those among your unmarried friends who are unintellectual and
uncultivated, and contrast them with those who have by education
strengthened natural powers and developed natural capabilities: among
these, it is easy for you to observe whose society is the most useful
and the most valued, whose opinion is the most respected, whose example
is the most frequently held up to imitation,--I mean by those alone
whose esteem is worth possessing. The giddy, the thoughtless, and the
uneducated may indeed manifest a decided preference for the society of
those whose pursuits and conversation are on a level with their own
capacity; but you surely cannot regret that they should even manifestly
(which however is not often ventured upon) shrink from your society.
"Like to like" is a proverb older than the time of Dante, whose answer
it was to Can della Scala, when reproached by him that the society of
the most frivolous persons was more sought after at court than that of
the poet and philosopher. "Given the amuser, the amusee must also be
given."[71] You surely ought not to regret the _cordon sanitaire_ which
protects you from the utter weariness, the loss of time, I might almost
add of temper, which uncongenial society would entail upon you. In the
affairs of life, you must generally make up your mind as to the good
that deserves your preference, and resolutely sacrifice the inferior
advantage which cannot be enjoyed with the greater one. You must
consequently give up all hope of general popularity, if you desire that
your society should be sought and valued, your opinion respected, your
example followed, by those whom you really love and admire, by the wise
and good, by those whose society you can yourself in your turn enjoy.
You must not expect that at the same time you should be the favourite
and chosen companion of the worthless, the frivolous, the uneducated;
you ought not, indeed, to desire it. Crush in its very birth that mean
ambition for popularity which might lead you on to sacrifice time and
tastes, alas! sometimes even principles, to gain the favour and applause
of those whose society ought to be a weariness to you. Nothing, besides,
is more injurious to the mind than a studied sympathy with mediocrity:
nay, without any "study," any conscious effort to bring yourself down to
their level, your mind must insensibly become weakened and tainted by a
surrounding atmosphere of ignorance and stupidity, so that you would
gradually become unfitted for that superior society which you are formed
to love and appreciate. It is quite a different case when the
dispensations of Providence and the exercise of social duties bring you
into contact with uncongenial minds. Whatever is a duty will be made
safe to you: it can only be from your own voluntary selection that any
unsuitable association becomes injurious and dangerous. Notwithstanding,
however, that it may be laid down as a general rule that the wise will
prefer the society of the wise, the educated that of the educated, it
sometimes happens that highly intellectual and cultivated persons
select, absolutely by their own choice, the frivolous and the ignorant
for their constant companions, though at the same time they may refer to
others for counsel, and direction, and sympathy. Is this choice,
however, made on account of the frivolity and ignorance of the persons
so selected? I am sure it is not. I am sure, if you inquire into every
case of this kind, you will see for yourself that it is not. Such
persons are thus preferred, sometimes on account of the fairness of
their features, sometimes on account of the sweetness of their temper,
sometimes for the lightheartedness which creates an atmosphere of
joyousness around them, and insures their never officiously obtruding
the cares and anxieties of this life upon their companions. Do not,
then, attribute to want of intellect those attractions which only need
to be combined with intellect to become altogether irresistible, but
which, however, I must confess, it may have an insensible influence in
destroying. For instance, the sweetness, of the temper is seldom
increased by increased refinement of mind; on the contrary, the latter
serves to quicken susceptibility and render perception more acute; and
therefore, unless it is guarded by an accompanying increase of
self-control, it will naturally produce an alteration for the worse in
the temper. This is one point. For the next, personal beauty may be
injured by want of exercise, neglect of health, or of due attention to
becoming apparel, which errors are often the results of an injudicious
absorption in intellectual pursuits. Lastly, a thoughtful nature and
habit of mind must of course induce a quicker perception, and a more
frequent contemplation of the sorrows and dangers of this mortal life,
than the volatile and thoughtless nature and habit of mind have any
temptation to; and thus persons of the former class are often induced,
sometimes usefully, sometimes unnecessarily, but perhaps always
disagreeably, to intrude the melancholy subjects of their own
meditations upon the persons with whom they associate, often making
their society evidently unpleasant, and, if possible, carefully avoided.
It is, however, unjust to attribute any of the inconveniences just
enumerated to those intellectual pursuits which, if properly pursued,
would prove effectual in improving, nay, even in bestowing,
intelligence, prudence, tact, and self-control, and thus preserving from
those very inconveniences to which I have referred above. Be it your
care to win praise and approbation for the habits of life you have
adopted, by showing that such are the effects they produce in you. By
your conduct you may prove that, if your perceptions have been quickened
and your sensibilities rendered more acute, you have at the same time,
and by the same means, acquired sufficient self-control to prevent
others from suffering ill-effects from that which would in such a case
be only a fancied improvement in yourself. Further, let it be your care
to bestow more attention than before on that external form which you are
now learning to estimate as the living, breathing type of that which is
within. Finally, while your increased thoughtfulness and the developed
powers of your reason will give you an insight in dangers and evils
which others never dream of, be careful to employ your knowledge only
for the improvement or preservation of the happiness of your friends.
