The accomplished lady, or, Strictures on the modern system of female education : with a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune

Preface

It is a singular injustice which is often exercised towards women, first to give them a very defective education, and then to expect from them the most undeviating purity of conduct ; to train them in such a manner as shall lay them open to the most dangerous faults, and then to censure them for not proving faultless. Is it not unreasonable and unjust to express disappointment if our daughters should, in their subsequent lives, turn out precisely that very kind of character for which it would be evident, to an unprejudiced bystander, that the whole scope and tenor of their instruction had been systematically preparing them?

Some reflections on the present erroneous system are here with great deference submitted to public consideration. The author is apprehensive that she shall be accused of betraying the interests of her sex by laying open their defects ; but surely, an earnest wish to turn their attention to objects calculated to promote their true dignity, is not the office of an enemy. So to expose the weakness of the land as to suggest the necessity of internal improvement, and to point out the means of effectual defence, is not treachery, but patriotism.

IV PREFACE.

Again, it may be objected to tbis little work, that many errors are here ascribed to women which by no means belong to them exclusively, and that it seems to confine to the sex those faults which are common to the species ; but this is in some measure unavoidable. In speaking on the qualities of one sex, the moralist is somewhat in the situation of the geographer, who is treating on the nature of one country : the air, soil, and produce of the land which he is describing, cannot fail in many essential points to resemble those of other countries under the same parallel ; yet it is his business to descant on the one, without adverting to the other ; and though in drawing his map he may happen to introduce some of the neighboring coast, yet his principal attention must be confined to that country which he proposes to describe, without taking into account the resembling circumstances of the adjacent shores.

It may be also objected, that the opinion here suggested on the state of manners among the higher classes of our countrywomen, may seem to controvert the just encomiums of modern travellers, who generally concur in ascribing a decided superiority to the ladies of this country over those of every other. But such is, in general, the state of foreign manners, that the comparative praise is almost an injury to English women. To be flattered for excelling those whose standard of excellence is very low, is but a degrading kind of commendation ; for the value of all praise derived from superiority, depends on the worth of the competitor. The character of British ladies, with all the unparalleled advantages they possess, must never be determined by a comparison with the women of other nations, but by comparing them with what they them-

PREFACE. V

selves might be, if all their talents and unrivalled opportunities were turned to the best account.

Again, it may be said, that the author is less disposed to expatiate on excellence than error ; but the office of the historian of human manners is delineation rather than panegyric. Were the end in view eulogium, and not improvement, eulogium would have been far more gratifying; nor would just objects for praise have been difficult to find. Even in her own limited sphere of observation, the author is acquainted with much excellence in the class of which she treats ; — with women who, possessing learning which would be thought extensive in the other sex, set an example of deep humility to their own ; women, who, distinguished for wit and genius, are eminent for domestic qualities ; who, excelling in the fine arts, have carefully enriched their understandings ; who, enjoying great affluence, devote it to the glory of God; who, possessing elevated rank, think their noblest style and title is that of a Christian.

That there is also much worth which is little known, she is persuaded ; for it is the modest nature of goodness to exert itself quietly, while a few characters of the opposite cast seem, by the rumor of their exploits, to fill the world ; and by their noise to multiply their numbers. It often happens that a very small party of people, by occupying the foreground, by seizing the public attention, and monopolizing the public talk, contrives to appear to be the great body ; a few active spirits, provided their activity take the wrong turn and support the wrong cause, seem to fill the scene ; and a few disturbers of order, who have the talent of thus exciting a false idea of their multitudes by their mis- 1#

VI PREFACE.

chiefs, actually gain strength, and swell their numbers by this fallacious arithmetic.

But the present work is no more intended for a panegyric on those purer characters who seek not human praise because they act from a higher motive, than for a satire on the avowedly licentious, who, urged by the impulse of the moment, resist no inclination ; and, led away by the love of fashion, dislike no censure, so it may serve to rescue them from neglect or oblivion.

