-'Curs'd vassalage,
'First idoliz'd till love's hot fire be o'er,
'Then slaves to those who courted us before.'
Dryden.
The pernicious tendency of those books, in which the writers
insidiously degrade the sex whilst they are prostrate before their
personal charms, cannot be too often or too severely exposed.
Let us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow
prejudices! If wisdom be desirable on its own account, if virtue, to
deserve the name, must be founded on knowledge; let us endeavour to
strengthen our minds by reflection, till our heads become a balance
for our hearts; let us not confine all our thoughts to the petty
occurrences of the day, or our knowledge to an acquaintance with our
lovers' or husbands' hearts; but let the practice of every duty be
subordinate to the grand one of improving our minds, and preparing our
affections for a more exalted state!
Beware then, my friends, of suffering the heart to be moved by every
trivial incident: the reed is shaken by a breeze, and annually dies,
but the oak stands firm, and for ages braves the storm!
Were we, indeed, only created to flutter our hour out and die- why
let us then indulge sensibility, and laugh at the severity of reason.-
Yet, alas! even then we should want strength of body and mind, and
life would be lost in feverish pleasures or wearisome languor.
But the system of education, which I earnestly wish to see exploded,
seems to presuppose what ought never to be taken for granted, that
virtue shields us from the casualties of life; and that fortune,
slipping off her bandage, will smile on a well-educated female, and
bring in her hand an Emilius or a Telemachus.
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