Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

seeded down the river, and my fond confidence in the sacredBess of the Hermit's retreat, kept my heart from sinking altogether under its terrors.

Between the current and my oars, the boat flew, with the peed of wind, along the waters, and I was already near the rocks of the ravine, when 1 saw, turning out of the canal, into the river, a barge crowded with people, and glittering with arms! How did I ever survive the shock of that sight? The cars dropped, as if struck out of my hands, into the water, and I sat, helplessly gazing, as that terrific vision approachel. In a few minutes, the current brought us together; and I saw, on the deck of the barge, Alethe herself and the Hermit surrounded by soldiers!

she had, so fatally to his views, assisted mine, he demanded loudly and in the name of the insulted sanctuary of Isis, her instant death. It was but by the firm intervention of the Governor, who shared the general sympathy in her fate, that the delay of another day was granted to give a chance to the young maiden of yet recalling her confession, and thus afford ing some pretext for saving her.

Even in yielding, with evident reluctance, to this respite, the inhuman Priest would yet accompany it with some mark of his vengeance. Whether for the pleasure (observed the Tribune) of mingling mockery with his cruelty, or as a warn ing to her of the doom she must ultimately expect, he gave orders that there should be tied round her brow one of those

tian maiden to a ray themselves on the day of their martyr dom ;" and, thus fearfully adorned," said he, "she was led away, amidst the gaze of the pitying multitude, to prison." With these harrowing details the short interval till nightfal -every minute of which seemed an age-was occupied. As soon as it grew dark, I was placed upon a litter-my wound, though not dangerous, requiring such a conveyance-and, un

We were already passing each other, when, with a despechap'cts of coral, with which it is the custom of young Chris rate effort, í sprang from my boat and lighted upon the edge of their vessel. I knew not what I did, for despair was my only prompter. Snatching at the sword of one of the soldiers, as I stood tottering on the edge, I had succeeded in wresting it out of his hands, when, at the same moment I received a thrust of a lance from one of his comrades, and fell backward into the river. I can just remember rising again and making a grasp at the side of the vessel;-but the shock, and the faint-der the guidance of my friend, I was conducted to the prison, ness from my wound, deprived me of all consciousness, and a shriek from Alethe, as I sank, is all I cau re tollect of what followed.

Would I had then died!-Yet, no, A mighty Being-I should have died in darkness, and, I have lived to know Thee! On returning to my senses, I found myself reclined on a auch, in a splendid apartment, the whole appearance of which bing Grecian, I, for a moment, forgot all that had passed, and imagined myself in my own home at Athens. But too soon the whole dreadful certainty flashed upon me; and, starting wildly disabled as I was-from my couch, I called loudly and with the shriek of a maniac, upon Alethe.

I was in the house, I then found, of my friend and disciple, the young Tribune, who had made the Governor acquainted with my name and condition, and had received me under his root when brought bleeding and insensible, to Antinoe. From him I now learned at once-for I could not wait for detailsthe sum of all that had happened in that dreadful interval. Melanius was no more-Alethe still alive, but in prison! "Take me to her "-I had but time to say-"take me to her instantly, and let me die by her side”—when, nature again failing under such shocks, I relapsed into insensibility. In this state I continued for near an hour, and, on recovering, found the Tribune by my side. The horrors, he said, of the Forum were, for that day, over, but what the morrow might bring, he shuddered to contemplate. His nature, it was plain, revolted from the inhuman duties in which he was engaged. Touched by the agonies he saw me suffer, he, in some degree, relieved them, by promising that I should, at nightfall, be conveyed to the prison, and, if possible, through his influence, gain access to Alethe. She might yet, he added, be saved, could I succeed in persuading her to comply with the terms of the edict, and make sacrifice to the Gods." Otherwise," said he, "there is no hope;-the vindictive Orcus, who has resisted even this short respite of mercy, will, to-morrow, inexorably demand his prey."

He then related to me, at my own request though every word was torture-all the harrowing details of the proceeding before the Tribunal. "I have seen courage," said he, "in Its noblest forms, in the field; but the calm intrepidity with which that aged hermit endured torments-which it was hardly less torment to witness-surpassed all that I could have con ceived of human fortitude."

