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them for the serious occupation of the evening--the entertainment of a certain number of young gentlemen who are dignified by the appellation of "beaux." Thus the day is passed; and those who spend it in this fashion assure me with a seriousness that is really comical, that "they have no time to read." Can it be denied that the toilet and the men are the two influences of absorbing interest to the mass of young American women between the ages of sixteen and twenty? Time enough is wasted by most of them before the looking-glass within five years, to bring them in to appreciative acquaintance with the best authors of ancient and modern times. Enough interest and animation are expended upon silly laughing at sillier jests, to put them into intimate intercourse with the masters of the Greek and Latin literatures. Enough money is squandered in the United States, within every ten years, upon the musical education of young ladies who have no musical capacity, to place a select and excellent library of the best authors in nearly every household in the land. Let us suppose that one of our girls, leaving school, determines to devote two hours per day to reading, and that she resolutely perseveres for a twelvemonth. At the rate of thirty pages an hour -a moderate calculation-she will have carefully read at least Gibbon's, Robertson's, Prescott's, Bancroft's, and Macaulay's historical works; or, allow

ing for the greater speed with which light literature is read, she will have gone through the Waverley novels and the works of Irving and Cooper. It is a moderate computation to allow ten thousand pages of careful reading as the result from one hour a day. My young lady readers can multiply that amount by the number of hours they have for literary pursuits and ascertain for themselves what number of excellent and valuable books they can consume within a year.

One hour spent in writing an abstract, for every two devoted to reading, will enable them to embody in an available form the fruits of their study, and at the same time cultivate a habit of composition. None can imagine but those who have tried the experiment, and reaped the reward, the agility and grace which the pen acquires from this kind of practice; and this is a mode of training and accomplishment within the easy reach of five out of ten-shall I not say eight out of ten ?—of all the school-girls in the United States, and those who are leaving school. Let us have done then with the empty apology that after their school-days our young women have not time for literary cultivation.

Another serious obstacle besides those enumerated above is the scrappy style of reading too commonly adopted. We are so accustomed to paragraphs, stories, and review articles; we can so easily and cheaply acquire the material for superficial conversation in

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society; that the attention wearies and the interest flags, in pursuing a regular course of reading. Hence in part the youthful womanly mind wants breadth, vigor, solidity. Stedfastness of purpose must be acquired and practised here, as everywhere, if excellence be reached. The continued and studious perusal of good writers, will not only enrich the memory and fertilize the nature, but discipline the faculties to a steadiness and self-support which shall soothe and tranquilize many a fevered and anxious hour in life to come. For want of such beneficent discipline, large numbers of our married women degenerate into housekeeping drudges or drones, with scarce a thought above cooking and dusting, fallen into scandalmongering, or what is worse, into the wretched and painful boarding-house life of towns and cities, sunk into intrigues, wantonness, and destruction. The care, anxiety, responsibility, which domestic life imposes, the want of culture, appreciation and healthful sympathy almost inseparable from the woman's condition -the fact that she must often walk the round of her duties alone, with none to help or cheer her, demand a compact fibre and clear decision, a resolute strength of nature. The radical elements of these she possesses as the gift of God. They may be ripened during her maiden life by close communion with the spirits of the great and good who have left the best part of themselves in books. Blessed, indeed, is the

lot of the woman who crosses the threshold of married life, cherishing in her heart the hallowed influences and choicest inspiration of the sages and the poets.

It is impossible for us to calculate what female genius is competent to perform in the world of letters; but from what it has already done, what are we not justified in predicting? It is safe to assert that no two works of fiction produced within the last twenty years have made so profound an impression upon the mind of the civilized world as Jane Eyre and Uncle Tom's Cabin. I do not here propose the discussion of the merits and defects of either of these books, nor, associating with them the product of female literary mind in England and America within the same period, to collect the data for an inductive argument to set forth woman's capabilities for creation and composition. It is sufficient for me to state what all know, that Miss Bronte and Mrs. Stowe have created a stronger interest in their characters, have more completely thrilled the hearts and kindled the sensibilities of their readers, than Bulwer, Dickens, or Thackeray. Whatever may be the defects of these books, as tried by the cold formulas of criticism, whatever may be their weakness or errors, as attempts to delineate facts and life, however perverted and unjust you may claim their statements of reality to be, in my mind there is no doubt that they are nobler works of art than have

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ever been produced by the illustrious trio I have mentioned above.

The women are thoroughly in earnest. They write because they cannot help it. They use their pen to unburden their hearts. They must speak, or they would die. The men have had a thousand advantages which the women never possessed. But the woman's religious nature, the purpose of writing to benefit others,—a purpose of which she is only half conscious; the coloring from the hues of her own heart, the tides of emotion, inundating the intellect, lifting the thoughts, bearing them on as upon some brimming mighty current-these yield the woman ample compensation for her deficiencies.

Were it necessary to vindicate the breadth and massiveness of female genius, might I not point to Mrs. Browning, to whom since the days of Milton, there has been no superior, if an equal, in poetic sublimity? Nor is the loftiness of her thought and style gained by any sacrifice of delicacy and tenderness. The woman's deep and gentle sensibility attempers what might otherwise be the dazzling glare of genius, and sheds upon her page a soft and holy light. While she gives us in her chalices wine to nourish and invigorate strong men, there are motherly lays and cadences to soothe the heart of her sisters in distress. She leads the poet by one hand up the broad aisle to the altar where he may perform the act of self