Thursday, P. M.
AMUSEMENTS.
“Amusement is impatiently desired, and eagerly sought by young ladies in general. Forgetful that the noblest entertainment arises from a placid and well cultivated mind, too many fly from themselves, from thought and reflection, to fashionable dissipation, or what they call pleasure, as a mean of beguiling the hours which solitude and retirement render insupportably tedious.
“An extravagant fondness for company and public resorts is incompatible with those domestic duties, the faithful discharge of which ought to be the prevailing object of the sex. In the indulgence of this disposition, the mind is enervated, and the manners corrupted, till all relish for those enjoyments, which being simple and natural, are best calculated to promote health, innocence, and social delight, is totally lost.
“It is by no means amiss for youth to seek relaxation from severer cares and labors, in a participation of diversions, suited to their age, sex, and station in life. But there is great danger of their lively imaginations’ hurrying them into excess, and detaching their affections from the ennobling acquisitions of moral improvement, and refined delicacy. Guard, then against those amusements which have the least tendency to sully the purity of your minds.
“Loose and immoral books; company, whose manners are licentious, however gay and fashionable; conversation which is even tinctured with profaneness or obscenity; plays in which the representation is immodest, and offensive to the ear of chastity; indeed, pastimes of every description, from which no advantage can be derived, should not be countenanced; much less applauded. Why should those things afford apparent satisfaction in a crowd which would call forth the blush of indignation in more private circles? This question is worthy the serious attention of those ladies, who at the theatre, can hardly restrain their approbation of expressions and actions, which at their houses, would be intolerably rude and indecent, in their most familiar friends!
“Cards are so much the taste of the present day, that to caution my pupils against the too frequent use of them may be thought old fashioned in the extreme. I believe it, however, to be a fascinating game, which occupies the time, without yielding any kind of pleasure or profit. As the satirist humorously observes,
“The love of gaming is the worst of ills;
With ceaseless storms the blacken’d soul it fills;
Inveighs at Heaven, neglects the ties of blood;