

advice upon a subject which ought to depend so much upon your own taste

and feelings. My opinion and my wishes I could readily tell you: the

idea of seeing you united and attached to my brother is certainly the

most agreeable to me; but I am to divest myself of the partiality of a

sister, and to consider my brother and Lord V---- as equal candidates

for your preference--equal, I mean, in your regard; for you say that

“Your heart is not yet decided in its choice.--If that oracle would

declare itself in intelligible terms, you would not hesitate a moment to

obey its dictates.” But, my dear Julia, is there not another, a _safer_,

I do not say a _better_ oracle, to be consulted--your reason? Whilst the

“doubtful beam still nods from side to side,” you may with a steady hand

weigh your own motives, and determine what things will be essential to

your happiness, and what _price_ you will pay for them; for

“Each pleasure has its _price_; and they who pay

Too much of pain, but squander life away.”

Do me the justice to believe that I do not quote these lines of Dryden

as being the finest poetry he ever wrote; for poets, you know, as Waller

wittily observed, never succeed so well in truth as in fiction.

Since we cannot in life expect to realize all our wishes, we must

distinguish those which claim the rank of wants. We must separate the

fanciful from the real, or at least make the one subservient to the

other.

It is of the utmost importance to you, more particularly, to take

every precaution before you decide for life, because disappointment and

restraint afterwards would be insupportable to your temper.

You have often declared to me, my dear friend, that your love of poetry,

and of all the refinements of literary and romantic pursuits, is so

intimately “interwoven in your mind, that nothing could separate them,

without destroying the whole fabric.”

Your tastes, you say, are fixed; if they are so, you must be doubly

careful to ensure their gratification. If you cannot make _them_

subservient to external circumstances, you should certainly, if it be

in your power, choose a situation in which circumstances will be

subservient to them. If you are convinced that you could not adopt the

tastes of another, it will be absolutely necessary for your happiness to

live with one whose tastes are similar to your own.

The belief in that sympathy of souls, which the poets suppose declares

itself between two people at first sight, is perhaps as absurd as the

late fashionable belief in animal magnetism: but there is a sympathy

which, if it be not the foundation, may be called the cement of

affection. Two people could not, I should think, retain any lasting

affection for each other, without a mutual sympathy in taste and in

their diurnal occupations and domestic pleasures. This, you will allow,

my dear Julia, even in a fuller extent than I do. Now, my brother’s

tastes, character, and habits of life, are so very different from Lord

V----‘s, that I scarcely know how you can compare them; at least before

you can decide which of the two would make you the happiest in life, you

must determine what kind of life you may wish to lead; for my brother,

though he might make you very happy in domestic life, would not make

the Countess of V---- happy; nor would Lord V---- make Mrs. Percy happy.

They must be two different women, with different habits, and different

wishes; so that you must divide yourself, my dear Julia, like Araspes,

into two selves; I do not say into a bad and a good self; choose some

other epithets to distinguish them, but distinct they must be: so let

them now declare and decide their pretensions; and let the victor have

not only the honours of a triumph, but all the prerogatives of

victory. Let the subdued be subdued for life--let the victor take every

precaution which policy can dictate, to prevent the possibility of

future contests with the vanquished.

