The Boarding School; Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils / Consisting of Information, Instruction and Advice, Calculated to Improve the Manners and Form the Character of Young Ladies. To Which Is Added, a Collection of Letters, Written by the Pupils to Their Instructress, Their Friends, and Each Other.

by Hannah Webster Foster

The obligations under which you lay me, by your generous confidence, and affectionate expressions of regard, induce me again to assume the Preceptress towards you, and to gratify your wishes, by imparting my sentiments on your present situation and prospects.

I am told by my daughter, who had the honor of bearing your letter, that you are what I always expected you would be, an object of general admiration. Yet, I trust, your good sense will enable you duly to distinguish and treat the several candidates for your favor.

It is, indeed, my young friend, a matter of the most serious consequence, which lies upon your mind, and awakens your anxiety. Your friends are studious of your welfare, and kindly concerned that the important die on which the happiness of your life depends, should be judiciously cast. You doubtless remember, that I discoursed upon this subject in my concluding lessons to your class.

Disparity of tempers, among other things which were then suggested, and which you will doubtless recollect, was represented, as tending to render life uncomfortable. But there are other disparities which may be equally hostile to your peace.

Disparity of years is very apt to occasion the indulgence of passions destructive of conjugal felicity. The great difference between the sprightly vivacity, and enterprise of youth, and the deliberate caution, phlegmatic coldness, and sententious wisdom of age render them very unpleasant companions to each other. Marriage between persons of these opposite descriptions is commonly the result of pecuniary motives, with one party, at least: the suspicion of this, in the other, must necessarily produce discontent, uneasiness, and disaffection.

Age is naturally jealous of respect, and apprehensive of being slighted. The most trifling and unmeaning inattentions will therefore be construed amiss. For an excessive desire of being objects of supreme regard is almost invariably accompanied with a strong persuasion of being the reverse. Hence accusations, reproaches and restraints, on the one side, produce disgust, resentment and alienation on the other, till mutual and unceasing wretchedness ensue. Indeed, where interest alone, without this inequality of years, is the principal inducement, marriage is seldom happy. Esteem and love are independent of wealth and its appendages. They are not to be sold or bought. The conjugal relation is so near and interesting, the mind as well as the person is so intimately concerned in it, that something more substantial and engaging than gold is requisite to make it a blessing.

Marriage, being the commencement of a domestic life, beside the many agreeable circumstances attending it, has its peculiar cares and troubles which require the solace of a companion actuated by better principles, and possessed of more amiable endowments than outward splendor and magnificence can afford. In the hour of sickness and distress, riches it is true, can bestow bodily comforts and cordials; but can they be made an equivalent for the tender sympathy, the endearing kindness, and the alleviating attention of a bosom friend, kindly assiduous to ease our pains, animate our prospects, and beguile the languid moments which elude all other consolations? The sorrows as well as the joys of a family state, are often such as none but a bosom friend can participate. The heart must be engaged before it can repose with ease and confidence. To a lady of sensibility, the confinement of the body, without the consent and union of according minds, must be a state of inexpressible wretchedness.

Another situation, not less to be deplored, is a connexion with the immoral and profane.

How shocking must it be, to hear that sacred NAME, which you revere and love, constantly treated with levity and irreverence! And how painful the necessity of being constrained, for the sake of peace, to witness in silence, and without even the appearance of disapprobation, the most shameful outrages upon religion and virtue! May you never taste the bitterness of this evil.

Intemperance is a vice, which one would imagine no lady would overlook in a suitor. But, strange to tell! there are those even among our own sex, who think and speak of inebriation in the other, at the jovial and well furnished board, as a mark of conviviality and good fellowship.