thy heart yearns for love, be loving; if thou wouldst free mankind, be free; if thou wouldst have a brother frank to thee, be frank to him. "But what will people say? 66 Why does it concern thee what they say? Thy life is not in their hands. They can give thee nothing of real value, nor take from thee any thing that is worth the having. Satan may promise thee all the kingdoms of the earth, but he has not an acre of it to give. He may offer much as the price of his worship, but there is a flaw in all his title-deeds. Eternal and sure is the promise, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' "But I shall be misunderstood, misrepresented. "And what if thou art? They who throw stones at what is above them, re ceive the missiles back again by the law of gravity; and lucky are they if they bruise not their own faces. Would that I could persuade all who read this to be truthful and free; to say what they think, and act what they feel; to cast from them, like ropes of sand, all fear of sects and parties, of clans and classes. "What is there of joyful freedom in our social intercourse? We meet to see each other; and not a peep do we get under the thick, stifling veil which each carries about him. We visit to enjoy ourselves; and our host takes away all our freedom, while we destroy his own. If the host wishes to work or ride, he dare not lest it seem unpolite to the guest; if the guest wishes to read or sleep, he dare not lest it seem unpolite, to the host; so they both remain slaves, and feel it a relief to part company. A few individuals, mostly in foreign lands, arrange this matter with wiser freedom. If a visiter arrives, they say, 'I am busy to-day; but if you wish to ride, there are horse and sad. dle in the stable; if you wish to read, there are books in the parlor; if you want to work, the men are raking hay in the fields; if you want to romp, the children are at play in the court; if you want to talk to me, I can be with you at such an hour. Go where you please, and while you stay, do as you please.' "At some houses in Florence, large parties meet without invitation, and with the slightest preparation. It is understood that on some particular evening of the week, a lady or gentleman always receive their friends. In one room are books, and busts, and flowers; in another, pictures and engravings; in a third, music. Couples are ensconced in some shaded alcove, or groups dotted about the rooms, in mirthful or serious conversation. No one is required to speak to his host, either entering or departing. Lemonade and baskets of fruit stand here and there on the side-tables, that all may take who like; but eating, which constitutes so large a part of all American entertainments, is a slight and almost unnoticed incident in these festivals of intellect and taste. Wouldst thou like to see such social freedom introduced here? Then do it. But the first step must be complete indifference to Mrs. Smith's assertion, that you were mean enough to offer only one kind of cake to your company, and to put less shortening in the under-crust of your pies than the upper. Let Mrs. Smith talk according to her gifts: be thou assured that all living souls love freedom better than cake, or under-crust."-(pp. 203-4-5.) This is good, so far as it goes: we wish that the writer, in place of her meek dissent and quiet ridicule, had em- : ployed every allusion that her memory would justify, and every figure of speech her rhetoric could command, to satirize the dogmas of fashionable life. In such work we would bid her, earnestly and in good faith, God-speed; adding thereto, whatever of mockery our feeble language could promote, to throw the foulest odium on those puppets of their own fashion, who prescribe modes and orders for social intercourse. Any severity of remark, any bitterness of ridicule, would be mild weapons wherewith to controvert that growing spirit of stupid formalism which prevails through all the ranks of Leroy Place, or St. John's, to the Nag's city life-from the silver bell-pulls of Head in Barclay-street. Nor is the evil only metropolitan :—the infection reaches to every town in the country that can boast its Mayor, or its Mayor's lady. And, incredible as it may seem, the distinctions in society-which in a measure spring out of city habits, but are yet ordered and modified by the controlling voices of wealth and fashion-are carried, with all the petty modifications they engender, to embitter the freedom and naturalness of country life. Self-possession, ease, and quietness-always the truest tests of good-breeding--can have no place where all is studied constraint. Refinement and intellectual cultivation are utterly inappreciable by those who gloat at the absurd inanities which_distinguish prevailing social usage. Does the reader remember how, in the tale of Woodstock, Sir Henry Lee chafes and fumes at the impertinence and noisy merriment of the page Louis Kernegay, until he finds that the blood of royalty flows in his veins, when in an instant, petulance is succeeded by submission and reverence? Proper familiarity with the forced conventionalities of social life, will, like the blood-royal, carry impudence anywhere, and confront innocence with sensuality, grosser even than that of the Scotch page. Under such disposition of things, polite conversation has become the merest stolidity; no naturalness, no freedom, no heartiness of expression. Where would Charles Lamb find now the type for his Rosamond?"one whose remarks should be suggested most of them by the passing scene, and betray all of them the liveliness of present impulse; whose conversation should not consist in a comparison of vapid feeling, an interchange of sentiment lip-deep-but have all the freshness of