Guard within your own breast, however you may long for the relief of
giving a free vent to your feelings, any sorrows or any apprehensions
that cannot be removed or obviated by their revelation. Thus will you
unite in yourself the combined advantages of the frivolous and
intellectual; your society will be loved and sought after as much as
that of the first can be, (only, however, by the wise and good--my
assertion extends no further,) and you will at the same time be
respected, consulted, and imitated, as the clever and educated can alone
be.
I have hitherto spoken only of the unmarried among your acquaintance:
let us now turn to the wives and mothers, and observe, with pity, the
position of her, who, though she may be well and fondly loved, is felt
at the same time to be incapable of bestowing sympathy or counsel. It is
indeed, perhaps, the wife and mother who is the best loved who will at
the same time be made the most deeply to feel her powerlessness to
appreciate, to advise, or to guide: the very anxiety to hide from her
that it is the society, the opinion, and the sympathy of others which is
really valued, because it alone can be appreciative, will make her only
the more sensibly aware that she is deficient in the leading qualities
that inspire respect and produce usefulness.
She must constantly feel her unfitness to take any part in the society
that suits the taste of her more intellectual husband and children. She
must observe that they are obliged to bring down their conversation to
her level, that they are obliged to avoid, out of deference to, and
affection for her, all those varied topics which make social intercourse
a useful as well as an agreeable exercise of the mental powers, an often
more improving arena of friendly discussion than perhaps any professed
debating society could be. No such employment of social intercourse can,
however, be attempted when one of the heads of the household is
uneducated and unintellectual. The weather must form the leading, and
the only safe topic of conversation; for the gossip of the
neighbourhood, commented on in the freedom and security of family life,
imparts to all its members a petty censoriousness of spirit that can
never afterwards be entirely thrown off. Then the education of the
children of such a mother as I have described must be carried on under
the most serious disadvantages. Money in abundance may be at her
disposal, but that is of little avail when she has no power of forming a
judgment as to the abilities of the persons so lavishly paid for forming
the minds of the children committed to their charge: the precious hours
of their youth will thus be very much wasted; and when self-education,
in some few cases, comes in time to repair these early neglects, there
must be reproachful memories of that ignorance which placed so many
needless difficulties in the path to knowledge and advancement.
It is not, however, those alone who are bound by the ties of wife and
mother, whose intellectual cultivation may exercise a powerful influence
in their social relations: each woman in proportion to her mental and
moral qualifications possesses a useful influence over all those within
her reach. Moral excellence alone effects much: the amiable, the loving,
and the unselfish almost insensibly dissuade from evil, and persuade to
good, those who have the good fortune to be within the reach of such
soothing influences. Their persuasions are, however, far more powerful
when vivacity, sweetness, and affection are given weight to by strong
natural powers of mind, united with high cultivation. Of all the
"talents" committed to our stewardship, none will require to be so
strictly accounted for as those of intellect. The influence that we
might have acquired over our fellow-men, thus winning them over to think
of and practise "all things lovely and of good report," if it be
neglected, is surely a sin of deeper dye than the misemployment of mere
money. The disregard of those intellectual helps which we might have
bestowed on others, and thus have extensively benefited the cause of
religion, one of whose most useful handmaids is mental cultivation, will
surely be among the most serious of the sins of omission that will swell
our account at the last day. The intellectual Dives will not be punished
only for the misuse of his riches, as in the case of a Byron or a
Shelley; the neglect of their improvement, by employing them for the
good of others, will equally disqualify him for hearing the final
commendation of "Well done, good and faithful servant."[72] This,
however, is not a point on which I need dwell at any length while
writing to you: you are aware, fully, I believe, of the responsibilities
entailed upon you by the natural powers you possess. It is from worldly
motives of dissuasion, and not from any ignorance with regard to that
which you know to be your duty, that you may be at times induced to
slacken your exertions in the task of self-improvement. You will not be
easily persuaded that it is not your duty to educate yourself; the doubt
that will be more easily instilled into your mind will be respecting the
possible injury to your happiness or worldly advancement by the increase
of your knowledge and the improvement of your mind. Look, then, again
around you, and see whether the want of employment confers happiness,
carefully distinguishing, however, between that happiness which results
from natural constitution and that which results from acquired habits.