But without talking poetry to you, my dear friend, let me seriously

recommend it to you to examine your own mind carefully; and if you find

that public diversions and public admiration, dissipation, and all the

pleasures of riches and high rank, are really and truly essential to

your happiness, direct your choice accordingly. Marry Lord V----: he has

a large fortune, extensive connexions, and an exalted station; his own

taste for show and expense, his family pride, and personal vanity, will

all tend to the end you propose. Your house, table, equipages, may

be all in the highest style of magnificence. Lord V----‘s easiness

of temper, and fondness for you, will readily give you that entire

ascendancy over his pleasures, which your abilities give you over his

understanding. He will not control your wishes; you may gratify them to

the utmost bounds of his fortune, and perhaps beyond those bounds; you

may have entire command at home and abroad. If these are your objects,

Julia, take them; they are in your power. But remember, you must take

them with their necessary concomitants--the restraints upon your time,

upon the choice of your friends and your company, which high life

imposes; the _ennui_ subsequent to dissipation; the mortifications

of rivalship in beauty, wit, rank, and magnificence; the trouble of

managing a large fortune, and the chance of involving your affairs and

your family in difficulty and distress; these and a thousand more evils

you must submit to. You must renounce all the pleasures of the heart and

of the imagination; you must give up the idea of cultivating literary

taste; you must not expect from your husband friendship and confidence,

or any of the delicacies of affection:--you govern him, he cannot

therefore be your equal; you may be a fond mother, but you cannot

educate your children; you will neither have the time nor the power

to do it; you must trust them to a governess. In the selection of your

friends, and in the enjoyment of their company and conversation, you

will be still more restrained: in short, you must give up the pleasures

of domestic life; for that is not in this case the life you have chosen.

But you will exclaim against me for supposing you capable of making such

a choice--such sacrifices!--I am sure, _next to my brother_, I am the

last person in the world who would wish you to make them.

You have another choice, my dear Julia: domestic life is offered to you

by one who has every wish and every power to make it agreeable to you;

by one whose tastes resemble your own; who would be a judge and a fond

admirer of all your perfections. You would have perpetual motives to

cultivate every talent, and to exert every power of pleasing for his

sake--for _his_ sake, whose penetration no improvement would escape,

and whose affection would be susceptible of every proof of yours. Am I

drawing too flattering a picture?--A sister’s hand may draw a partial

likeness, but still it will be a likeness. At all events, my dear Julia,

you would be certain of the mode of life you would lead with my brother.

The regulation of your time and occupations would be your own. In

the education of your family, you would meet with no interruptions or

restraint. You would have no governess to counteract, no strangers to

intrude; you might follow your own judgment, or yield to the judgment

of one who would never require you to submit to his opinion, but to his

reasons.

All the pleasures of friendship you would enjoy in your own family in

the highest perfection, and you would have for your sister the friend of

your infancy,

CAROLINE.

* * * * *

LETTER IV.

CAROLINE TO LADY V----.

_Upon her intended separation from her husband._

You need not fear, my dear Lady V----, that I should triumph in the

accomplishment of my prophecies; or that I should reproach you for

having preferred your own opinion to my advice. Believe me, my dear

Julia, I am your friend, nor would the name of sister have increased my

friendship.

Five years have made then so great a change in your feelings and views

of life, that a few days ago, when my letter to you on your marriage

accidentally fell into your hands, “_you were struck with a species of

astonishment at your choice, and you burst into tears in an agony of

despair, on reading the wretched doom foretold to the wife of Lord

V----. A doom,_” you add, “_which I feel hourly accomplishing, and which

I see no possibility of averting, but by a separation from a husband,

with whom, I now think, it was madness to unite myself._” Your opinion

I must already know upon this subject, “_as the same arguments which

should have prevented me from making such a choice, ought now to

determine me to abjure it._”

You say, dear Julia, that my letter struck you with despair.--Despair

is either madness or folly; it obtains, it deserves nothing from mankind

but pity; and pity, though it be akin to love, has yet a secret affinity

to contempt. In strong minds, despair is an acute disease; the prelude

to great exertion. In weak minds, it is a chronic distemper, followed

by incurable indolence. Let the crisis be favourable, and resume your

wonted energy. Instead of suffering the imagination to dwell with

unavailing sorrow on the past, let us turn our attention towards the

future. When an evil is irremediable, let us acknowledge it to be such,

and bear it:--there is no power to which we submit so certainly as

to necessity. With our hopes, our wishes cease. Imagination has a

contracting, as well as an expansive faculty. The prisoner, who,

deprived of all that we conceive to constitute the pleasures of life,

could interest or occupy himself with the labours of a spider, was

certainly a philosopher. He enjoyed all the means of happiness that were

left in his power.

