[Illustration: _To face Page 47._
_T. Stothard R.A. del._ _Medland sculp._
AMUSEMENTS.
_Published March 1st. 1797, by Cadell and Davies Strand_]
Every period of life has amusements which are natural and proper to it.
You may indulge the variety of your tastes in these, while you keep
within the bounds of that propriety which is suitable to your sex.
Some amusements are conducive to health, as various kinds of exercise:
some are connected with qualities really useful, as different kinds
of women’s work, and all the domestic concerns of a family: some are
elegant accomplishments, as dress, dancing, music, and drawing. Such
books as improve your understandings, enlarge your knowledge, and
cultivate your taste, may be considered in a higher point of view than
mere amusements. There are a variety of others, which are neither
useful nor ornamental, such as play of different kinds.
I would particularly recommend to you those exercises that oblige
you to be much abroad in the open air, such as walking, and riding on
horseback. This will give vigour to your constitutions, and a bloom
to your complexions. If you accustom yourselves to go abroad always
in chairs and carriages, you will soon become so enervated, as to be
unable to go out of doors without them. They are like most articles
of luxury, useful and agreeable when judiciously used; but when made
habitual, they become both insipid and pernicious.
An attention to your health is a duty you owe to yourselves and to
your friends. Bad health seldom fails to have an influence on the
spirits and temper. The finest geniuses, the most delicate minds, have
very frequently a correspondent delicacy of bodily constitution, which
they are too apt to neglect. Their luxury lies in reading and late
hours, equal enemies to health and beauty.
But though good health be one of the greatest blessings of life, never
make a boast of it, but enjoy it in grateful silence. We so naturally
associate the idea of female softness and delicacy with a correspondent
delicacy of constitution, that when a woman speaks of her great
strength, her extraordinary appetite, her ability to bear excessive
fatigue, we recoil at the description in a way she is little aware of.
The intention of your being taught needle-work, knitting, and such
like, is not on account of the intrinsic value of all you can do
with your hands, which is trifling, but to enable you to judge more
perfectly of that kind of work, and to direct the execution of it
in others. Another principal end is to enable you to fill up, in a
tolerably agreeable way, some of the many solitary hours you must
necessarily pass at home.--It is a great article in the happiness of
life, to have your pleasures as independent of others as possible. By
continually gadding abroad in search of amusement, you lose the respect
of all your acquaintances, whom you oppress with those visits, which,
by a more discreet management, might have been courted.
The domestic economy of a family is entirely a woman’s province, and
furnishes a variety of subjects for the exertion both of good sense and
good taste. If you ever come to have the charge of a family, it ought
to engage much of your time and attention; nor can you be excused from
this by any extent of fortune, though with a narrow one the ruin that
follows the neglect of it may be more immediate.
I am at the greatest loss what to advise you in regard to books.
There is no impropriety in your reading history, or cultivating any
art or science to which genius or accident lead you. The whole volume
of Nature lies open to your eye, and furnishes an infinite variety
of entertainment. If I was sure that Nature had given you such
strong principles of taste and sentiment as would remain with you,
and influence your future conduct, with the utmost pleasure would I
endeavour to direct your reading in such a way as might form that taste
to the utmost perfection of truth and elegance. “But when I reflect
how easy it is to warm a girl’s imagination, and how difficult deeply
and permanently to affect her heart; how readily she enters into every
refinement of sentiment, and how easily she can sacrifice them to
vanity or convenience;” I think I may very probably do you an injury
by artificially creating a taste, which if Nature never gave it you,
would only serve to embarrass your future conduct.--I do not want to
_make_ you any thing: I want to know what Nature has made you, and to
perfect you on her plan. I do not wish you to have sentiments that
might perplex you: I wish you to have sentiments that may uniformly and
steadily guide you, and such as your hearts so thoroughly approve, that
you would not forego them for any consideration this world could offer.
Dress is an important article in female life. The love of dress is
natural to you, and therefore it is proper and reasonable. Good sense
will regulate your expence in it, and good taste will direct you to
dress in such a way, as to conceal any blemishes, and set off your
beauties, if you have any, to the greatest advantage. But much delicacy
and judgment are required in the application of this rule. A fine woman
shows her charms to most advantage, when she seems most to conceal
them. The finest bosom in nature is not so fine as what imagination
forms. The most perfect elegance of dress appears always the most easy,
and the least studied.
Do not confine your attention to dress to your public appearances.
Accustom yourselves to an habitual neatness, so that in the most
careless undress, in your most unguarded hours, you may have no reason
to be ashamed of your appearance.--You will not easily believe how
much we consider your dress as expressive of your characters. Vanity,
levity, slovenliness, folly, appear through it. An elegant simplicity
is an equal proof of taste and delicacy.
In dancing, the principal points you are to attend to are ease
and grace. I would have you to dance with spirit: but never allow
yourselves to be so far transported with mirth, as to forget the
delicacy of your sex.--Many a girl dancing in the gaiety and innocence
of her heart, is thought to discover a spirit she little dreams of.
I know no entertainment that gives such pleasure to any person of
sentiment or humour, as the theatre.--But I am sorry to say, there are
few English comedies a lady can see, without a shock to delicacy. You
will not readily suspect the comments gentlemen make on your behaviour
on such occasions. Men are often best acquainted with the most
worthless of your sex, and from them too readily form their judgement
of the rest. A virtuous girl often hears very indelicate things with
a countenance no-wise embarrassed, because in truth she does not
understand them. Yet this is most ungenerously ascribed to that command
of features, and that ready presence of mind, which you are thought
to possess in a degree far beyond us; or, by still more malignant
observers, it is ascribed to hardened effrontery.
Sometimes a girl laughs with all the simplicity of unsuspecting
innocence, for no other reason but being infected with other people’s
laughing: she is then believed to know more than she should do.--If
she does happen to understand an improper thing, she suffers a very
complicated distress: she feels her modesty hurt in the most sensible
manner, and at the same time is ashamed of appearing conscious of the
injury. The only way to avoid these inconveniencies, is never to go to
a play that is particularly offensive to delicacy.--Tragedy subjects
you to no such distress.--Its sorrows will soften and ennoble your
hearts.
I need say little about gaming, the ladies in this country being as
yet almost strangers to it.--It is a ruinous and incurable vice; and
as it leads to all the selfish and turbulent passions, is peculiarly
odious in your sex. I have no objection to your playing a little at any
kind of game, as a variety in your amusements; provided, that what you
can possibly lose is such a trifle as can neither interest you, nor
hurt you.
In this, as well as in all important points of conduct, show a
determined resolution and steadiness. This is not in the least
inconsistent with that softness and gentleness so amiable in your sex.
On the contrary, it gives that spirit to a mild and sweet disposition,
without which it is apt to degenerate into insipidity. It makes you
respectable in your own eyes, and dignifies you in ours.