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

SOPHIA MANCHESTER.

To Miss SOPHIA MANCHESTER.

Beverly.

I sympathize with you, my dear Sophia, in the disappointment you received in your expectations from beauty and wit.

You may nevertheless derive advantage from it. Your refined and delicate ideas raise you too far above the scenes of common life. They paint the defects of your inferiors in such lively colours, that the greater part of the community must be displeasing to you. Few, you should remember, have had the advantages which you have enjoyed; and still fewer have your penetrating eye, correct taste, and quick sensibility. Let charity then draw a veil over the foibles of others, and candor induce you to look on the best and brightest side.

It is both our duty and interest to enjoy life as far as integrity and innocence allow; and in order to this, we must not soar above, but accommodate ourselves to its ordinary state. We cannot stem the torrent of folly and vanity; but we can step aside and see it roll on, without suffering ourselves to be borne down by the stream.

Empty conversation must be disgusting to every rational and thinking mind; yet, when it partakes not of malignity, it is harmless in its effects, as the vapour which floats over the mead in a summer’s eve. But when malice and envy join to give scope to detraction, we ought to avoid their contagion, and decidedly condemn the effusions of the ill-natured merriment which they inspire.

Our sex have been taxed as defamers. I am convinced, however, they are not exclusively guilty; yet, for want of more substantial matter of conversation, I fear they too often give occasion for the accusation! A mind properly cultivated and stored with useful knowledge, will despise a pastime which must be supported at the expense of others. Hence only the superficial and the giddy are reduced to the necessity of filling the time in which they associate together, with the degrading and injurious subjects of slander. But I trust that our improved country-women are rising far superior to this necessity, and are able to convince the world, that the American fair are enlightened, generous, and liberal. The false notions of sexual disparity, in point of understanding and capacity, are justly exploded; and each branch of society is uniting to raise the virtues and polish the manners of the whole.

I am, &c.

MATILDA FIELDING.