lent opinions and customs highly unfavourable to the moral and intellectual development of women: and I need not say, that, in proportion to their true culture, women will be more useful and happy, and domestic life more perfected. True culture, in them, as in men, consists in the full and free development of individual character, regulated by their own perceptions of what is true, and their own love of what is good.

This individual responsibility is rarely acknowledged, even by the most refined, as necessary to the spiritual progress of women. I once heard a very beautiful lecture from R. W. Emerson, on Being and Seeming. In the course of many remarks, as true as they were graceful, he urged women to be, rather than seem. He told them that all their laboured education of forms, strict observance of genteel etiquette, tasteful arrangement of the toilette, &c., all this seeming would not gain hearts like being truly what God made them; that earnest simplicity, the sincerity of nature, would kindle the eye, light up the countenance, and give an inexpressible charm to the plainest features.

The advice was excellent, but the motive, by which it was urged, brought a flush of indignation over my face. Men were exhorted to be, rather than to seem, that they might fulfil the sacred mission for which their souls were embodied; that they might, in God's freedom, grow up into the full stature of spiritual manhood; but women were urged to simplicity and truthfulness, that they might become more pleasing.

Are we not all immortal beings? Is not each one responsible for himself and herself? There is no measuring the mischief done by the prevailing tendency to teach women to be virtuous as a duty to man rather than to God-for the sake of pleasing the creature, rather than the Creator. 'God is thy law, thou mine,' said Eve to Adam. May Milton be for

given for sending that thought out into everlasting time' in such a jewelled setting. What weakness, vanity, frivolity, infirmity of moral purpose, sinful flexibility of principle in a word, what soul-stifling, has been the result of thus putting man in the place of God!

But while I see plainly that society is on a false foundation, and that prevailing views concerning women indicate the want of wisdom and purity, which they serve to perpetuate-still, I must acknowledge that much of the talk about Women's Rights offends both my reason and my taste. I am not of those who maintain there is no sex in souls; nor do I like the results deducible from that doctrine. Kinmont, in his admirable book, called the Natural History of Man, speaking of the warlike courage of the ancient German women, and of their being respectfully consulted on important public affairs, says: You ask me if I consider all this right, and deserving of approbation? or that women were here engaged in their appropriate tasks? I answer, yes; it is just as right that they should take this interest in the honour of their country, as the other sex. Of course, I do not think that women were made for war and battle; neither do I believe that men were. But since the fashion of the times had made it so, and settled it that war was a necessary element of greatness, and that no safety was to be procured without it, I argue that it shows a healthful state of feeling in other respects, that the feelings of both sexes were equally enlisted in the cause: that there was no division in the house, or the state; and that the serious pursuits and objects of the one were also the serious pursuits and objects of the other.'

The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men and women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and edu

casion of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home-that blessed word, which opens to the human heart the most perfect glimpse of Heaven, and helps to carry it thither, as on an angel's wings.

'Domestic bliss,

That can, the world eluding, be itself
A world enjoyed; that wants no witnesses
But its own sharers and approving heaven;
That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft,

Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky.'

Alas, for these days of Astor houses and Tremonts, and Albions! where families exchange comfort for costliness, fireside retirement for flirtation and flaunting, and the simple, healthful, cozy meal, for gravies and gout, dainties and dyspepsia. There is no characteristic of my countrymen, which I regret so deeply as their slight degree of adhesiveness to home. - Closely intertwined with this instinct, is the religion of a nation. The Home and the Church bear a near relation to each other. The French have no such word as home in their language, and I believe they are the least reverential and religious of all the Christian nations. A Frenchman had been in the habit of visiting a lady constantly for several years, and being alarmed at a report that she was sought in marriage, he was asked why he did not marry her himself. Marry her!' exclaimed he,-'Good heavens! where should I spend my evenings?' The idea of domestic happiness was altogether a foreign idea to his soul, like a word that conveyed no meaning. Religious sentiment in France leads the same roving

6

life as the domestic affections; breakfasting at one restaurateur's and supping at another's. When some wag in Boston reported that Louis Philippe had sent over for Dr. Channing to manufacture a religion for the French people, the witty significance of the joke was generally appreciated.

There is a deep spiritual reason why all that relates to the domestic affections should ever be found in close proximity with religious faith. The age of chivalry was likewise one of unquestioning veneration, which led to the crusade for the holy sepulchre. The French revolution, which tore down churches, and voted that there was no God, likewise annulled marriage; and the doctrine, that there is no sex in souls, has usually been urged by those of infidel tendencies. Carlyle says, 'But what feeling it was in the ancient, devout, deep soul, which of marriage made a sacrament, this, of all things in the world, is what Diderot will think of for æons without discovering; unless perhaps it were to increase the vestry fees.'

The conviction that woman's present position in society is a false one, and therefore re-acts disastrously on the happiness and improvement of man, is pressing by slow degrees on the common consciousness, through all the obstacles of bigotry, sensuality, and selfishness. As man approaches to the truest life, he will perceive more and more that there is no separation or discord in their mutual duties. They will be one; but it will be as affection and thought are one; the treble and bass of the same harmonious tune.

LETTER XXXV.

February, 1843.

A book has been lately published called the Westover Manuscripts, written more than a hundred years ago, by Col. William Byrd, an old Virginian cavalier, residing at Westover, on the north bank of James river. He relates the following remarkable circumstance, which powerfully arrested my attention, and set in motion thoughts that flew beyond the stars, and so I lost sight of them, till they again come within my vision, in yonder world, where, as the German beautifully expresses it,' we shall find our dreams, and only lose our sleep.' The writer says:

'Of all the effects of lightning that ever I heard of, the most amazing happened in this country, in the year 1736. In the summer of that year, a surgeon of a ship, whose name was Davis, came ashore at York, to visit a patient. He had no sooner got into the house, but it began to rain, with many terrible claps of thunder. When it was almost dark, there came a dreadful flash of lightning, which struck the surgeon dead, as he was walking about the room, but hurt no other person, though several were near him. At the same time it made a large hole in the trunk of a pine tree, which grew about ten feet from the window. But what was most surprising in this disaster was, that on the breast of the unfortunate man that was killed, was the figure of a pine tree, as exactly delineated as any limner in the world could draw it; nay, the resemblance went so far as to represent the colour of the pine, as well as the figure. The lightning must probably have passed through the tree first, before it struck the man, and by that means have printed the icon of it on his breast. But whatever may have been the cause, the effect was