My poor Alethe, too-in describing to me her conduct, the brave man wept like a child. Overwhelmed, he said, at first by her apprehensions for my safety, she had given way to a fall burst of womanly weakness. But no sooner was she Drought before the Tribunal, and the declaration of her faith was dinded of her, than a spirit almost supernatural seemed tanate her whole form. "She raised her eyes," said be, calmly, but with fervour, to heaven, while a blush was the only sign of mortal feeling on her features:-and the clear, sweet, and untrembling voice, with which she pronounced her own doom, in the words, I am a Christian sent a thrill of admiration and pity throughout the multitude. Her youth, her loveliness, affected all hearts, and a cry of 'Save the young maiden!" was heard in all directions."

The implacable Orcus, however, would not hear of mercy. Besenting, as it appeared, with all his deadliest rancour, not aly her own escape from his toils, but the aid with which

Through his interest with the guard, we were without diff culty admitted, and I was borne into the chamber where the maiden lay immured. Even the veteran guardian of the place seemed touched with compassion for his prisoner, and sup posing her to be asleep, had the litter placed gently near her

She was half reclining, with her face hid beneath her hands, upon a couch-at the foot of which stood an idol, over whose hideous features a lamp of naphtha, that hung from the ceil ing, shed a wild and ghastly glare. On a table before the image was a censer, with a small vessel of incense beside it -one grain of which, thrown voluntarily into the flame, would, even now, save that precious life. So strange, so fearful was the whole scene, that I almost doubted its reality. Alethe! my own happy Alethe! can it, I thought, be thou that I look upon?

She now slowly, and with difficulty, raised her head from the couch, on observing which, the kind Tribune withdrew, and we were left alone. There was a paleness, as of death, over her features; and those eyes which, when I last saw them, were but too bright, too happy for this worid, looked dim and sunken. In raising herself up, she put her hand, as if from pain, to her forehead, whose marble hue but appear ed more death-like from those red bands that lay so awfully across it.

After wandering for a minute vaguely, her eyes at length rested upon me-and, with a shriek, half-terror, half-joy, she sprung from the couch, and sunk upon her knees by my side. She had believed me dead; and, even now, scarcely trusted her senses. "My husband! my love!" she exclaimed; "oh if thou comest to call me from this world, behold I am ready!" In saying thus, she pointed wildly to that ominous wreath, and then dropped her head down upon my knee, as if an arrow had pierced it.

"Alethe!" I cried-terrified to the very soul by that mys terious pang-and, as if the sound of my voice had re-ant mated her, she looked up, with a faint smile, in my face. Her thoughts, which had evidently been wandering, became collected; and in her joy at my safety, her sorrow at my suf fering, she forgot entirely the fate that impended over her self. Love, innocent love, alone occupied all her thoughts; and the warmth, the affection, the devotedness with which she spoke-oh how, at any other moment, I would have blessed, have lingered upon every word!

But the time flew fast-that dreadful morrow was ap proaching. Already I saw her writhing in the hands of the torturer the flames, the racks, the wheels, were before my eyes! Half frantic with the fear that her resolution was fixed, I flung myself from the litter in an agony of weeping, and supplicated her, by the love she bore me, by the happiness that awaited us, by her own merciful God, who was too good to require such a sacrifice-by all that the most passionate anxiety could dictate, I implored that she would avert from us the doom that was coming, and-but for once-comply with the vain ceremony demanded of her.

Shrinking from me, as I spoke-but with a look more of sorrow than reproach—“ What, thou, too!" she said, mourn fully-"thou, into whose inmost spirit I had fondly hoped the same light had entered as into my own! No, never be thou leagued with them who would tempt me to 'make ship

ck of my faith!' Thou, who couldst alone bind me te

life, use not, I entreat thee, thy power; but let me die, as He I serve, hath commanded-die for the Truth. Remember de holy lessons we heard together on those nights, those nappy nights, when both the present and future smiled upon us-when even the gift of eternal life came more welcome to my soul, from the glad conviction that thou wert to be a sharer in its blessings;-shall I forfeit now that divine privilege? hall I deny the true God, whom we then learned to love? "No, my own betrothed," she continued-pointing to the two rings on her finger" behold these pledges-they are both sacred. I should have been as true to thee as I am now to heaven, nor in that life to which I am hastening shall our love be forgotten. Should the baptism of fire, through which I shall pass to-morrow, make me worthy to be heard before the throne of Grace, I will intercede for thy soul-I will pray that it may yet share with mine that inheritance, immortal and undefiled,' which Mercy offers, and that thou-and my dear mother-and I-"}