young sensation in it." Here is no extravagance, yet how unreal! Not only is there lack of that freeness, which is the subject of the present writer's regret-but also of a fulness, that joined to freedom of thought and of expression, upon any topic suggested, would always give the happiest and healthiest kind of animation to a properly constituted social circle. But where are now the contributing forces to that excitement which keeps alive the general forms of social intercourse? Do they lie within the province of reason, or anywhere upon the broad ground of what Mrs. C. would call, in her exaggerated way-Universal Love? How utterly the reality falsifies either supposition! We seriously believe that they have their origin in the worst kinds of selfish pride, and ignorant vanity. Another suggestion occurs to us, in view of the present state of polite society. Its whole tendency is to wean away from the quiet and the charms-as they once were of the domestic circle. For the forms and vulgar ceremonies of the one, are wholly foreign to the freedom and conviviality of the other. A taste for the one will insensibly breed a distaste for the other. Not a woman, nor man either, can put away their habit of thought, and expression, and action, as they would a garment. Hence, the charm that lay in the fireside circle is gone; that promoter of virtue-that restorer of broken spirits-that procurer of heart-felt contentedness-is gone. Not a hundredth part can the bewildering excitements of what we call society supply the earnest and hearty joys that used to gather round the hearth stone at evening. Who, that is reading this, has been so barbarously taught from childhood, as not to have somewhere in his memory-a little corner-a nookfilled with some such image as is now present to our mind, of crackling flames of youngsters busy with old Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld-of girls, not grown too old for some such story as that of the Skotcher Boy or Lazy Lawrence-or, hearkening intently to the tale of some neighbor grandam, or to the mother as she runs softly through some of Crabbe's silver melody, or, possibly, to the father, lifting up his voice to some of Milton's organ-music, or the glorious, great things of history? We think, then, there is needed, in view of the social reform our authoress proposes, primal attention in the sphere we have designated-need of the independence she suggests; an independent love of home; an independent appreciation of its privileges; an independent love of its quietude; an independent contempt for those excitements and follies which destroy its best influences, and canker all its joys. We have not done with this subject yet. The refinement which the prevailing systems of polite education demand, has no sort of relation to the social qualities of the heart or mind; it has not even any connection with the duties of private companionship, or the enlivenment of domestic scenes; but its whole meaning, and nature, and ends, as currently understood, centre in publicity. Refinement is opposed to vulgarity, and vulgarity is understood to mean only non-compliance with those forms of speech, or dress, or action, which existing fashion has brought into vogue, and which the next change may carry out. Immorality has no part in the making up of what is called, in the polite circles, vulgarity. So, too, highest natural endowment, and elegant cultivation of the mental perceptions, have little to do with the popular meaning of refinement. Hence, the education of females especially-for with them rests the control of the social usages we are considering is modulated to a compliance with those established public forms and ceremonies-called, when the compliance is nice, and, as it were, insensible, refinement-which refinement, or which education, for the one is the other, has no foundation in any truthful sentiment of the mind, or any natural love of the heart. But truth or love must be the basis of all genuine social enjoyment. Not intoxication of the spirits-not mere compliance with formalities-not fullest occupation of rank-but that genuine heart-flow which two or three may make up as fully as a thousand. They alone will create and keep alive such charms as will outlast life, and only make the domestic state happy. Without them, the subjects of the education mentioned above must look for an appreciation of their unreal and factitious attractions, to a constant, and, as it appears to us, immodest, connection with publicity. This connection matured, forms that gangrene on our social life which is called Fashionable Society,-that society of which Madame de Stäel says justly:--"How hard it makes the heart, how frivolous the mind! How it makes us live for what others may say of us!" Of this monarch among women, Mrs. C., by the way, frequently reminds us-from her impassioned bursts of feeling, and exaggerated tones. This much, even, we count high praise. 6 But what have we here? "You ask my opinions about Women's Rights.' We must confess, that after our happy agreement with Mrs. C. upon a somewhat kindred topic, we approached this chapter with some tremor-(for not willingly would we disagree)-feeling that the subject was one which required a great deal of quiet tact and shrewdness, and very little of impassioned or imaginative feeling, for proper management. And we knew, and the reader knows, from what glimpses he may have already had, that Mrs. C. could not bring to the discussion the requisite faculties, and held in excess those which were unfit. She opens with some pleasant retorts upon those who have fancied that woman's interference with public business would be necessarily accompanied with boldness and vulgarity. Next, she advances the agreeable idea, that the mildness of woman's nature approaches more nearly to the Gospel standard of excellence than any attainments of manly supremacy, or any manifestations of mental courage. The boldness of her opinion on this point goes so far as even to liken the meek expression and beauty of woman to the Great Head of Christianity; but the acute intellect and political cunning of man, to-the Devil! But her * Vide grand stand-point, to which these playful witticisms are but so many exordia, seems to be this:-"The present position of women in society is the result of physical force."