I know, my dear Lady V----, that words have little effect over grief;

and I do not, I assure you, mean to insult you with the parade of stoic

philosophy. But consider, your error is not perhaps so great as you

imagine. Certainly, they who at the beginning of life can with a steady

eye look through the long perspective of distant years, who can in one

view comprise all the different objects of happiness and misery, who

can compare accurately, and justly estimate their respective degrees of

importance; and who, after having formed such a calculation, are capable

of acting uniformly, in consequence of their own conviction, are

the _wisest_, and, as far as prudence can influence our fortune, the

_happiest_ of human beings. Next to this favoured class are those who

can perceive and repair their own errors; who can stop at any given

period to take a new view of life. If unfortunate circumstances have

denied you a place in the first rank, you may, dear Julia, secure

yourself a station in the second. Is not the conduct of a woman, after

her marriage, of infinitely more importance than her previous choice,

whatever it may have been? Then now consider what yours should be.

You say that it is easier to _break_ a chain than to _stretch_ it; but

remember that when broken, your part of the chain, Julia, will still

remain with you, and fetter and disgrace you through life. Why should a

woman be so circumspect in her choice? Is it not because when once made

she must abide by it? “She sets her life upon the cast, and she must

stand the hazard of the die.” From domestic uneasiness a man has a

thousand resources: in middling life, the tavern, in high life, the

gaming-table, suspends the anxiety of thought. Dissipation, ambition,

business, the occupation of a profession, change of place, change

of company, afford him agreeable and honourable relief from domestic

chagrin. If his home become tiresome, he leaves it; if his wife become

disagreeable to him, he leaves her, and in leaving her loses _only_ a

wife. But what resource has a woman?--Precluded from all the occupations

common to the other sex, she loses even those peculiar to her own. She

has no remedy, from the company of a man she dislikes, but a separation;

and this remedy, desperate as it is, is allowed only to a certain class

of women in society; to those whose fortune affords them the means

of subsistence, and whose friends have secured to them a separate

maintenance. A peeress then, probably, can leave her husband if she

wish it; a peasant’s wife cannot; she depends upon the character and

privileges of a wife for actual subsistence. Her domestic care, if not

her affection, is secured to her husband; and it is just that it should.

He sacrifices his liberty, his labour, his ingenuity, his time, for the

support and protection of his wife; and in proportion to his protection

is his power.

In higher life, where the sacrifices of both parties in the original

union are more equal, the evils of a separation are more nearly

balanced. But even here, the wife who has hazarded least, suffers the

most by the dissolution of the partnership; she loses a great part of

her fortune, and of the conveniences and luxuries of life. She loses

her home, her rank in society. She loses both the repellant and the

attractive power of a mistress of a family. “Her occupation is gone.”

She becomes a wanderer. Whilst her youth and beauty last, she may enjoy

that species of delirium, caused by public admiration; fortunate if

habit does not destroy the power of this charm, before the season of

its duration expire. It was said to be the wish of a celebrated modern

beauty, “that she might not survive her nine-and-twentieth birth-day.”

I have often heard this wish quoted for its extravagance; but I always

admired it for its good sense. The lady foresaw the inevitable doom of

her declining years. Her apprehensions for the future embittered even

her enjoyment of the present; and she had resolution enough to offer to

take “a bond of fate,” to sacrifice one-half of her life, to secure the

pleasure of the other.

But, dear Lady V----, probably this wish was made at some distance

from the destined period of its accomplishment. On the eve of her

nine-and-twentieth birth-day, the lady perhaps might have felt inclined

to retract her prayer. At least we should provide for the cowardice

which might seize the female mind at such an instant. Even the most

wretched life has power to attach us; none can be more wretched than

the old age of a dissipated beauty:--unless, Lady V----, it be that of

a woman, who, to all her evils has the addition of remorse, for having

abjured her duties and abandoned her family. Such is the situation of

a woman who separates from her husband. Reduced to go the same insipid

round of public amusements, yet more restrained than an unmarried beauty

in youth, yet more miserable in age, the superiority of her genius and

the sensibility of her heart become her greatest evils. She, indeed,

must pray for indifference. Avoided by all her family connexions, hated

and despised where she might have been loved and respected, solitary

in the midst of society, she feels herself deserted at the time of life

when she most wants social comfort and assistance.