There are, however, multitudes of the young and the well-disposed, who have as yet taken no decided part, who are just launching on the ocean of life, just about to lose their own right convictions, virtually preparing to counteract their better propensities, and unreluctantly yielding themselves to be carried down the tide of popular practices : sanguine, thoughtless, and confident of safety. To these the author would gently hint, that, when once embarked, it will be no longer easy to say to their passions, or even to their principles, " Thus far shall ye go, and no farther." Their struggles will grow fainter, their resistance will become feebler, till, borne down by the confluence of example, temptation, appetite, and habit, resistance and opposition will soon be the only things of which they will learn to be ashamed.

Let it not be suspected that the author arrogantly conceives herself to be exempt from that natural corruption of the heart which it is one chief object of this slight work to exhibit ; that she superciliously erects herself into the impeccable censor of her sex and of the world ; as if from the critic's chair she were coldly pointing out the faults and errors of another order of beings, in whose welfare she had not that lively in-

PREFACE. Vll

terest which can only flow from the tender and intimate participation of fellow-feeling.

With a deep self-abasement, arising from a strong conviction of being indeed a partaker in the same corrupt nature, together with a full persuasion of the many and great defects of this work, and a sincere consciousness of her inability to do justice to a subject which, however, a sense of duty impelled her to undertake, she commits herself to the candor of that public which has so frequently in her instance accepted a right intention as a substitute for a powerful performance.

CHAPTER IV. Comparison of the mode of female education in the last

age with the present, ------- 76

CH APTER V.

On the religious employment of time. — On the manner in which holidays are passed. — Selfishness and inconsideration considered. — Dangers arising from the world, - 85

Chapter VI. On The Early Forming Of Habits

On the necessity of forming the judgment to direct those habit3, 102

X CONTENTS.

Chapter VII

Filial obedience not the character of the age. — A comparison with the preceding age in this respect. — Those who cultivate the mind advised to study the nature of the soil. — Unpromising children often made strong characters. — Teachers too apt to devote their pains almost exclusively to children of parts, .... - 113

Chapter XX. On The Leading Doctrines Of Christianity

The corruption of human nature. — The doctrine of redemption. — The necessity of a change of heart, and of the divine influences to produce that change. — With a sketch of the Christian character, ----- 378

CHAPTER XXI. On the duty and efficacy of prayer, ----- 409

THE

ACCOMPLISHED LADY.

Chapter I

Address to women of rank and fortune, on the effects of their influence on society. — Suggestions for the exertion of it in various instances.

Among the talents for the application of which women of the higher class will be peculiarly accountable, there is one, the importance of which they can scarcely rate too highly. This talent is influence. We read of the greatest orator of antiquity, that the wisest plans which it had cost him years to frame, a woman could overturn in a single day ;* and when we consider the variety of mischiefs which an ill-directed influence has been known to produce, we are led to reflect with the most sanguine hope on the beneficial effects to be expected from the same powerful force when exerted in its true direction.

* Cicero. This illustrious patriot had defeated Catiline's conspiracy by the means of Fulvia, but he fell himself afterwards by her vengeance. When the head of Cicero was brought to this infamous woman, she pierced with a bodkin that tongue which had so often delighted listening senators and directed their councils. — Ed.

The general state of civilized society depends more than those are aware who are not accustomed to scrutinize into the springs of human action, on the prevailing sentiments and habits of women, and on the nature and degree of the estimation in which they are held. Even those who admit the power of female elegance on the manners of men, do not always attend to the influence of female principles on their character. In the former case, indeed, women are apt to be sufficiently conscious of their power, and not backward in turning it to account. But there are nobler objects to be effected by the exertion of their powers ; and, unfortunately, ladies who are often unreasonably confident where they ought to be diffident, are sometimes capriciously diffident just when they ought to feel where their true importance lies ; and, feeling, to exert it. To use their boasted power over mankind to no higher purpose than the gratification of vanity or the indulgence of pleasure, is the degrading triumph of those fair victims to luxury, caprice, and despotism, whom the laws and the religion of the voluptuous prophet of Arabia exclude from light, and Jiberty, and knowledge ; and it is humbling to reflect, that in those countries in which fondness for the mere persons of women is carried to the highest excess, they ore slaves ; and that their moral and intellectual degradation increases in direct proportion to the adoration which is paid to mere external charms.