[ocr errors]

She here dropped her voice; the momentary animation, with which devotion and affection had inspired her, vanished; and there came a darkness over all her features, a livid darkness-like the approach of death-that made me shudder through every limb. Seizing my hand convulsively, and looking at me with a fearful eagerness, as if anxious to hear Some consoling assurance from my own lips-"Believe me," she continued, "not all the torments they are preparing for me-not even this deep, burning pain in my brow, to which they will hardly find an equal-could be half so dreadful to me as the thought that I leave thee, without

[ocr errors]

Here her voice again failed; her head sunk upon my arm, and-merciful God, let me forget what I then felt-I saw that she was dying! Whether I uttered any cry, I know not;-but the Tribune came rushing into the chamber, and, looking on the maiden, said, with a face full of horror, "It is but too true!" He then told me in a low voice, what he had just learned from the guardian of the prison, that the band round the young Christian's brow was-oh horrible!—a compound of

the most deadly poison-the hellish invention of Orcus, ta satiate his vengeance, and make the fate of his poor victim secure. My first movement was to untie that fatal wreathbut it would not come away-it would not come away! Roused by the pain, she again looked in my face; but, un able to speak, took hastily from her bosom the small silver cross which she had brought with her from my cave. Ha ing pressed it to her own lips, she held it anxiously to mine, and, seeing me kiss the holy symbol with fervour, lacked happy, and smiled. The agony of death seemed to Lave passed away; there came suddenly over her features a heav enly light, some share of which I felt descending into my own soul, and, in a few minutes more, she expired in my arms.

Here ends the Manuscript; but, on the outer cover à found, in the handwriting of a much later period, the following Notice, extracted, as it appears, from some Egyptian martyrology:

"ALCIPHRON -an Epicurean philosopher, converted Christianity, A.D. 257, by a young Egyptian maiden, who suffered martyrdom in that year. Immediately upon her death, he betook himself to the desert, and lived a life, it is said, of much holiness and penitence. During the persecu tion under Dioclesian, his sufferings for the faith were most exemplary; and being at length, at an advanced age, con demned to hard labour, for refusing to comply with an Impe rial edict, he died at the Brass Mines of Palestine, A.D. 297. "As Alciphron held the opinions maintained since by Arius his memory has not been spared by Athanasian writers, who, among other charges, accuse him of having been addicted ta the superstitions of Egypt. For this calumny, howeven there appears to be no better foundation than a circumstance, recorded by one of his brother monks, that there was found after his death, a small metal mirror, like those used in the ceremonies of Isis, suspended around his neck."

REUBEN AND ROSE.

A TALE OF ROMANCE.

THE darkness that hung upon Willumberg's walls
Had long been remember'd with awe and dismay;
For years not a sunbeam had play'd in its halls,

And it seem'd as shut out from the regions of day.

Though the valleys were brightened by many a beam,
Yet none could the woods of that castle illume;
And the lightning, which flash'd on the neighbouring stream,
Flew back, as if fearing to enter the gloom!

Oh! when shall this horrible darkness disperse !"
Said Willumberg's lord to the Seer of the Cave;-
"It can never dispel," said the wizard of verse,

Till the bright star of chivalry sinks in the wave!"

And who was the bright star of chivalry then?

Who could be but Reuben, the flow'r of the age? For Reuben was first in the combat of men,

Though Youth had scarce written his name on her page.
For Willumberg's daughter his young heart had beat,-
For Rose, who was bright as the spirit of dawn,
When with wand dropping diamonds, and silvery feet,
It walks o'er the flow'rs of the mountain and lawn.

Must Rose, then, from Reuben, so fatally sever?
Sad, sad were the words of the Seer of the Cave,
That darkness should cover that castle for ever,
Or Reuben be sunk in the merciless wave!
To the wizard she flew, saying, "Tell me, oh, tell!
Shall my Reuben no more be restored to my eyes ?"
"Yes, yes-when a spirit shall toll the great bell

Of the mould'ring abbey, your Reuben shall rise!"
Twice, thrice he repeated "Your Reuben shall rise!"
And Rose felt a moment's release from her pain;
And wip'd, while she listen'd, the tears from her eyes,
And hop'd she might yet see her hero again.
That hero could smile at the terrors of death,