Dear Julia, whilst it is yet in your power secure to yourself a happier

fate; retire to the bosom of your own family; prepare for yourself a new

society; perform the duties, and you shall soon enjoy the pleasures of

domestic life; educate your children; whilst they are young, it shall

be your occupation; as they grow up, it shall be your glory. Let me

anticipate your future success, when they shall appear such as you can

make them; when the world shall ask “who educated these amiable young

women? Who formed their character? Who cultivated the talents of this

promising young man? Why does this whole family live together in such

perfect union?” With one voice, dear Julia, your children shall name

their mother; she who in the bloom of youth checked herself in the

career of dissipation, and turned all the ability and energy of her mind

to their education.

Such will be your future fame. In the mean time, before you have formed

for yourself companions in your own family, you will want a society

suited to your taste. “Disgusted as you have been with frivolous

company, you say that you wish to draw around you a society of literary

and estimable friends, whose conversation and talents shall delight

you, and who at the same time that they are excited to display their own

abilities, shall be a judge of yours.”

But, dear Lady V----, the possibility of your forming such a society

must depend on your having a home to receive, a character and

consequence in life to invite and attach friends. The opinion of numbers

is necessary to excite the ambition of individuals. To be a female

Mecaenas you must have power to confer favours, as well as judgment to

discern merit.

What castles in the air are built by the synthetic wand of imagination,

which vanish when exposed to the analysis of reason!

Then, Julia, supposing that Lord V----, as your husband, becomes a

negative quantity as to your happiness, yet he will acquire another

species of value as the master of your family and the father of your

children; as a person who supports your public consequence, and your

private self-complacency. Yes, dear Lady V----, he will increase your

self-complacency; for do you not think, that when your husband sees

his children prosper under your care, his family united under your

management--whilst he feels your merit at home, and hears your praises

abroad, do you not think he will himself learn to respect and love you?

You say that “_he is not a judge of female excellence; that he has no

real taste; that vanity is his ruling passion_.” Then if his judgment be

dependent on the opinions of others, he will be the more easily led by

the public voice, and you will command the suffrages of the public. If

he has not taste enough to approve, he will have vanity enough to be

proud of you; and a vain man insensibly begins to love that of which

he is proud. Why does Lord V---- love his buildings, his paintings, his

equipages? It is not for their intrinsic value; but because they are

means of distinction to him. Let his wife become a greater distinction

to him, and on the same principles he will prefer her. Set an example,

then, dear Lady V----, of domestic virtue; your talents shall make it

admired, your rank shall make it conspicuous. You are ambitious, Julia,

you love praise; you have been used to it; you cannot live happily

without it.

Praise is a mental luxury, which becomes from habit absolutely necessary

to our existence; and in purchasing it we must pay the price set upon

it by society. The more curious, the more avaricious we become of this

“aerial coin,” the more it is our interest to preserve its currency and

increase its value. You, my dear Julia, in particular, who have amassed

so much of it, should not cry down its price, for your own sake!--Do not

then say in a fit of disgust, that “you are grown too wise now to value

applause.”

If, during youth, your appetite for applause was indiscriminate, and

indulged to excess, you are now more difficult in your choice, and are

become an _epicure_ in your _taste_ for praise.

Adieu, my dear Julia; I hope still to see you as happy in domestic life

as

Your ever affectionate and sincere friend,

CAROLINE.

* * * * *

LETTER V.

CAROLINE TO LADY V----.

_On her conduct after her separation from her husband._

A delicacy, of which I now begin to repent, has of late prevented me

from writing to you. I am afraid I shall be abrupt, but it is necessary

to be explicit. Your conduct, ever since your separation from your

husband, has been anxiously watched from a variety of motives, by his

family and your own;--it has been blamed. Reflect upon your own mind,

and examine with what justice.

