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an ominous yawn over the countenance of his fair auditor, fhould guard against a repetition of the offence? But it is not only to women of moderate capacity, that hours of trifling and flippant conversation are found acceptable. To thofe of fuperior talents they are not unfrequently known to give a degree of entertainment, greater than on flight confideration we might have expected. The matter, however, may eafily be explained. Many women who are endowed with ftrong mental powers, are little inclined to the trouble of exerting them. They love to indulge a fupine vacuity of thought; liften to nonfenfe without dif fatisfaction, becaufe to liften to it requires no effort; neither fearch nor prompt others to fearch deeper than the furface of the paffing topic of difcourfe; and were it not for an occafional remark that indicates dif cernment, or a look of intelligence which gleams through the liftleffnefs of floth, would fearcely be fufpected of judgement and penetration. While these perfons

rarely

two fexes, is to resemble the difcuffions of a board of philofophers; and that ease and gaiety, and laughter and wit, are to be proscribed as inveterate enemies of sobriety and good fenfe. Let ease exempt from affectation, gaiety prompted by innocence, laughter the effufion of ingenuous delight, and wit unftained with any tincture of malevolence, enliven the hours of focial converse. But let it not be thought that their enlivening influence is unreasonably curtailed, if good fenfe be empowered at all times to fuperintend their proceedings; and if fo briety be authorised sometimes to interpose topics, which may exercife and improve the faculties of the understanding.

At the close of these remarks on female conversation, it may be allowable to fubjoin a few words on a kindred subject, epiftolary correspondence. Letters which pafs between men commonly relate, in a greater or a less degree, to actual business. Even young men, on whom the cares of

life are not yet devolved in their full weight, will frequently be led to enlarge to their absent friends on topics not only of an interesting nature, but also of a serious caft: on the studies which they are respectively pursuing; on the advantages and disadvantages of the profeffion to which the one or the other is destined; on the circumstances which appear likely to forward or to impede the fuccefs of each in the world. The seriousness of the fubject, therefore, has a tendency, though a tendency which, I admit, is not always fuccessful, to guard the writer from an affected and artificial ftyle. Young women, whofe minds are comparatively unoccupied by fuch concerns, are fometimes found to want in their correfpondence, a counterpoife, if not to the defire of fhining, yet to the quickness of imagination, and occafionally, to the quickness of feeling, natural to their fex. Hence they are exposed to peculiar danger, a danger aggravated by the nature of fome of the fashionable topics which will pro

ceed from engroffing converfation to employ the pen, of learning to clothe their thoughts in ftudied phrases; and even of lofing fimplicity both of thought and expreffion in florid, refined, and fentimental parade. Frequently, too, the defire of fhining intermingles itself, and involves them in additional temptations. They are ambitious to be distinguished for writing, as the phrase is, good letters. Not that a lady ought not to write a good letter. But a lady, who makes it her study to write a good letter, commonly produces a compofition to which a very different epithet ought to be applied. Those letters only are good, which contain the natural effufions of the heart, expreffed in unaffected language. Tinsel and glitter, and laboured phrases, difmifs the friend and introduce the authoress. From the use of strained and hyperbolical language, it is but a ftep to advance to that which is infincere. But though that step be not taken, all that is pleasing in letterwriting is already loft. And a far heavier

lofs

;

lofs is to be dreaded, the lofs of fimplicity of manners and character in other points. For when a woman is habitually betrayed into an artificial mode of proceeding by vanity, by the defire of pleafing, by erroneous judgement, or by any other cause can it be improbable that the fame cause fhould extend its influence to other parts of her conduct, and be productive of similar effects? In juftice to the female fex, however, it ought to be added, that when women of improved understandings write with fimplicity, and employ their pens in a more rational way than retailing the fhapes of head-dreffes and gowns, and encouraging each other in vanity, their letters are in some respects particularly pleafing. Being unencumbered with grave disquisitions, they poffefs a peculiar cafe; and shew with fingular clearness the delicate features and fhades, which diftinguish the mind of the writer.

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