ON WOMAN,

&c. &c.

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES OF FEMALE INFLUENCE.

THE changes wrought by Time are many. It influences the opinions of men as familiarity does their feelings: it has a tendency to do away with superstition of every kind, and to reduce all things to their real worth.

It is thus that the sentiment for woman has undergone a change. The romantic passion, which once almost deified her, is on the decline; and it is by intrinsic qualities that she must now inspire respect. She is no longer the queen of song, and the star of chivalry; but if there is less of enthusiasm entertained for

her, the sentiment is more rational, and, perhaps, equally sincere; for it is in relation to happiness that she is chiefly appreciated.

And in this respect it is, we must confess, that she is most useful and most important. Domestic life is the chief sphere of her influence; and domestic comfort is the greatest benefit she confers upon society: for happiness is almost an element of virtue; and nothing conduces more to improve the character of men than domestic peace. A woman may make a man's home delightful, and may thus increase his motives for virtuous exertion. She may refine and tranquillise his mind,-may turn away his anger or allay his grief. Her smile may be the happy influence to gladden the heart, and to disperse the cloud that gathers on his brow. And, in proportion to her endeavours to make those around her happy, she will be esteemed and loved. She will secure, by her excellence, that interest and regard, which she might formerly claim as the privilege of her sex; and will really merit the deference which was then conceded to her as a matter of courtesy.

Her influence is, therefore, now, in great

measure, dependent on herself,

her duty and her interest to

and it is both cultivate those

qualities which will render her most agreeable. For she can never hope to effect any thing towards the improvement of others, unless she first obtains their regard, — neither will her opinion be of weight, or her wishes much respected, unless, by her own amiable and judicious conduct, she merits such attention.

Perhaps one of the first secrets of her influence is, adaptation to the tastes, and sympathy in the feelings, of those around her. This holds true in lesser as well as in graver points it is in the former, indeed, that the absence of interest in a companion is frequently most disappointing. Where want of congeniality impairs domestic comfort, the fault is generally chargeable on the female side: for it is for woman, not for man, to make the sacrifice, especially in indifferent matters. She must, in a certain degree, be plastic herself, if she would mould others. And this is one reason why very good women are sometimes very uninfluential. They do a great deal, but they yield nothing: they are impassible themselves, and

therefore they cannot affect others. They proceed so mechanically in their vocation, and are so frigid to every thing beyond it, that their very virtue seems automatical; and is uninteresting because it appears compulsory. Negative goodness, therefore, is not enough. With an imperturbable temper, a faultless economy, an irreproachable demeanour, a woman may be still far from engaging; and her discharge of family relations be compatible with much domestic dulness. And the danger is, lest this dryness alienate affection which sympathy might have secured, and nullify an influence which might otherwise have been really beneficial. To be useful, a woman must have feeling. It is this which suggests the thousand nameless amenities which fix her empire in the heart; and render her so agreeable, and almost so necessary, that she imperceptibly rises in the domestic circle, and becomes at once its cement and its charm.

If it be, then, really her wish to increase her hold on the affections, and to mature the sentiment which passion may have excited, let her not forget, that nothing conduces more to these

results than congeniality. Perhaps conjugal virtue was never more aptly panegyrised than in the following eulogy on a matron of the last century: "She was a lady of such symmetrical proportion to her husband, that they seemed to come together by a sort of natural mag

netism."

Domestic life is a woman's province, and it is there that she is most usefully as well as most appropriately employed. But society, too, feels her influence, and receives from her, in great measure, its balance and its tone. She may be here a corrective of what is wrong, a moderator of what is unruly, a restraint on what is indecorous. Her presence will be a pledge against impropriety and excess, a check on vice, and a protection to virtue.

And it is her delicacy which will secure to her such an influence, and enable her to maintain it. The policy of licentiousness is to undermine where it cannot openly attack; and to weaken by stratagem what it may not rudely assail. But a delicate woman will be as much upon her guard against the insidious as against the direct assault; and will no more tolerate the