Last summer, when I was with you, I observed a change in your

conversation, and the whole turn of your thoughts. I perceived an

unusual impatience of restraint; a confusion in your ideas when you

began to reason,--an eloquence in your language when you began to

declaim, which convinced me that from some secret cause the powers of

your reason had been declining, and those of your imagination rapidly

increasing; the boundaries of right and wrong seemed to be no longer

marked in your mind. Neither the rational hope of happiness, nor a sense

of duty governed you; but some unknown, wayward power seemed to have

taken possession of your understanding, and to have thrown every thing

into confusion. You appeared peculiarly averse to philosophy: let me

recall your own words to you; you asked “of what use philosophy could be

to beings who had no free will, and how the ideas of just punishment and

involuntary crime could be reconciled?”

Your understanding involved itself in metaphysical absurdity. In

conversing upon literary subjects one evening, in speaking of the

striking difference between the conduct and the understanding of the

great Lord Bacon, you said, that “It by no means surprised you; that

to an enlarged mind, accustomed to consider the universe as one vast

_whole_, the conduct of that little animated atom, that inconsiderable

part _self_, must be too insignificant to fix or merit attention. It was

nothing,” you said, “in the general mass of vice and virtue, happiness

and misery.” I believe I answered, “that it might be _nothing_ compared

to the great _whole_, but it was _every thing_ to the individual.” Such

were your opinions in theory; you must know enough of the human heart to

perceive their tendency when reduced to practice. Speculative opinions,

I know, have little influence over the practice of those who _act_ much

and think little; but I should conceive their power to be considerable

over the conduct of those who have much time for reflection and little

necessity for action. In one case the habit of action governs the

thoughts upon any sudden emergency; in the other, the thoughts govern

the actions. The truth or falsehood then of speculative opinions is of

much greater consequence to our sex than to the other; as we live a life

of reflection, they of action.

Retrace, then, dear Julia, in your mind the course of your thoughts for

some time past; discover the cause of this revolution in your opinions;

judge yourself; and remember, that in the _mind_ as well as in the body,

the highest pitch of disease is often attended with an unconsciousness

of its existence. If, then, Lady V----, upon receiving my letter, you

should feel averse to this self-examination, or if you should imagine

it to be useless, I no longer advise, I command you to quit your present

abode; come to me: fly from the danger, and be safe.

Dear Julia, I must assume this peremptory tone: if you are angry, I must

disregard your anger; it is the anger of disease, the anger of one who

is roused from that sleep which would end in death.

I respect the equality of friendship; but this equality permits, nay

requires, the temporary ascendancy I assume. In real friendship, the

judgment, the genius, the prudence of each party become the common

property of both. Even if they are equals, they may not be so _always_.

Those transient fits of passion, to which the best and wisest are

liable, may deprive even the superior of the advantage of their reason.

She then has still in her friend an _impartial_, though perhaps an

inferior judgment; each becomes the guardian of the other, as their

mutual safety may require.

Heaven seems to have granted this double chance of virtue and happiness,

as the peculiar reward of friendship.

Use it, then, my dear friend; accept the assistance you could so well

return. Obey me; I shall judge of you by your resolution at this crisis:

on it depends your fate, and my friendship.

Your sincere and affectionate CAROLINE.

* * * * *

LETTER VI.

CAROLINE TO LADY V----.

_Just before she went to France_.

The time is now come, Lady V----, when I must bid you an eternal adieu.

With what deep regret, I need not, Julia, I cannot tell you.

I burned your letter the moment I had read it. Your past confidence I

never will betray; but I must renounce all future intercourse with you.

I am a sister, a wife, a mother; all these connexions forbid me to be

longer your friend. In misfortune, in sickness, or in poverty, I never

would have forsaken you; but infamy I cannot share. I would have gone,

I went, to the brink of the precipice to save you; with all my force

I held you back; but in vain. But why do I vindicate my conduct to

you now? Accustomed as I have always been to think your approbation

necessary to my happiness, I forgot that henceforward your opinion is to

be nothing to me, or mine to you.

