is a banquet which can never cloy! In the countless combinations of forms and colors and motions which are every day meeting her view, she traces the hand of divine wisdom, and munificence; she looks on without satiety-she feels she adores.-Again-What ill effect can flow from a girl's seeing vice empaled and virtue crowned on the splendid and immortal page of history 2-Or let me ask, will it contract or degrade her mind, will it chill or impoverish her heart, to be introduced to the sublime discoveries of astronomy-those discoveries so sublime, so full of pious conviction and rapturous exultation, that Young while he gazed, could not forbear exclaiming, "An undevout astronomer is mad!” Why should our women be debarred from this celestial feast of the mind? Those who debar them from it, act not like Christians, but like Turks; for it is said to be a part of the Mussulman's creed, that the women of this world are not to go to Heaven. Mahomet is said to have taught that they will be permitted to advance to the palings of paradise and witness, through them, the joys of the blessed, without being suffered to bear any part in them. And thus Obadiah Squaretoes and the other Heathen philosophers of the present day are for treating our women in relation to that intellectual paradise which they suffer them to behold without sharing. We are told that the Almigthy does nothing without design. He does not, indeed, force us to accept the graces and blessings which he constantly extends to us; for it is the freedom of the will that makes the merit of virtue and the guilt of vice. Why then are those minds of heavenly mould so often bestowed on women? Is not this itself indicative of the divine purpose in relation to them? And are we acting a christian part, when by the wretched system of education which we have adopted for them, we cover the rising glory of female genius with a cloud and hide its splendor from the world forever? Is not this to thwart instead of promoting the purpose of Heaven, and impiously to extinguish a light which his breath has kindled? Is it not to defraud him of that exalted adoration which those can best pay, who best know the wonderful proofs of his power exhibited in the creation? Is not our conduct towards this sex, ill-advised and foolish in relation to our own happiness? Is it not to reject a boon which Providence kindly offers to us, and which, were we to embrace and cultivate it with skill, would re fine and enlarge the sources of our own enjoyment, and purify, raise and ennoble our own characters beyond the power of human calculation? As the companion of a man of sense and virtue, as an instrument and partner of his earthly happiness, what is the most beautiful woman in the world, without a mind; without a cultivated mind, capable of an animated correspondence with his own, and of reciprocating all his thoughts and feelings? Is not our conduct on this head ungenerous and ignoble to the other sex? Do we not deprive them of the brightest and most angelic portion of their character; degrade them from the rank of intelligence which they are formed to hold, and instead of making them the partners of our souls, attempt to debase them into mere objects of sense? Is not our conduct mean and dastardly? Does it not look as if we were afraid that, with equal opportunities, they would rival us in intellect, and examine and refute our pretended superiority? Are we not playing off upon them the policy of the Roman Church; and practically confessing that it is only while we can keep them in ignorance, that we can expect them to acknowledge our boasted supremacy? There is another point of view in which this subject cannot be too often held up to us; it appeals, too, to that very passion for the pre-eminent dignity of the males on which the fathers of the present day so vehemently insist. Who is it that moulds and directs the character of our boys for the first ten or twelve decisive years of their life?—Not the father; for such are his engagements, or such the state and reserve of his manners, that his sons but rarely come in contact with him. No: it is in the nursery, it is in the gentle and attractive society of the mother, it is in her affectionate basom and on her lap that the blossoms of the heart and mind begin their bloom; it is she who bends the twig and thus decides the character of the tree. How then ought she to be accomplished for this important office! How wide and diversified her reading and information! How numerous the historic models of great men with which her memory should be stored! How grand and noble the tone of her own character! These are a few of the many considerations, which the brevity of a News-paper essay will merely permit me to touch; and which appeal to us so powerfully as men, as patriots and as christians to alter and enlarge the plan of female education. I beg Mr. Squaretoes to weigh these thoughts with candor and to amplify, by his own reflection, what I have merely room to hint. At the same time, if Mr. Squaretoes can vanquish his antipathy to newspaper essays, so far as to read my fourth number, he will see, in the example of my friend Bianca, that The Old Bachelor is no advocate for the excessive use of novels, nor for the neglect of domestic duties. But I am convinced that there are very few girls in Virginia, so circumstanced as not to be able, by system and activity, in their household employments, to command every day an hour or two, of those sixteen which they withdraw from sleep: And that hour or two judiciously directed and diligently employed, would fit them to form the characters of the future patriots of their country. There is another subject introduced by Mr. Squaretoes on which I shall take an early occasion to dilate; it is the article of female dress; of which I shall only say, here, that I am very far from being satisfied with it. Finally, I must insist upon it, that my friend Grace shall take