It is true that many of the careless, thoughtless girls you are
acquainted with enjoy more happiness, such as they are capable of, in
mornings and evenings spent at their worsted-work, than the most
diligent cultivation of the intellect can ever insure to you. But the
question is, not whether the butterfly can contentedly dispense with the
higher instincts of the industrious, laborious, and useful bee, but
whether the superior creature could content itself with the insipid and
objectless pursuits of the lower one. The mind requires more to fill it
in proportion to the largeness of its grasp: hope not, therefore, that
you could find either their peace or their satisfaction in the
purse-netting, embroidering lives of your thoughtless companions. Even
to them, be sure, hours of deep weariness must come: no human being,
whatever her degree on the scale of mind, is capable of being entirely
satisfied with a life without object and without improvement. Remember,
however, that it is not at all by the comparative contentedness of their
mere animal existence that you can test the qualifications of a habit of
life to constitute your own happiness; that must stand on a far
different basis.
In the case of a very early marriage, there may be indeed no opportunity
for the weariness of which I have above spoken. The uneducated and
uncultivated girl who is removed from the school-room to undertake the
management of a household may not fall an early victim to _ennui_; that
fate is reserved for her later days. Household details (which are either
degrading or elevating according as they are attended to as the
favourite occupations of life, or, on the other hand, skilfully managed
as one of its inevitable and important duties) often fill the mind even
more effectually to the exclusion of better things than worsted-work or
purse-netting would have done. The young wife, if ignorant and
uneducated, soon sinks from the companion of her husband, the guide and
example of her children, into the mere nurse and housekeeper. A clever
upper-servant would, in nine cases out of ten, fulfil all the offices
which engross her time and interest a thousand times better than she can
herself. For her, however, even for the nurse and housekeeper, the time
of _ennui_ must come; for her it is only deferred. The children grow up,
and are scattered to a distance; requiring no further mechanical cares,
and neither employing time nor exciting the same kind of interest as
formerly. The mere household details, however carefully husbanded and
watchfully self-appropriated, will not afford amusement throughout the
whole day; and, utterly unprovided with subjects for thought or objects
of occupation, life drags on a wearisome and burdensome chain. We have
all seen specimens of this, the most hopeless and pitiable kind of
_ennui_, when the time of acquiring habits of employment, and interest
in intellectual pursuits is entirely gone, and resources can neither be
found in the present, or hoped for in the future. Hard is the fate of
those who are bound to such victims by the ties of blood and duty. They
must suffer, secondhand, all the annoyances which _ennui_ inflicts on
its wretched victims. No natural sweetness of temper can long resist the
depressing influence of dragging on from day to day an uninterested,
unemployed existence; and besides, those who can find no occupation for
themselves will often involuntarily try to lessen their own discomfort
by disturbing the occupations of others. This species of _ennui_, of
which the sufferings begin in middle-life and often last to extreme old
age, (as they have no tendency to shorten existence,) is far more
pitiable than that from which the girl or the young woman suffers before
her matron-life begins. Then hope is always present to cheer her on to
endurance; and there is, besides, at that time, a consciousness of power
and energy to change the habits of life into such as would enable her to
brave all future fears of _ennui_. It is of great importance, however,
that these habits should be acquired immediately; for though they may be
equally possible of acquisition in the later years of youth, there are
in the mean time other dangerous resources which may tempt the
unoccupied and uninterested girl into their excitements. Those whose
minds are of too active and vivacious a nature to live on without an
object, may too easily find one in the dangerous and selfish amusements
of coquetry--in the seeking for admiration, and its enjoyment when
obtained. The very woman who might have been the most happy herself in
the enjoyment of intellectual pursuits, and the most extensively useful
to others, is often the one who, from misdirected energies and feeling,
will pursue most eagerly, be most entirely engrossed by, the delights of
being admired and loved by those to whom in return she is entirely
indifferent. Having once acquired the habit of enjoying the selfish
excitement, the simple, safe, and ennobling employments of
self-cultivation, of improving others, are laid aside for ever, because
the power of enjoying them is lost. Do not be offended if I say that
this is the fate I fear for you. At the present moment, the two paths of
life are open before you; youth, excitement, the example of your
companions, the easiness and the pleasure of the worldling's career,
make it full of attractions for you. Besides, your conscience does not
perhaps speak with sufficient plainness as to its being the career of
the worldling; you can find admirers enough, and give up to them all the
young, fresh interests of your active mind, all the precious time of
your early youth, without ever frequenting the ball-room, or the
theatre, or the race-course,--nay, even while professedly avoiding them
on principle: we know, alas! that the habits of the selfish and
heartless coquette are by no means incompatible with an outward
profession of religion.