But I turn to the bright reverse of this mortifying scene ; to a country where our sex enjoys the blessings of liberal instruction, of reasonable laws, of a pure religion, and all the endearing pleasures of an equal, social, virtuous, and delightful intercourse : I turn with an earnest hope, that women, thus richly endowed with the bounties of Providence, will not content themselves with polishing, when they are able to reform ; with entertaining, when they may awaken ; and with captivating for a day, when they may bring into action powers of which the effects may be commensurate with eternity.

In this moment of alarm and peril, I would call on them with a " warning voice," which should stir up every latent principle in their minds, and kindle every slumbering energy in their hearts ; I would call on them to come forward, and contribute their full and fair proportion towards the saving of their country. But I would call on them to come forward, without departing from the refinement of their character, without derogating from the dignity of their rank, without blemishing the delicacy of their sex : I would call them to the best and most appropriate exertion of their power, to raise the depressed tone of public morals, and to awaken the drowsy spirit of religious principle. They know too well how arbitrarily they give the law to manners, and with how despotic a sway they fix the standard of fashion. But this is not enough ; this is a low mark, a prize not worthy of their high and holy calling. For on the use which women of the superior class may now be disposed to make of that power delegated to them by the courtesy of custom, by the honest gallantry of the heart, by the imperious control of virtuous affections, by the habits of civilized states, by the usages of polished society ; on the use, I say, which they shall hereafter make of this influence, will depend, in no low degree, the well-being of those states, and the virtue and happiness, nay, perhaps the very existence, of that society.

At this period, when our country can only hope to stand by opposing a bold and noble unanimity to the most tremendous confederacies against religion, and order, and governments, which the world ever saw, what an accession would it bring to the public strength, could we prevail on beauty, and rank, and talents, and virtue, confederating their several powers, to exert themselves, with a patriotism at once firm and feminine, for the general good ! I am not sounding an alarm to female warriors, or exciting female politicians : I hardly know which of the two is the most disgusting and unnatural character. Propriety is to a woman what the great Roman critic says action is to an orator ; it is the first, the second, the third requisite. A woman may be knowing, active, witty, and amusing ; but without propriety she cannot be amiable. Propriety is the centre in which all the lines of dutv and of agreeableness meet. It is to character what proportion is to figure, and grace to attitude. It does not depend on any one perfection, but it is the result of general excellence. It shows itself by a regular, orderly, undeviating course ; and never starts from its sober orbit into any splendid eccentricities ; for it would be ashamed of such praise as it might extort by any deviations from its proper path. It renounces all commendation but what is characteristic ; and I would make it the criterion of true taste, right principle, and genuine feeling, in a woman, whether she would be less touched with all the flattery of romantic and exaggerated panegyric, than with that beautiful picture of correct and elegant propriety which Milton draws of our first mother, when he delineates

" Those thousand decencies which daily flow From all her words and actions."

Even the influence of religion is to be exercised with discretion. A female polemic wanders nearly as far from the limits prescribed to her sex, as a female Machiavel* or warlike Thalestris.f Fierceness has made almost as few converts as the sword, and both are peculiarly ungraceful in a female. Even religious violence has human tempers of its own to indulge, and is gratifying itself when it would be thought to be serving God. Let not the bigot place her natural passions to the account of Christianity, or imagine she is pious when she is only passionate. Let her bear in mind that a Christian doctrine is always to be defended with a Christian spirit, and not make herself amends by the stoutness of her orthodoxy for the badness of her temper. Many, because they defend a religious opinion with pertinacity, seem to fancy that they thereby acquire a kind of right to withhold the meekness and obedience which should be necessarily involved in the principle.