—(p. 234.) This is a distinct and full proposition. The confirmatory testimony is in a nutshell, and is equally satisfactory :-"Whoever doubts it, let her reflect why she is afraid to go out in the evening without the protection of a man." We repeat it againnow reversing the terms, and supplying the minor of the premises-thus reducing it to the form of a proper enthymeme: Woman is afraid to go out in the evening without the protection of a man; man's physical force is the occasion of the fear; therefore, the present position of women in society is the result of physical force. The logic is even better than the sentiment; and the logic is shocking. She follows her proposition in this language: "What constitutes the danger of aggression? Superior physical strength uncontrolled by the moral sentiments. That animal instinct and brute force now govern the world, is painfully apparent in the condition of women everywhere, from the Morduan Tartars, whose ceremony of marriage consists in placing the bride on a mat, and consigning her to the bridegroom, with the words, Here, wolf, take thy lamb'to the German remark, that Stiff ale, P. stinging tobacco, and a girl in her smart dress, are the best things.' The same thing, peeps out in Stephens' remark, that 'wosoftened by the refinements of civilization, man never looks so interesting as when leaning on the arm of a soldier:' and in Hazlitt's complaint that it is not easy to keep up conversation with women in com. pany. It is thought a piece of rudeness to differ from them: it is not quite fair to ask them a reason for what they say.'"-(pp. 234-5.) We fear we shall be guilty of a piece of rudeness, in saying that these reasons, which we have without the asking, appear to us to be no reasons at all. Such a silly remark as this-a man never appears so interesting as when in the dress of a soldier, with a woman leaning on his arm, would seem to our obtuse senses as good proof that "animal instinct and brute force now govern the world," as the equally silly remark which Mrs. C. quotes from Stephens. If she wishes to make out the fact that woman is everywhere dependent upon the superior energies and physical power of man for protection 234. "All inconvenience is avoided by a slight inferiority of strength and abilities in one of the sexes. This gradually develops a particular turn of character, a new class of affections and sentiments that humanize and embellish the species more than any hesitation, to a division of duties, needed alike in all situations, and produce that order without which there can be no social progression. In the treatise of The Hand, by Sir Charles Bell, we learn that the left hand and foot are naturally a little weaker than the right; the effect of this is to make us more prompt and dexterous than we should otherwise be. If there were no difference at all between the right and left limbs, the slight degree of hesitation which hand to use, or which foot to put forward, would create an awkwardness that would others. These lead at once, without art or operate more or less every moment of our lives, and the provision to prevent it seems analogous to the difference Nature has made between the strength of the sexes." We shall take the liberty of quoting two or three detached passages from Mrs. C.'s chapter, that the curious reader may be enabled to arrive a little more fully at her peculiar ideas. "There are few books," says she, "which I can read through, without feeling insulted as a woman; but this insult is almost universally conveyed through that which was intended for praise. Just imagine, for a moment, what impression it would make on men, if women authors should write about their rosy lips,' and 'melting eyes,' and voluptuous forms,' as they write about us! That women in general do not feel this kind of flattery to be an insult, I readily admit: for, in the first place, they do not perceive the gross chattel principle, of which it is the utterance; moreover, they have from long habit become accustomed to consider themselves as household conveniences, or gilded toys. Hence they consider it feminine and pretty to abjure all that I consider prevalent opinions and customs highly unfavorable to the moral and intellectual development of women; and I need not say that in proportion to their true culture, women will be more useful and True culture in them, as in men, consists happy, and domestic life more perfected. in the full and free development of individual character, regulated by their own perceptions of what is true and their own love of what is good." : We lay down the book here a moment, to express our general assent with the last-quoted opinions, with this demurrer only we do not apprehend, with the writer, that women anywhere need be instructed to regulate their individual character by their own perceptions of what is true"-the need in the case we suppose to be simply this: that those perceptions, and that "love," should be rendered strong and definite. But we quote again; our writer appearing now in the new character of a prophetess : "The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive in return