When he felt that he died for the sire of his Rose;

To the Oder he flew, and there, plunging beneath,
In the depth of the billows soon found his repose.❤
How strangely the order of destiny falls '—
Not long in the waters the warrior lay,
When a sunbeam was seen to glance over the walls,
And the castle of Willumberg bask'd in the ray!
All, all but the soul of the maid was in light,
There sorrow and terror lay gloomy and blar
Two days did she wander, and all the long night,
In quest of her love, on the wide river's bank.
Oft, oft did she pause for the toll of the bell,
And heard but the breathings of night in the air;
Long, long did she gaze on the watery swell,

And saw but the foam of the white billow thers.

And often as midnight its veil would undraw,

As she look'd at the light of the moon in the stream She thought 'twas his helmet of silver she saw, As the curl of the surge glitter'd high in the beam. And now the third night was begemming the sky; Poor Rose, on the cold, dewy margent reclin'd, There wept till the tear almost froze in her eye, When-hark!-'twas the bell that came deep in the wind She startled, and saw, through the glimmering shade, A form o'er the waters in majesty glide; She knew 'twas her love, though his cheek was decay And his helmet of silver was washed by the tide. Was this what the Seer of the Cave had foretold?— Dim, dim through the phantom the moon shot a gleam 'Twas Reuben, but, ah! he was deathly and cold, And fleeted away like the spell of a dream! Twice, thrice did he rise, and as often she thought From the bank to embrace him, but vain her endeavour! Then, plunging beneath, at a billow she caught And sunk to repose on its bosom for ever!

A FATHER'S LEGACY TO HIS DAUGHTERS.

BY DR. GREGORY.

MY DEAR GIRIS,

You had the misfortune to be deprived of your mother, at a time of life when you were insensible of your loss, and could receive little benefit, either from her instruction, or her example. Before this comes to your hands, you will likewise have lost your father.

I have had many melancholy reflections on the forlorn and helpless situation you must be in, if it should please God to remove me from you before you arrive at that period of life, when you will be able to think and act for yourselves. I know mankind too well. I know their falsehood, their dissipation, their coldness to all the duties of friendship and humanity. I know the little attention paid to helpless infancy. You will meet with few friends disinterested enough to do you a good office, when you are incapable of making them any return, by contributing to their interest or their pleasure, or to the gratification of their vanity.

I have been supported under the gloom naturally arising from these reflections, by a reliance on the goodness of that Providence which has hitherto preserved you, and given me the most pleasing prospect of the goodness of your dispositions; and by the secret hope, that your mother's virtues will entail a blessing on her children.

The anxiety I have for your happiness has made me resolve to throw together my sentiments, relating to your future conduct in life. If I live for some years, you will receive them with much greater advantage, suited to your different geniuses and dispositions. If I die sooner, you must receive them in this very imperfect manner; the last proof of my affection.

You will all remember your father's fondness, when perhaps every other circumstance relating to him is forgotten. This remeinbrance, I hope, will induce you to give a serious attention to the advices I am now going to leave with you. I can request this with the greater confidence, as my sentiments on the most interesting points that regard life and manners, were entirely correspondent to your mother's, whose judgment and taste I trusted much more than my own.

You must expect that the advice which I shall give you will be very imperfect, as there are many nameless delicacies ta female manners, of which none but a woman can judge.

You will have one advantage by attending to what I am going to leave with you; you will hear, at least for once in your lives, the genuine sentiments of a man, who has no interest in flattering or deceiving you. I shall throw my reflections together without any studied order, and shall only, to avoid confusion, range them under a few general heads. You will see, in a little treatise of mine, just published, in what an honorable point of view I have considered your sex; not as doraestic drudges, or the slaves of our pleasure, but as our companions and equals; as designed to soften and polish our manners: and as Thompson finely says,

To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,

And sweeten all the toils of human life.

I shall not repeat what I have there said on this subject, and shall only observe, that from the view I have given of your natural character and place in society, there arises a certain propriety of conduct peculiar to your sex. It is this peculiar propriety of female manners of which I intend to give you my sentiments, without touching on those general rules of conduct by which men and women are equally bound.

While I explain to you that system of conduct which I think will tend most to your honor and happiness, I shall, at the same time, endeavor to point out those virtues and accomplishments which ender you most respectable and most miable in the eyes of my own sex.