her turn in the female duties of her father's house, and that not reluctantly; but on the contrary, that for her own sake as well as the honor of the Old Bachelor, whose disciple she professes to be, she will distinguish herself above all the rest, by discharging those duties with pre-eminent cheerfulness, grace and spirit. There is a style of doing even those things which marks the superiority of mind and character; and distinguishes one woman as strongly from another as the style of beauty, dress or conversation. At the same time I am sure that Grace has too much sweetness as well as understanding to make it necessary for me to say, that she must not permit her literary emulation to generate a spirit of asperity towards others; much less to interfere either with her reverential duty and love for her father, or her pious affection for her elder sisters. The winning softness and delicacy of her sex are for no consideration to be renounced. I should be very sorry to see her in the character either of Mrs. Hamilton's Modern female philosopher, with her obtrusive and disgusting pedantry and bombast; or of a celebrated historian of her sex of whom I have heard it said, that she would sit all day on her bed, in the Turkish posture, with her writingdesk in her lap, her snuff-box open on one side of her, and her documents on the other-her hair disshevelled, her person and dress hideously neglected-and her unlustrous eye fixed for hours on vacancy. Nor would I have her to experience the more pitiable fate of that celebrated female novelist in England, who is said to have realised the fiction of Don Quixotte, and to have turned her brain by the too intense contemplation of the horrors of her own fancy and those of others. There is no necessity for any such castastrophe: my counsels lead to none such. And, I can add, that already, there is more than one example in the circle of my acquaintance of the sweet and enchanting union which may be formed between genius, science, literature and female gentleness, modesty and grace. Number XI. Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo. Virg. En. Lib. 4. V. 175. -each moment brings New vigor to her flight, new pinions to her wings. Dryden. The last mail brought me from different quarters of the State the most pleasing proofs that Galen's well-intended. prediction has failed: for The Old Bachelor, I find, is read; and read, too, with the most propitious effects. As the number of my correspondents is beginning to encrease, I avail myself of this occasion to settle with them the few simple terms on which our intercourse is to continue.. I hope I need scarcely say, in the first place, that nothing will find its way to the public under the sanction of The Old Bachelor, but what is calculated, according to his opinion, to promote the cause in which he has embarked; virtuously to instruct, or innocently to amuse: no letter, however elegantly written, whose aim is malevolent, mischievous or vicious, will be farther noticed by him than to be committed to the flames. Nor will it be expected by his correspondents, even where their communications are well intended, that a whimsical Old Bachelor will always agree with them in point of sentiment and taste. He may sometimes judge so falsely as to suppose that however praise-worthy in design, their productions may, nevertheless, not be calculated, to advance the purpose of his papers. In such cases he must be permitted to with-hold them altogether from publication under his signature: but he will at the same time, consider himself bound to have the manuscript returned, sealed, to the Editor through whose hands he will have received it, for the purpose of being forwarded, if desired, to the Author's address. At other times the Old Bachelor may be of opinion, that a letter with a few alterations, not going to change either its sentiments or principles, may be better calculated to promote his purpose: in such a case, he will make the alteration without ceremony or apology. There may be cases in which he may differ from the opinion of a correspondent in such cases if he gives the letter, he will express the difference of opinion. On these conditions and under these qualifications, his correspondents may rely on his most grateful acknowledgments for their contributions, and on their being, in due time, interwoven with The Old Bachelor's web, so as to diversify the work according to the best of his judgment. Here follows a letter from one, to whom he feels well assured that he will never have to propose either condition or qualification: It is from his first correspondent and his fast friend Lovetruth. Even the sorrows and the tears of my old friend are full of virtue and instruction. His is a pen, To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, "TO DOCTOR ROBERT CÉCIL. "CARA-SELVA, Jan. 17th, 1811. "RESPECTED FRIEND, Thy eighth number was yester day hailed by the small circle at Cara-Selva. Doubtless, thy approving smile is calculated to inspirit and energize its object. Thy esteem brings along with it something balmy and invigorating. Yet, wonder not, Good Cecil, if even thy indulgent reception of Lovetruth's hasty address, and thy flattering appeal to his feeble pen, want the pow-er entirely to rouse his mind from its present dejection, and to efface from his darkened brow every sombre tint of melancholy. I mourn, honest Cecil, I mourn for a friend, I might say, for a brother. My worthy neighbor Charles Melmoth, is no more. Last week, his noble spirit, freed from the shackles of mortality, re-ascended to its native heaven. Already the sod and other pious emblems of affectionate sorrow on his humble and solitary tomb, have been withered or dispersed by the rude blasts of winter: but his venerable figure is still seen by the eye of friendship; his voice still vibrates on my ears; in short, I can, at this moment think of nothing, speak of nothing, but the departed Melmoth. |