co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.” Is this true? The heart is an odd one that feels it to be so. Home--why, it is the blessed, and ever to be blessed absence of worldly thought and anxiety, that makes it let in such glimpses of Heaven. What could breed quicker or fiercerthan the coming-in of life's business and harassing cares-the troublous storms that toss The private state, and render life unsweet! But we quote once more-her closing paragraph: "The conviction that woman's present position in society is a false one, and therefore reacts disastrously on the happiness and improvement of man, is pressing, by slow degrees, on the common consciousness, through all the obstacles of bigotry, sensuality, and selfishness. As man apAgain: "I have said enough to show proaches to the truest life, he will perceive such use of their faculties as would make them co-workers with man in the advancement of those great principles on which the progress of society depends." more and more that there is no separation or discord in their mutual duties. They will be one, but it will be as affection and thought are one; the treble and bass of the same harmonious tune." We have thus given Mrs. C. the benefit of her own representations; nor would we let our language jar discordantly upon the rich tone of prophecy into which she so naturally falls. We, too, believe and trust in a higher harmony to be heard yet on earth; but so far as the respective duties of man and woman are concerned, we believe it will consist in perfect and well-ordered distinction. Treble and bass make harmony, it is true; but amalgamate them in a common utterance, and the charm of the music is gone. Affection and thought appear to us in no way one. And if it were possible to conceive of every thought as made up of affection, and every affection as a mental act, the beauty of the one and the force of the other would be lost. The universe is in a noble sense one; and in a conceivable sense distinct in parts. As one, it has entireness, likeness, and grandeur of movement;-as many, its parts have their proper and peculiar action: as one, it possesses a glorious harmony, limited only by itself, and as more than one, its several units possess the attributes of individual perfection, comparable only with themselves. Women's rights are one thing; women's duties quite another. Very many women are disposed to discuss the first, who are exceeding shy of the latter. Mrs. C., in a rambling way, (all letters are rambling,) runs over both grounds, and ends with assuming that man's duties and women's should coalesce. This seems to us a meager handling of the great issues-very meager. The grand question is this-what duties, in this strange, perplexed lifetime of ours, belong more appropriately to women than to men? The next question is equally plain and to the point-are these duties performed-fully, rightly, advantageously performed? The question of man's duties and their performance is another, and one for his conscience to deal with. And woman must have her question of duty, and be guided in answer by her perception of what is true, and her love of what is good. And would to Heaven that those percep tions and that love were better fortified with reason, and more familiar by frequent appeals, than we have cause to think. VOL I.-NO. 1. Is it wrong for us to inquire, in this connection, where some of the more prominent duties lie? And we fall back here upon what we have previously said relative to the sickening formalities of social life. Here lies work, in subduing, purging, and building anew. It is an urgent duty of women everywhere to direct the weight of their influence against those dicta of fashion which are ridiculous in themselves, and which curb every natural expression of thought or manner; which, discarding appropriate distinctions between refinement and vulgarity, education and ignorance, set up their own unreal distinctions, guarding them with despotic sway, and blazoning them over with the false glare of their own deceits and follies. Tell us, Mrs. C., looking back to your eloquent chapter of regrets at the mockery which invests social usage, tell us, is woman fulfilling her right vocation in adding to, more and more, the frivolities which consummate the evil; and if she has not an appropriate work-more appropriate than new-modelling alms-houses, or satirizing civil justice-in frowning down those pompous vanities, and that empty ostentation, which, together, are doing more to teach ignorance and vice, that society is rotten, is tottering and deserves to fall, than all the misregulations of prisons, or the errors of legislation, or the most wanton scapements of justice? To that woman, your neighbor-not the man, gross though he is-to the woman, following every shift. ing tide of fashion in her dress and manner, obeying every idle requirement of its voice in her home and with her children, levelling her distinctions with ignorant pride, sucking ever at the faintest hope of enlisting public attention-no from the prudence of her domestic management, not from the entireness of conjugal devotion, not from the depth and richness of her social qualities, not from the diffusion of her benevolence, but from the exquisite nicety of conformance with certain arbitrary and soulless forms-to her we bid you go, good Mrs. C., with your pleading voice and your sharp invective, and you will find work enough without enlisting in man's duty of directing civil progress. Do you resort to the old bugbear, the criminality of society, in breeding and fostering its own ailments? This is idle-idle before, and idle now. Such reasoning falls voiceless. mentum ad hominem must be the appeal. Besides, we have not now to do with so10 The argu |