Oh, Julia! the idea, the certainty, that you must, if you live, be in

a few years, in a few months, perhaps, reduced to absolute want, in a

foreign country--without a friend--a protector, the fate of women who

have fallen from a state as high as yours, the names of L----, of G----,

the horror I feel at joining your name to theirs, impels me to make one

more attempt to save you.

Companion of my earliest years! friend of my youth! my beloved Julia! by

the happy innocent hours we have spent together, by the love you had for

me, by the respect you bear to the memory of your mother, by the agony

with which your father will hear of the loss of his daughter, by all

that has power to touch your mind--I conjure you, I implore you to

pause!--Farewell!

CAROLINE.

* * * * *

LETTER VII.

CAROLINE TO LORD V----.

_Written a few months after the date of the preceding letter._

My lord,

Though I am too sensible that all connexion between my unfortunate

friend and her family must for some time have been dissolved, I venture

now to address myself to your lordship.

On Wednesday last, about half after six o’clock in the evening, the

following note was brought to me. It had been written with such a

trembling hand that it was scarcely legible; but I knew the writing too

well.

* * * * *

“If you ever loved me, Caroline, read this--do not tear it the moment

you see the name of Julia: she has suffered--she is humbled. I left

France with the hope of seeing you once more; but now I am so near you,

my courage fails, and my heart sinks within me. I have no friend upon

earth--I deserve none; yet I cannot help wishing to see, once more

before I die, the friend of my youth, to thank her with my last breath.

“But, dear Caroline, if I must not see you, write to me, if possible,

one line of consolation.

“Tell me, is my father living--do you know any thing of my children?--I

dare not ask for my husband. Adieu! I am so weak that I can scarcely

write--I hope I shall soon be no more. Farewell!

“JULIA.”

I immediately determined to follow the bearer of this letter. Julia was

waiting for my answer at a small inn in a neighbouring village, at a

few miles’ distance. It was night when I got there: every thing was

silent--all the houses were shut up, excepting one, in which we saw two

or three lights glimmering through the window--this was the inn: as your

lordship may imagine, it was a very miserable place. The mistress of the

house seemed to be touched with pity for the stranger: she opened the

door of a small room, where she said the poor lady was resting; and

retired as I entered.

Upon a low matted seat beside the fire sat Lady V----; she was in black;

her knees were crossed, and her white but emaciated arms flung on one

side over her lap; her hands were clasped together, and her eyes fixed

upon the fire: she seemed neither to hear nor see any thing round

her, but, totally absorbed in her own reflections, to have sunk into

insensibility. I dreaded to rouse her from this state of torpor; and

I believe I stood for some moments motionless: at last I moved softly

towards her--she turned her head--started up--a scarlet blush overspread

her face--she grew livid again instantly, gave a faint shriek, and sunk

senseless into my arms.

When she returned to herself, and found her head lying upon my shoulder,

and heard my voice soothing her with all the expressions of kindness I

could think of, she smiled with a look of gratitude, which I never shall

forget. Like one who had been long unused to kindness, she seemed ready

to pour forth all the fondness of her heart: but, as if recollecting

herself better, she immediately checked her feelings--withdrew her hand

from mine--thanked me--said she was quite well again--cast down her

eyes, and her manner changed from tenderness to timidity. She seemed

to think that she had lost all right to sympathy, and received even the

common offices of humanity with surprise: her high spirit, I saw, was

quite broken.

I think I never felt such sorrow as I did in contemplating Julia at

this instant: she who stood before me, sinking under the sense

of inferiority, I knew to be my equal--my superior; yet by fatal

imprudence, by one rash step, all her great, and good, and amiable

qualities were irretrievably lost to the world and to herself.