* Nicholas Machiavel, secretary to the- republic of Florence in the 15th century. His name is proverbial, as characteristic of subtle policy.

t Queen of the Amazons,.

2*

But the character of a consistent Christian is as carefully to be maintained, as that of a fiery disputant is to be avoided ; and she who is afraid to avow her principles, or ashamed to defend them, has little claim to that honorable title. A profligate, who laughs at the most sacred institutions, and keeps out of the way of every thing which comes under the appearance of formal instruction, may be disconcerted by the modest, but spirited rebuke of a delicate woman, whose life adorns the doctrines which her conversation defends ; but she who administers reproof with ill-breeding, defeats the effect of her remedy. On the other hand, there is a dishonest way of laboring to conciliate the favor of a whole company, though of characters and principles irreconcilably opposite. The words may be so guarded as not to shock the believer, while the eye and voice may be so accommodated as not to discourage the infidel. She, who, with a half-earnestness, trims between the truth and the fashion ; who, while she thinks it creditable to defend the cause of religion, yet does it in a faint tone, a studied ambiguity of phrase, and a certain expression in her countenance which proves that she is not displeased with what she affects to censure, or that she is afraid to lose her reputation for wit, in proportion as she advances her credit for piety, injures the cause more than he who attacks it ; for she proves either that she does not believe what she professes, or that she does not reverence what fear compels her to believe. But this is not all : she is called on, not barely to repress impiety, but to excite, to encourage, and to cherish every tendency to serious religion.

Some of the occasions of contributing to the general good which are daily presenting themselves to ladies, are almost too minute to be pointed out. Yet of the good which rightminded women, anxiously watching these minute occasions, and adroitly seizing them, might accomplish, we may form some idea by the ill effects which we actually see produced, through the mere levity, carelessness, and inattention (to say no worse) of some of those ladies, who are looked up to as standards in the fashionable world.

I am persuaded if many a woman of fashion, who is now disseminating unintended mischief, under the dangerous notion that there is no harm in any thing short of positive vice, and under the false colors of that indolent humility, " What good can I do ?" could be brought to see in its collected force the annual aggregate of the random evil she is daily doing, by constantly throwing a little casual weight into the wrong scale, by mere inconsiderate and unguarded chat, she would start from her selfcomplacent dream. If she could conceive how much she may be diminishing the good impressions of young men, and if she could imagine how little amiable levity or irreligion makes her appear in the eyes of those who are older and abler (however loose their own principles may be,) she would correct herself in the first instance, from pure good nature ; and, in the second, from worldly prudence and mere self-love. But on how much higher principles would she restrain herself, if she habitually took into account the important doctrine of consequences ; and if she reflected that the lesser but more habitual corruptions make up, by their number, what, they may seem to come short of by their weight; then, perhaps, she would find that, among the higher class of women, inconsideration is adding more to the daily quantity of evil than almost all other causes put together. There is an instrument of inconceivable force, when it is employed against the interests of Christianity : it is not reasoning, for that may be answered ; it is not learning, for luckily the infidel is not seldom ignorant ; it is not invective, for we leave so coarse an engine to the hands of the vulgar ; it is not evidence, for happily we have that all on our side : it is ridicule, the most deadly weapon in the whole arsenal of impiety, and which becomes an almost unerring shaft when directed by a fair and fashionable hand. No maxim has been more readily adopted, or is more intrinsically false, than that which the fascinating eloquence of a noble skeptic of the last age contrived to render so popular, that " ridicule is the test of truth."* It is no test of truth itself; but of their firmness who assert the cause of truth, it is indeed a severe test. This light, keen, missile weapon, the irresolute, unconfirmed Christian will find it harder to

* Lord Shaftesbury, in his "Characteristics." But says Dr. Brown, one of his lordship's chief opponents — " A rigid examination is the only test of truth. For experience hath taught us, that even obstinacy or error can endure the fires of persecution. But it is genuine truth, and that alone, which conies out, pure and unchanged, from the severer tortures of debate." — Ed.

withstand, than the whole heavy artillery of infidelity united.