RELIGION.

THOUGH the duties of religion, strictly speaking, are equally binding on both sexes, yet certain differences in their natural character and education, render some vices in your sex odious. The natural hardness of our hearts, and strength of our passions, inflamed by the uncontrolled license we are too often indulged with in our youth, are apt to render our manners more dissolute, and make us less susceptible of the finer feelings of the heart. Your superior delicacy, your modesty, and the usual severity of your education, preserve you, in a great measure, from any temptation to those vices to which we are most subjected. The natural softness and sensibility of your dispositions particularly fit you for the practice of those duties where the heart is chiefly concerned. And this along with the natural warmth of your imaginations, renders you peculiarly susceptible of the feelings of devotion.

There are many circumstances in your situation that pecaliarly require the supports of religion to enable you to act in them with spirit and propriety. Your whole life is often a life of suffering. You cannot plunge into business, or dissipate yourselves in

pleasure and riot, as men too often do, when under the pressure of misfortu nes. You must bear your sorrows in silence, unknown and unpitied. You must often put on a face of serenity and cheerfulness, when your hearts are torn with anguish, or sinking in despair. Then your only resource is in the consolations of religion. It is chiefly owing to these that you bear domestic misfortunes better than we do.

But you are sometimes in very different circumstances, that equally require the restraints of religion. The natural vivacity, and perhaps the natural vanity of your sex, are very apt to lead you into a dissipated state of life, that deceives you, under the appearance of innocent pleasure; but which in reality wastes your spirits, impairs your health, weakens all the superior faculties of your minds, and often sullies your reputations. Religion, by checking this dissipation and rage for pleasure, enables you to draw more happiness, even from those very sources of amusement, which when too frequently applied to, are often productive of satiety and disgust.

Religion is rather a matter of sentiment than reasoning. The important and interesting articles of faith are sufficiently plain. Fix your attention on these, and do not meddle with controversy. If you

get into that, you plunge into a chaos, from which you will never be able to extricate yourselves. It spoils the temper, and, I suspect, has no good effect upon the heart.

Avoid all books, and all conversation, that tend to shake your faith on those great points of religion which should serve to regulate your conduct, and on which your hopes of future and eternal happiness depend.

poses. But in this, as well as in the practice of every other duty, carefully avoid ostentation. Vanity is always defeating her own purposes. Fame is one of the natural rewards of virtue. Do not pursue her, and she will follow you.

Never indulge yourselves in ridicule on religious subjects; nor give countenance to it in others, by seeming diverted with what they say. This, to peo-pecially where your friends or acquaintances are conple of good breeding, will be a sufficient check.

I wish you to go no farther than the scriptures for your religious opinions. Embrace those you find clearly revealed. Never perplex yourselves about such as you do not understand, but treat them with silent and becoming reverence. I would advise you to read only such religious books as are addressed to the heart, such as inspire pious and devout affections, such as are proper to direct you in your conduct, and not such as tend to entangle you in the endless maze of opinions and systems.

Be punctual in the stated performance of your private devotions, morning and evening. If you have any sensibility or imagination, this will establish such an intercourse between you and the Supreme Being, as will be of infinite consequence to you in life. It will communicate an habitual cheerfulness to your tempers; give a firmness and steadiness to your virtue, and enable you to go through all the vicissitudes of human life with propriety and dignity.

Do not confine your charity to giving money. You may have many opportunities of showing a tender and compassionate spirit, where your money is not wanted. There is a false and unnatural refinement it sensibility, which makes some people shun the sight of every object in distress. Never indulge this, es cerned. Let the days of their misfortunes, when the world forgets or avoids them, be the season for you to exercise your humanity and friendship. The sight of human misery softens the heart, and makes it bet ter; it checks the pride of health and prosperity, and the distress it occasions is amply compensated by the consciousness of doing your duty, and by the secret endearments which nature has annexed to all our sympathetic sorrows.

Women are greatly deceived when they think they recommend themselves to our sex by their indifference to religion. Even those men who are themselves unbelievers, dislike infidelity in you. Every man who knows human nature connects a religious taste in your sex with softness and sensibility of heart; at least, we always consider the want of it as a proof of that hard and masculine spirit, which of all your faults we dislike the most. Besides, men consider your religion as one of their principal securities for that female virtue in which they are most interested. I wish you to be regular in your attendance on pub- If a gentleman pretends an attachment to any of you, ic worship, and in receiving the communion. Allow and endeavors to shake your religious principles, be nothing to interrupt your public or private devotions, assured he is either a fool, or has designs on you except the performance of some active duty in life, || which he dares not openly avow. to which they should always give place. In your behavior at public worship observe an exemplary attention and gravity.

