Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

"In simple manners, all the secret lies; "Be kind and virtuous, you'll be blest and wise. "Vain show and noise, intoxicate the brain, "Begin with giddiness, and end in pain. "To drink of pleasure, but inflames desire, "And abstinence, alone, can quench the fire. "Take pains from life, and terror from the tomb, "Give peace in hand, and promise bliss to

come."

Pleasure and wealth, then, since they cannot bestow happiness, and happiness ought to be the principal pursuit of every rational being, should not occupy the chief place in woman's attention; and as, pleasure destroys, and wealth cannot purchase, and nothing but understanding can bestow beauty, we must say nothing about it, here, because certainly, such beauty is not the general object of desire among females. The display of power and command, supposed to be much sought after, by women, is only, to be gained by a superior intellect, and, therefore, falls not within our notice, now. I do not, at this moment, recollect, that the fair sex is particularly fascinated by any other objects, than the nonsensical impertinence of pleasure, and the useless display of tawdry and trifling finery.

Man is placed in a world abounding in evils, and beset with dangers; from his cradle to his grave, he has to struggle with numberless impediments to virtue, and formidable obstacles to happiness; and what is to support him under the weight of sorrow, and to enable him to endure the burden of his toil? What, but his understanding? He is made

up of matter and of mind; the one, a mere clod of the valley, perishable and hastening to decay; the other, indestructible, ever active, eternal. Take the mind from the body, and there remains nought, but a gross material substance, capable of no higher enjoyments, than are the brutes that perish, merely animal, wholly sensual.

[ocr errors]

If, then, felicity depends, altogether, upon the mind, the capabilities of felicity must be increased as the powers of the mind are expanded. This great and important truth should ever be sounding in your ears, and engraven on the tablets of your hearts, daughters of Eve; for from your examples, and your exertions, alone, can we hope for the amelioration of the condition of the human race, by the

more general diffusion of knowledge and of truth, because we receive the first rudiments of instruction from your lips. Ye must lead our minds to soar above the confines of mortality, and teach us to know that we were placed upon this stage of existence, to do all the active good in our power here, and fit ́ourselves for an eternity of happiness to come,

[ocr errors]

and that these great ends can, only, be accomplished by cherishing the virtues of the heart, and cultivating the powers of the mind; that by these means, and these alone, we can disarm the world of it's terrors, and alleviate the miseries of life.

"Let those deplore their doom,

"Whose hope, still, grovels in the dark sojourn, "But loftier souls, who look beyond the tomb, "Can smile at fate, and wonder how they mourn, "Shall spring to these sad scenes, no more return? "Is yonder wave, the sun's eternal bed? "Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,

"And spring shall soon her vital influence shed, Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead. "Shall I be left forgotten in the dust,

"When fate relenting lets the flow'r revive?

[ocr errors]

Shall nature's voice, to man alone, unjust "Bid him, tho' doom'd to perish, hope to live?

"Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive "With disappointment, penury, and pain? "No, heaven's immortal spring shall, yet, arrive, And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

" Bright thro' the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign."

ESSAY CXII.

ON WOMEN.

CONSIDERING that the treatment of the female sex is the only gage of civilization, I shall briefly shew, that in proportion as men have emerged from savage barbarity into something like cultivated society, the women have been less harshly and injuriously treated; although we have not learned so to amend our hearts, and refine our manners, as to emancipate them from slavery, by giving them the only means of freedom and of power, an enlightened understanding.

Man in, what is called, a state of nature, that is, before he has made any advances towards

civil society, is necessitated to obtain his precarious means of existence by the laborious and painful exertions of his body, in hunting, or in fishing; and having, neither self negation nor foresight sufficient to induce him to lay up provisions for the supply of future wants, every succeeding day only awakens him to a repetition of toil, and a renovation of fatigue.

But a life consumed in the vicissitudes of la

bour, and of weariness, in the alternations of hunger and of repletion, affords but little. time, and allows but little opportunity for cherishing the feelings of the heart, and culti vating the powers of the mind. Yet, on the expansion of the mental faculties, and the calling into play the finer sensations of the heart, depends the will and the capacity of perceiving and admiring the exquisite ex"cellence of the female sex.

Therefore, among savages, it is not to be expected, that women can ever receive the treatment due to those beings, from whom so much of our felicity and virtue is derived in such a state, mere brutal strength of body will be deemed the greatest excellence, because it enables the

1

« ForrigeFortsæt »