When I thought that she was a little recovered, I begged of her, if she

was not too much fatigued, to let me carry her home. At these words

she looked at me with surprise. Her eyes filled with tears; but without

making any other reply, she suffered me to draw her arm within mine, and

attempted to follow me. I did not know how feeble she was till she began

to walk; it was with the utmost difficulty I supported her to the door;

and by the assistance of the people of the house she was lifted into the

carriage: we went very slowly. When the carriage stopped she was seized

with an universal tremor; she started when the man knocked at the door,

and seemed to dread its being opened. The appearance of light and the

sound of cheerful voices struck her with horror.

I could not myself help being shocked with the contrast between the

dreadful situation of my friend, and the happiness of the family to

which I was returning.

“Oh!” said she, “what are these voices?--Whither are you taking me?--For

Heaven’s sake do not let any body see me!”

I assured her that she should go directly to her own apartment, and that

no human being should approach her without her express permission.

Alas! it happened at this very moment that all my children came

running with the utmost gaiety into the hall to meet us, and the very

circumstance which I had been so anxious to prevent happened--little

Julia was amongst them. The gaiety of the children suddenly ceased the

moment they saw Lady V---- coming up the steps--they were struck with

her melancholy air and countenance: she, leaning upon my arm, with her

eyes fixed upon the ground, let me lead her in, and sunk upon the first

chair she came to. I made a sign to the children to retire; but the

moment they began to move, Lady V---- looked up--saw her daughter--and

now for the first time burst into tears The little girl did not

recollect her poor mother till she heard the sound of her voice; and

then she threw her arms round her neck, crying, “Is it you, mamma?”--and

all the children immediately crowded round and asked, “if this was the

same Lady V---- who used to play with them?”

It is impossible to describe the effect these simple questions had on

Julia: a variety of emotions seemed struggling in her countenance; she

rose and made an attempt to break from the children, but could not--she

had not strength to support herself. We carried her away and put her to

bed; she took no notice of any body, nor did she even seem to know that

I was with her: I thought she was insensible, but as I drew the curtains

I heard her give a deep sigh.

I left her, and carried away her little girl, who had followed us up

stairs and begged to stay with her mother; but I was apprehensive that

the sight of her might renew her agitation.

After I was gone, they told me that she was perfectly still, with her

eyes closed; and I stayed away some time in hopes that she might sleep:

however, about midnight she sent to beg to speak to me: she was very

ill--she beckoned to me to sit down by her bedside--every one left the

room; and when Julia saw herself alone with me, she took my hand, and in

a low but calm voice she said, “I have not many hours to live--my heart

is broken--I wished to see you, to thank you whilst it was yet in my

power.” She pressed my hand to her trembling lips: “Your kindness,”

added she, “touches me more than all the rest; but how ashamed you must

be of such a friend! Oh, Caroline! to die a disgrace to all who ever

loved me!”

The tears trickled down her face, and choked her utterance: she wiped

them away hastily. “But it is not now a time,” said she, “to think of

myself--can I see my daughter?” The little girl was asleep: she was

awakened, and I brought her to her mother. Julia raised herself in her

bed, and summoning up all her strength, “My dearest friend!” said she,

putting her child’s hand into mine, “when I am gone, be a mother to this

child--let her know my whole history, let nothing be concealed from her.

Poor girl! you will live to blush at your mother’s name.” She paused and

leaned back: I was going to take the child away, but she held out her

arms again for her, and kissed her several times. “Farewell!” said she;

“I shall never see you again.” The little girl burst into tears. Julia

wished to say something more--she raised herself again--at last she

uttered these words with energy:--“My love, _be good and happy_;”

she then sunk down on the pillow quite exhausted--she never spoke

afterwards: I took her hand--it was cold--her pulse scarcely beat--her

eyes rolled without meaning--in a few moments she expired.

Painful as it has been to me to recall the circumstances of her death

to my imagination, I have given your lordship this exact and detailed

account of my unfortunate friend’s behaviour in her last moments.

Whatever may have been her errors, her soul never became callous from

vice. The sense of her own ill conduct, was undoubtedly the immediate

cause of her illness, and the remorse which had long preyed upon her

mind, at length brought her to the grave--

I have the honour to be, My lord, &c. CAROLINE.

_Written in 1787._ _Published in 1795._