A young man of the better sort, has, perhaps, just entered upon the world, with a certain share of good dispositions and right feelings ; neither ignorant of the evidences, nor destitute of the principles, of Christianity : without parting with his respect for religion, he sets out with the too natural wish of making himself a reputation, and of standing well with the fashionable part of the female world. He preserves for a time a horror of vice, which makes it not difficult for him to resist the grosser corruptions of society ; he can as yet repel profaneness ; nay, he can withstand the banter of a club. He has sense enough to see through the miserable fallacies of the new philosophy, and spirit enough to expose its malignity. So far he does well, and you are ready to congratulate him on his security. You are mistaken ; the principles of the ardent and hitherto promising adventurer are shaken, just in that very society where, while he was looking for pleasure, he doubted not of safety. In the company of certain women, of good fashion and no ill fame, he makes shipwreck of his religion. He sees them treat with levity or derision subjects which he has been used to hear named with respect. He could confute an argument, he could unravel a sophistry ; but he cannot stand a laugh. A sneer, not at the truth of religion, for that, perhaps, is by none of the party disbelieved, but at its gravity, its unseasonableness, its dullness, puts all his resolution to flight. He feels his mistake, and struggles to recover his credit ;

in order to which, he adopts the gay affectation of trying to seem worse than he really is ; he goes on to say things which he does not believe, and to deny things which he does believe ; and all to efface the first impression, and to recover a reputation which he has committed to their hands on Whose report he knows he shall stand or fall, in those circles in which he is ambitious to shine.

That cold compound of irony, irreligion, selfishness, and sneer, which make up what the French (from whom we borrow the thing as well as the word) so well express by the term perjlage, has of late years made an incredible progress in blasting the opening buds of piety in young persons of fashion. A cold pleasantry, a temporary cant word, the jargon of the day (for the " great vulgar" have their jargon,) blights the first promise of seriousness. The ladies of ton have certain watchwords, which may be detected as indications of this spirit. The clergy are spoken of under the contemptuous appellation of the parsons. Some ludicrous association is infallibly combined with every idea of religion. If a warm-hearted youth has ventured to name with enthusiasm some eminently pious character, his glowing ardor is extinguished with a laugh ; and a drawling declaration, that the person in question is really a mighty harmless, good creature, is uttered in a tone which leads the youth secretly to vow, that whatever else he may be, he will never be a good, harmless creature.

Nor is ridicule more dangerous to true piety than to true taste. An age which values itself on parody, burlesque, irony and caricature, produces little that is sublime, either in genius or in virtue ; but they amuse, aud we live in an age which must be amused, though genius, feeling, truth, and principle, be the sacrifice. Nothing chills the ardors of devotion like a frigid sarcasm ; and, in the season of youth, the mind should be kept particularly clear of all light associations. This is of so much importance, that I have known persons who, having been early accustomed to certain ludicrous combinations, were never able to get their minds cleansed from the impurities contracted by this habitual levity, even after a thorough reformation in their hearts and lives had taken place : their principles became reformed, but their imaginations were indelibly soiled. They could desist from sins which the strictness of Christianity would not allow them to commit, but they could not dismiss from their minds images which her purity forbade them to entertain.

