Avoid discourtesy, but avoid still more a hollow, insincere, merely outward, gracefulness. If the feelings be correct, the manner will usually be so. Corregio painted three furies, represented by as many young women, with beautiful forms and regular features. Looking intently on the hair, you might see a single serpent wreathed in its tresses; and studying the expression of their countenances, you detected in them cunning, malice, and cruelty. Such “beauty” and grace are truly “vain.”
No single quality is so essential in society as a willingness to be pleased. “There is one art,” says a late writer, “which those whose object it is to charm, would do well to cultivate, the art of being charmed. For it rescues many an hour from listlessness and discontent, by freshening all the springs of life and action, awakening in old age the energy of youth, and persuading the weary and desponding that they have still the power to please, and that even for them the world has happiness in store.” Opposed to this stands caprice, a morbid desire of attention, a self-consequence, which would draw all eyes and all thoughts to its own important person. This spirit is full of coldness, jealousy, and every unamiable sentiment. Let the young woman forget herself, and study the feelings of others. She will then notice the modest, encourage the diffident, and strive to call forth concealed talent and virtue. She will scrupulously avoid all allusions, that would give pain to the hearer. His ill-fortune, the trade he pursues, if unpopular, or his low extraction, or the faults of his connections, and his own misdemeanors, will be carefully kept out of view. Thus will the inward man be perpetually overflowing with Christian courtesy.
Good Sense is another requisite of female civility. “The excitable imagination and ardent feelings of woman,” says a female writer, “expose her to exaggeration of sentiment.” Ignorant and weak women mortify their friends and disgust many others, in society. They talk for the sound’s sake, giving flippant utterance to the commonplaces of the day. But did God endow this sex with speech, to be exercised only on folly and nonsense? No, we have seen too many living examples to the contrary, of women
| “alike from careless levity remote, And a behavior schooled by selfish rules, Alike removed from rashness and from fear.” |
Is not this better than the indulgence in perpetual trifling and tattle?
How long shall it be charged on this sex that they often yield, without an attempt at self-control, to their supposed natural volatility? If man be constitutionally grave, and life be with him all a serious affair, then should woman supply this want by careful self-culture. I would not frown on the innocent gratifications of the tongue; but I would entreat this sex, instead of seeking their pleasure in discussing the concerns of their neighbors, to pause, consider, and resolve that they will set their feet in a new path. Do not reveal the secrets of a family, because accidentally made acquainted with them, or privileged with their intimacy. Disdain, as unworthy your nature and your sex, the practice of prying into the domestic affairs of others. Cultivate a taste for reading, and talk of books and principles, not persons. And never forget that “for every idle word you must give account” hereafter. Be so filled with good sense and knowledge, that of you it may be said, mark
| “that fund of truth and sense, Which though her modesty would shroud, Breaks like the sun behind the cloud.” |
Good Taste is needful in society. There are those, who so appear, as “thoughtless of gracefulness, to be yet grace itself.” This is the native endowment of some; but all may approximate toward it. Propriety is a rich ornament of female speech. Modesty is a cardinal point in good taste. But let it be sincere. In the early ages of Rome, the women, in general, wore veils in public. Latterly they were worn by certain of the beautiful, but disreputable of that sex, partially to shade the face, and thus add to their unholy fascinations. Beware of a tincture of this spirit. Let your deportment be always so pure and self-respectful, that “guilt shall seem a thing impossible in you.” Consummate the marriage intended, under Providence, between Taste and Virtue.
The last topic I name in this connection is Moral Courage. There is a tyranny of circumstances which you may sometimes fail of successfully resisting. But never may you desist from the attempt to do this. Strive to maintain, mildly, yet firmly, every particle of the ground of right and duty.
Perhaps no one source of temptation will so try your moral energies, in this respect, as that of amusements and recreations. God intended that you should sometimes rest from toil, and find relaxations to repair your exhausted spirits. Pursued for this purpose, they will ever prove more than innocent; they will be useful, and acceptable before Heaven.