The Young Lady's Mentor / A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends

by Anonymous

I advise you earnestly, therefore, against any system of conduct, or indulgence of feeling, that would involve your seclusion from society—not only on the grounds of such seclusion obliging you to unnecessary self-denial, but on the still stronger grounds of the loss to our moral being which would result from the absence of the peculiar species of discipline that social intercourse affords. My object in addressing you is to point out the dangers to you of peculiar kinds of society, not by any means to seek to persuade you to avoid it altogether.

Let us, then, consider carefully the respective tendencies of different kinds of society to cherish or create the feelings of "envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness," by exciting a craving for general admiration, and a desire to secure the largest portion for yourself.

You have already been a few weeks out in the world; you have been at small social parties and crowded balls: they must have given you sufficient experience to understand the remarks I make.

Have you not, then, felt at the quiet parties of which I have spoken (as contrasted with dissipated ones) that it was pleasure enough for you to spend your whole evening talking with persons of your own sex and age over the simple occupations o£ your daily-life, or the studies which engage the interest of your already cultivated mind? Lady L. may have collected a circle of admirers around her, and Miss M.'s music may have been extolled as worthy of an artist, but upon all this you looked merely as a spectator; without either wish or idea of sharing in their publicity or their renown, you probably did not form a thought, certainly not a wish, of the kind. In the ball-room, however, the case is altogether different; the most simple and fresh-minded woman cannot escape from feelings of pain or regret at being neglected or unobserved here. She goes for the professed purpose of dancing; and when few or no opportunities are afforded her of sharing in that which is the amusement of the rest of the room, should she feel neither mortification at her own position, nor envy, however disguised and modified, at the different position of others, she can possess none of that sensitiveness which is your distinctive quality. It is true, indeed, that the experienced chaperon is well aware that the girl who commands the greatest number of partners is not the one most likely to have the greatest number of proposals-at the end of the season, nor the one who will finally make the most successful parti. This reconciles the prudential looker-on to the occasional and partial appearance of neglect. Not so the young and inexperienced aspirant to admiration: her worldliness is now in an earlier phase; and she thinks that her fame rises or falls among her companions according as she can compete with them in the number of her partners, or their exclusive devotion to her, which after a season or two is discovered to be a still safer test of successful coquetry. Thus may the young innocent heart be gradually led on to depend for its enjoyment on the factitious passing admiration of a light and thoughtless hour; and still worse, if possessed of keen susceptibilities and powers of quick adaptation, the lesson is often too easily learned of practising the arts likely to attract notice, thus losing for ever the simplicity and modest freshness of a woman's nature. That may be a fatal evening to you on which you will first attract sufficient notice to have it said of you that you were more admired than Lucy D. or Ellen M.; this may be a moment for a poisonous plant to spring up in your heart, which will spread around its baleful influence until your dying day. It is a disputed point among ethical metaphysicians, whether the seeds of every vice are equally planted in each human bosom, and only prevented from germinating by opposing circumstances, and by the grace of God assisting self-control. If this be true, how carefully ought we to avoid every circumstance that may favour the commencing existence of before unknown sins and temptations. The grain that has been destitute of vitality for a score of centuries is wakened into unceasing, because continually renewed existence, by the fostering influences of light and air and a suitable soil. Evil tendencies may be slumbering in your bosom, as destitute of life, as incapable of growth, as the oats in the foldings of the mummy's envelope. Be careful lest, by going into the way of temptation, you may involuntarily foster them into the very existence which they would otherwise never possess.

When once the craving for excitement has become a part of our nature, there is of course no safety in the quietest, or, under other circumstances, most innocent kind of society. The same amusements will be sought for in it as those which have been enjoyed in the ball-room, and every company will be considered insufferably wearisome which does not furnish the now necessary stimulant of exclusive attention and general admiration.

I write the more strongly to you on the subject of worldly amusements, because I see with regret a tendency in the writings and conversation of the religious world, as it is called, to extol every other species of self-denial, but to Observe a studied silence respecting this one.

A reaction seems to have taken place in the public mind. Instead of the puritanic strictness that condemned the meeting of a few friends for any purposes besides those of reading the Scriptures and praying extempore, practices are now introduced, and favoured, and considered harmless, almost as strongly contrasted with the former ones as was the promulgation of the Book of Sports with the strict observances that preceded it. We see some, of whose piety and excellence no doubt can be entertained, mingling unhesitatingly in the most worldly amusements of those who are by profession as well as practice "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God."

How cruelly are the minds of the simple and the timid perplexed by the persons who thus act, as well as by those popular writings which countenance in professedly religious persons these worldly and self-indulgent habits of life. The hearts and the consciences of the "weak brethren" re-echo the warnings given them by the average opinions of the wise and good in all ages of the world, namely, that, with respect to worldly amusements, they must "come out and be separate." How else can they be sons and daughters of Him, to whom they vowed, as the necessary condition of entering into that high relationship, that they would "renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world?" If the question of pomps should be perplexing to some by the different requirements of different stations in life, there is surely less difficulty of the same kind in relation to its vanities. But while the "weak in faith" are hesitating and trembling at the thought of all the opposition and sacrifices a self-denying course of conduct must, under any circumstances, involve, they are still further discouraged by finding that some whom they are accustomed to respect and admire have in appearance gone over to the enemy's camp.

It is only, indeed, in their hours of relaxation that they select as their favourite companions those who are professedly engaged in a different service from their own—those whom they know to be devoted heart and soul to the love and service of that "world which lieth in wickedness."[95] Are not, however, their hours of relaxation also their hours of danger—those in which they are more likely to be surprised and overcome by temptation than in hours of study or of business? All this is surely very perplexing to the young and inexperienced, however personally safe and prudent it may be for those from whom a better example might have been justly expected. It is deeply to be regretted that there is not more unity of action and opinion among those who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," more especially in cases where such unity of action is only interfered with by dislike to the important and eminent Christian duty of self-denial.

I am inclined to apply terms of stronger and more general condemnation than any I have hitherto used to those amusements which are more especially termed "public."