It is to save you from any such dangers that I earnestly press upon you
the deliberate choice and immediate adoption of a course of life in
which the systematic, conscientious improvement of your mind should
serve as an efficacious preservation from all dangerously exciting
occupations. You should prepare yourself for this deliberate choice by
taking a clear and distinct view of your object and your motives. Can
you say with sincerity that they are such as the following,--that of
acquiring influence over your fellow-creatures, to be employed for the
advancement of their eternal interests--that of glorifying God, and of
obtaining the fulfilment of that promise, "They that turn many to
righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."[73] If this
be the case, your choice must be a right and a noble one; and you will
never have reason to repent of it, either in this world or the next.
Among the collateral results of this conscientious choice will be a
certain enjoyment of life, more independent of either health or external
circumstances than any other can be, and the lofty self-respect arising
from a consciousness of never having descended to unworthy methods of
amusement and excitement.
To attain, however, to the pleasures of intellectual pursuits, and to
acquire from them the advantages of influence and respect, is quite a
distinct thing from the promiscuous and ill-regulated habits of reading
pursued by most women. Women who read at all, generally read more than
men; but, from the absence of any intellectual system, they neither
acquire well-digested information, nor, what is of far more importance,
are the powers of their mind strengthened by exercise. I have known
women read for six hours a day, and, after all, totally incapable of
enlightening the inquirer upon any point of history or literature; far
less would they be competent to exercise any process of reasoning, with
relation either to the business of life or the occurrences of its social
intercourse. How many difficulties and annoyances in the course of
every-day life might be avoided altogether if women were early exercised
in the practice of bringing their reasoning powers to bear upon the
small duties and the petty trials that await every hour of our
existence! Their studies are altogether useless, unless they are pursued
with the view of acquiring a sounder judgment, and quicker and more
accurate perceptions of the every-day details of business and duty. That
knowledge is worse than useless which does not lead to wisdom. To
women, more especially, as their lives can never be so entirely
speculative as those of a few learned men may justifiably be, the great
object in study is the manner in which they can best bring to bear each
acquisition of knowledge upon the improvement of their own character or
that of others. The manner in which they may most effectually promote
the welfare of their fellow-creatures, and how, as the most effectual
means to that end, they can best contribute to their daily and hourly
happiness and improvement,--these, and such as these, ought to be the
primary objects of all intellectual culture. Mere reading would never
accomplish this; mere reading is no more an intellectual employment than
worsted-work or purse-netting. It is true that none of these latter
employments are without their uses; they may all occupy the mind in some
degree, and soothe it, if it were only by creating a partial distraction
from the perpetual contemplation of petty irritating causes of disquiet.
But while we acknowledge that they are all good in their way for people
who can attain nothing better, we must be careful not to fall into the
mistake of confounding the best of them, viz. _mere_ reading, with
intellectual pursuits: if we do so, the latter will be involved in the
depreciation that often falls upon the former when it is found neither
to improve the mind or the character, nor to provide satisfactory
sources of enjoyment.
There is a great deal of truth in the well-known assertion of Hobbes,
however paradoxical it may at first appear: "If I had read as much as
others, I should be as ignorant." One cannot but feel its applicability
in the case of some of our acquaintance, who have been for years mere
readers at the rate of five or six hours a day. One of these same hours
daily well applied would have made them more agreeable companions and
more useful members of society than a whole life of their ordinary
reading.
There must be a certain object of attainment, or there will be no
advance: unless we have decided what the point is that we desire to
reach, we never can know whether the wind blows favourably for us or
not.
In my next letter, I mean to enter fully into many details as to the
best methods of study; but during the remainder of this, I shall confine
myself to a general view of the nature of that foundation which must
first be laid, before any really valuable or durable superstructure can
be erected.
The first point, then, to which I wish your attention to be directed is
the improvement of the mind itself,--point of far more importance than
the furniture you put into it. This improvement can only be effected by
exercising deep thought with respect to all your reading, assimilating
the ideas and the facts provided by others until they are blended into
oneness with the forms of your own mind.
During your hours of study, it is of the utmost importance that no page
should ever be perused without carefully subjecting its contents to the
thinking process of which I have spoken: unless your intellect is
actively employed while you are professedly studying, your time is worse
than wasted, for you are acquiring habits of idleness, that will be most
difficult to lay aside.
You should always be engaged in some work that affords considerable
exercise to the mind--some book over the sentences of which you are
obliged to pause, to ponder--some kind of study that will cause the
feeling of almost physical fatigue; when, however, this latter sensation
comes on, you must rest; the brain is of too delicate a texture to bear
the slightest over-exertion with impunity.[74] Premature decay of its
powers, and accompanying bodily weakness and suffering, will inflict
upon you a severe penalty for any neglect of the symptoms of mental
exhaustion.[75] Your mind, however, like your body, ought to be
exercised to the very verge of fatigue; you cannot otherwise be certain
that there has been exercise sufficient to give increased strength and
energy to the mental or physical powers.