That extreme strictness which I recommend to you in these duties, will be considered by many of your acquaintance as a superstitious attachment to forms; but in the advice I give you on this and other subjects, I have an eye to the spirit and manners of the age. There is a levity and dissipation in the present manners, a coldness and listlessness in whatever relates to religion, which can not fail to infect you, unless you purposely cultivate in your minds a contrary bias, and make the devotional taste habitual.

Avoid all grimace and ostentation in your religious duties. They are the usual cloaks of hypocrisy ; at least they show a weak and vain mind.

Do not make religion a subject of common conversation in mixed companies. When it is introduced, rather seem to decline it. At the same time, never suffer any person to insult you by any foolish ribaldry on your religious opinions, but show the same resentment you would naturally do on being offered any other personal insult. But the surest way to avoid this, is by a modest reserve on the subject, and by using no freedom with others about their religious sentiments.

Cultivate an enlarged charity for all mankind, however they may differ from you in their religious opinions. That difference may probably arise from causes in which you had no share, and from which you can derive no merit.

Show your regard to religion by a distinguishing respect to all its ministers, of whatever persuasion, who do not by their lives dishonor their professions; but never allow them the direction of your consciences, lest they taint you with the narrow spirit of their party.

You will probably wonder at my having educated you in a church different from my own. The reason was plainly this: I looked on the differences between our churches to be of no real importance, and that a preference of one to the other was a mere matter of taste. Your mother was educated in the church of England, and had an attachment to it, and I had a prejudice in favor of everything she liked. It never was her desire that you should be baptized by a clergyman of the church of England, or be educated in that church. On the contrary, the delicacy of her regard to the smallest circumstances that could affect me in the eye of the world, made her anxiously insis it might be otherwise. But I could not yield to he in that kind of generosity. When I lost her, I be came still more determined to educate you in that church, as I feel a secret pleasure in doing everything that appears to me to express my affection and veneration for her memory. I draw but a very faint and imperfect picture of what your mother was, while I endeavor to point out what you should be.

NOTE. The reader will remember, that such observations as respect equally both sexes, are all along as much as possi ble avoided.

CONDUCT AND BEHAVIOR.

ONE of the chief beauties in a female character 19 that modest reserve, that retiring delicacy, which avoids the public eye, and is disconcerted even at the gaze of admiration. I do not wish you to be insensible to applause. If you were, you must become, if not worse, at east less amiable women. may be dazzled by that admiration, which yet rejoices your heart.

But you

The best effect of your religion will be a diffusive humanity to all in distress. Set apart a certain pro- When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most portion of your income as sacred to charitable pur-powerful charn feautv. That extreme seusibilay

which it indicates, may be a weakness and incumbrance in our sex, as I have too often felt, but in yours it is pecularly engaging. Pedants who think themselves philosophers, ask why a woman should blush when she is conscious of no crime? It is a sufficient answer, that nature has made you to blush when you are guilty of no fault, and has forced us to love you because you do so. Blushing is so far from being necessarily an attendant on guilt, that it is the usual companion of innocence.

1

us.

you in our regards. We look on this as the strongest || proof of dignity and true greatness of mind. Show a compassionate sympathy to unfortunate women, especially to those who are rendered so by the villany of men. Indulge a secret pleasure, I may say pride, in being the friends and refuge of the unhappy, but without the vanity of showing it. Consider every species of indelicacy in conversation, as shameful in itself, and as highly disgusting to All double entendre is of this sort. The dissoThis modesty, which I think so essential in your luteness of men's education allows them to be divertsex, will naturally dispose you to be rather silent ined with a kind of wit, which yet they have delicacy company, especially in a large one. People of sense enough to be shocked at, when it comes from your and discernment will never mistake such silence for mouths, or even when you hear it without pain and dulness. One may take a share in conversation with- contempt. Virgin purity is of that delicate nature, out uttering a syllable. The expression in the coun- that it can not hear certain things without contaminatenance shows it, and this never escapes an observing tion. It is always in your power to avoid these. No eye. man but a brute or a fool will insult a woman with conversation which he sees gives her pain; nor will he dare do it if she resent the injury with a becoming spirit. There is a dignity in conscious virtue which is able to awe the most shameless and abandoned of men.