There was a time when variety of epithets were thought necessary to express various kinds of excellence, and when the different qualities of the mind were distinguished by appropriate and discriminating terms ; when the words venerable, learned, sagacious, profound, acute, pious, worthy, ingenious, valuable, elegant, agreeable, wise, or witty, were used as specific marks of distinct characters. But the legislators of fashion have of late years thought proper to comprise all merit in one established epithet ; an epithet which, it must be confessed, is a very desirable one, as far as it goes. This term is exclusively and indiscriminately applied wherever commendation is intended. The word pleasant now serves to combine and express all moral and intellectual excellence. Every individual, from the gravest professors of the gravest profession, down to the trifler who is of no profession at all, must earn the epithet of pleasant , or must be contented to be nothing ; and must be consigned over to ridicule, under the vulgar and inexpressive cant word of — a bore. This is the mortifying designation of many a respectable man, who, though of much worth and much ability, cannot, perhaps, clearly make out his letters patent to the title of pleasant. For, according to this modern classification, there is no intermediate state, but all are comprised within the ample bounds of one or other of these two comprehensive terms.

We ought to be more on our guard against this spirit of ridicule, because, whatever may be the character of the present day, its faults do not spring from the redundancies of great qualities, or the overflowings of extravagant virtues. It is well if more correct views of life, a more regular administration of laws, and a more settled state of society, have helped to restrain the excesses of the heroic ages, when love and war were considered as the great and sole businesses of human life. Yet, if that period was marked by a romantic extravagance, and the present is distinguished by an indolent selfishness, our superiority is not so triumphantly decisive, as, in the vanity of our hearts, we may be ready to imagine.

I do not wish to bring back the frantic reign of chivalry, nor to reinstate women in that fantastic empire in which they then sat enthroned in the hearts, or rather in the imaginations, of men. Common sense is an excellent material of universal application, which the sagacity of latter ages has seized upon, and rationally applied to the business of common life. But let us not forget in the insolence of acknowledged superiority, that it was religion and chastity, operating on the romantic spirit of those times, which established the despotic sway of woman ; and though, in this altered scene of things, she now no longer looks down on her adoring votaries from the pedestal to which an absurd idolatry had lifted her, yet let her remember, that it is the same religion and the same chastity which once raised her to such an elevation, that must still furnish the noblest energies of her character ; must still attract the admiration, still retain the respect, of the other sex.

While we lawfully ridicule the absurdities which we have abandoned, let us not plume ourselves on that spirit of novelty which glories in the opposite extreme. If the manners of the period in question were affected, and if the gallantry was unnatural, yet the tone of virtue was high ; and let us remember, that constancy, purity, and honor, are not ridiculous in themselves, though they may unluckily be associated with qualities which are so ; and women of delicacy would do well to reflect, when descanting on those exploded manners, how far it be decorous to deride with too broad a laugh attachments which could subsist on remote gratifications ; or grossly to ridicule the taste which led 3 the admirer to sacrifice pleasure to respect, and inclination to honor ; how far it be delicate to sneer at that purity which made self-denial a proof of affection ; to call in question the sound understanding of him who preferred the fame of his mistress to his own indulgence ; to burlesque that antiquated refinement which considered dignity and reserve as additional titles to affection and reverence.

We can not. but be struck with the wonderful contrast exhibited to our view, when we contemplate the opposite manners of the two periods in question. In the former, all the flower of Europe, smit with a delirious gallantry — all that was young, and noble, and brave, and great, with a fanatic frenzy and preposterous contempt of danger — traversed seas, and scaled mountains', and compassed a large portion of the globe, at the expense of ease, and fortune, and life, for the unprofitable project of rescuing, by force of arms, from the hands of infidels, the sepulchre of that Saviour, whom, in the other period, their posterity would think it the height of fanaticism so much as to name in good company ; that Saviour, whose altars they desert, whose temples they neglect ; and though in more than one country at least they still call themselves by his name, yet too many, it is to be feared, contemn his precepts, still more are ashamed of his doctrines, and not a few reject his sacrifice. Too many consider Christianity rather as a political than a religious distinction ; too many claim the appellation of Christians, in mere opposition to that democracy with which they conceive infidelity to be associated, rather than from an abhorrence of impiety for its own sake ; too many deprecate the charge of irreligion, as the supposed badge of a reprobated party, more than on account of that moral corruption which is its inseparable concomitant.