The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and the women most applauded for not meddling with politics, (an expression which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author (convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical refutation of this ridiculous error.
Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the education.
"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"
is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may be found.
The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth, ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in after life must be attributed.
This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.
"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling, the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading, or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."
The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God, the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer observes—
"The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse, slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects. The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride, ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered, though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts to a false standard."
We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to convey.