I should be glad that you had an easy dignity in your behavior at public places, but not that confident ease, that unabashed countenance, which seems to set the company at defiance. If, while a gentleman is speaking to you, one of superior rank addresses you, do not let your eager attention and visible preference betray the flutter of your heart. Let your pride on this occasion preserve you from that meanness into which your vanity would sink you. Consider that you expose yourselves to the ridicule of the company, and affront one gentlemau only to swell the triumph of another, who, perhaps, thinks he does you honor in speaking to you.

Converse with men even of the first rank, with that dignified modesty, which may prevent the approach et the most distant familiarity, and consequently prevent them from feeling themselves your superiors.

Wit is the most dangerous talent you can possess. It must be guarded with great discretion and good nature, otherwise it will create you many enemies. It is perfectly consistent with softness and delicacy, yet they are seldom found united. Wit is so flattering to vanity, that those who possess it become intoxicated, and lose all self-command.

Humor is a different quality. It will make your company much solicited; but be cautious how you indulge it. It is often a great enemy to delicacy, and a still greater one to dignity of character. It may sometimes gain you applause, but will never procure you respect.

Be even cautious in displaying your good sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company. But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and a cultivated understanding.

A man of real genius and candor is far superior to this meanness. But such a one will seldom fall in your way; and if by accident he should, do not be anxious to show the full extent of your knowledge. If he has any opportunities of seeing you, he will soon discover it to himself; and if you have any advantages of person or manner, and keep your own secret, he will probably give you credit for a great dal more than you possess. The great art of pleasing in conversation, consists in making the company pleased with themselves. You will more readily hear than talk yourselves into their good graces.

[ocr errors]

Beware of detraction, especially where your own sex are concerned. You are generally accused of being particularly addicted to this vice-I think unustly. Men are full as guilty of it when their interests interfere. As your interests more frequently clash, and as your feelings are quicker than ours, your temptations to it are more frequent. For this reason. be particularly tender of the reputation of ly when they hannen to rival ||

You will be reproached, perhaps, with prudery. By prudery is usually meant an affectation of delicacy. Now I do not wish you to affect delicacy-I wish you to possess it. At any rate, it is better to run the risk of being thought ridiculous than disgusting.

The men will complain of your reserve. They will assure you that a franker behavior would make you more amiable. But trust me, they are not sincere when they tell you so. I acknowledge, that on some occasions it might render you more agreeable as companions, but it would render you less amiable as women-an important distinction which many of your sex are not aware of. After all, I wish you to have great ease and openness in your conversation. I only point out some considerations which ought to regulate your behavior in that respect.

Have a sacred regard to truth. Lying is a mean and despicable vice. I have known some women of excellent parts, who were so much addicted to it that they could not be trusted in the relation of any story, especially if it contained anything of the marvellous, or if they themselves were the heroines of the tale. This weakness did not proceed from a bad heart, but was merely the effect of vanity, or an unbridled imagination. I do not mean to censure that lively embellishment of a humorous story, which is only intended to promote innocent mirth.

There is a certain gentleness of spirit and manners extremely engaging in your sex; not that indiscriminate attention, that unmeaning simper, which smiles on all alike. This arises, either from an affectation of softness, or from perfect insipidity.

There is a species of refinement in luxury just beginning to prevail among the gentlemen of this country, to which our ladies are yet as great strangers as any women upon earth; I hope for the honor of the sex they may ever continue so; I mean the luxury of eating. It is a despicable, selfish vice in men, but in your sex it is beyond expression indelicate and disgusting.

Every one who remembers a few years back, is sensible of a very striking change in the attention and respect formerly paid by the gentlemen to the ladies. Their drawing-rooms are deserted, and after dinner and supper the gentlemen are impatient till they retire. How they came to lose this respect, which nature and politeness so well entitle them to, I shall no here particularly inquire. The revolutions of manners in any country depend on causes very various and complicated. I shall only observe, that the bereserved havior of the ladies in the last age was very and stately. It would now be reckoned ridiculously stiff and formal. Whatever it was, it had certainl the effect of making them more respected

« FöregåendeFortsätt »