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

Or soften the din of necessity’s cry?

Of hunger and want, the loud clamours repel;

Or crush the poor moth that would on you revel!

For poets and prophets the world has decreed,

On fame and on faith may luxuriously feed!

Here the puss interpos’d with a strut and a stare,

Pray good madam muse, your suggestions forbear!

On virtue and worth I’m resolved to attend,

A firm, if I am not a plentiful friend.

Tho’ not swell’d with gold, and with metal extended,