rents have experience to direct them; and that, while the child is influenced only by inclination, or opinion, founded upon what must at least be a very limited and superficial knowledge of things in general, the opinion of the parent is founded upon facts, which have occurred during a far longer acquaintance with human nature, and with what is called the world.

Let the experience of the aged, then, be weighed against your modern acquirements, and even without the exercise of natural affection, we find that they are richly entitled to your respectful attention. But there is something beyond this consideration in the overflowing of the warm and buoyant feelings of youth, which so naturally and so beautifully supply the requirements of old age, that scarcely can we picture to ourselves a situation more congenial to the daughters of England, than one of those fireside scenes, where venerated age is treated with the gratitude and affection which ought ever to be considered as its due.

It sometimes happens that the cares and the anxieties of parental love have a second time to be endured by those who have had to mourn the loss of their immediate offspring. Perhaps a family of orphan sons and daughters have become their charge, at a time of life when they had but little strength of body, or buoyancy of spirit, to encounter the turbulence of childhood, and the waywardness of youth. How admirably, then, are the character and the constitution of woman adapted to the part which it becomes her duty and her privilege to act. Even the kindest among boys would scarcely know how to accommodate himself to the peculiarities of old age. But woman has an intuitive perception of these things; and the little playful girl can be gentle and still, the moment she sees that her restlessness or loud mirth would offend.

And what woman, I would ask, was ever less estimable for this early exercise of selfdiscipline? None can begin too soon. The labor of love is never difficult, except to those who have put off compliance with this sacred duty until too late in life; or who, while the

affections of the heart were young and warm, have centred them in self, and lived for self which imagialone. The social scenes upon nation loves to dwell, are those where self has never found a place among the household gods. They are those where the daughters of a family, from the oldest to the very infant, are all too happy in the exercise of their affections, to think of self. Theirs is a relative existence, and their enjoyments consist more in giving than receiving. Affections thus cherished in the cordial intercourse of home, may early be sent forth on errands of kindness to all who are fortunate enough to come within the sphere of their operations; and happy is the man who chooses from such a family the companion of his earthly lot!

CHAPTER IX.

FRIENDSHIP AND FLIRTATION.

How much of what is most lovely, and most valuable to us in the course of our earthly experience, arises out of the poverty and the feebleness of our nature. Friendship would never have existed, but for the absolute want of the human heart, from its utter inability to perform the functions of life without a participator in its joys, a recipient of its secrets, and a soother of its sorrows.

Youth is the season when we most feel this want; later in life, we learn as it were to stand alone. Interests and claims, which have little to do with the affections, press upon us on every hand, and hem us into a narrow and accustomed path, from which there is little temptation to deviate. But in youth we seem to walk at large, with no boundary to our horizon; and the fear and uncertainty which necessarily attend our movements, render a companion, with whom we may consult, deliberate, and sympathize, absolutely necessary to our cheerfulness and support.

It is a subject of surprise to many, that the young so seldom enter into close and intimate

are.

friendship with the members of their own family. Were this more frequently the case, how much more candor and simplicity of heart would mingle with the intercourse of friends! To the members of our own family, we must of necessity appear as we really No false or flattering aspect can deceive those whose eyes are constantly upon our conduct; and we are consequently less tempted to put forward our best feelings before them, in the hope of concealing our worst. In such intimacies the nearest friends have the least suspicion of each other's truth. After-circumstances can bring forth no unexpected development of character on either side; nor can there be the wounded feeling, which falsehood, however unpremeditated or unconsciously practised, never fails to produce. Again, there would be the strength of natural ties to mingle with this bond the recollections of childhood, the oft-repeated forgiveness, the gratitude to which allusion has already been made-all these would blend together in a union the most sacred, and the most secure, which perhaps is ever found on earth.

Nor do I scruple to call this union the most secure, because it is the only intimacy in which every thing can with propriety be told. There are private histories belonging to every family, which, though they operate powerfully upon individual happiness, ought never to be named beyond the home-circle; and there are points of difference in character, and mutual misapprehensions, with instances of wounded feeling, and subjects of reproof and correction, which never can be so freely touched upon, even in the most perfect union of conjugal affection. On this subject, however, I have already spoken so fully in another work,* that little room is left for further notice here: I will, therefore, only allude to some of the causes which I believe most frequently operate against young persons choosing their confidants at home, and especially for the communication of their religious feelings or impressions.

*The Women of England.

It is a melancholy thought, that the want of consistency in the private and domestic habits of religious professors, may possibly be the means of inducing young persons to seek their spiritual advisers among those with whom they are less intimately acquainted, and of whom they have consequently formed a higher estimate; while, on the other hand, a diffidence of themselves, perhaps a misgiving, both as to their past and future conduct, renders them unwilling to communicate fully and freely with those who daily watch their steps, lest the suspicion of hypocrisy should fall upon them for having given utterance to sentiments and emotions, so much at variance with the general course of their lives.

That these hindrances to home-confidence should sometimes exist, where the parties are perfectly sincere in their good intentions, I am quite prepared to believe; but there are other cases, and perhaps more frequent ones, in which the sincerity is less perfect, where the dread of being committed to any particular line of conduct consistent with the sentiments or emotions expressed, operates against their being so much as spoken of to any who compose the family circle.

It would be taking a dark view of human nature, indeed, to suppose that those who know us best are less disposed than strangers to attach themselves to us; yet, I would ask the young aspirant to intimacy with a new acquaintance, whether she is entering upon that intimacy with a sincere and candid wish to be to that friend exactly what she is at home? If not, she is, to all intents and purposes, a deceiver. And there is much deceit in all our early friendships, though I am far from supposing it to be all intentional. Indeed, I am convinced it is not, because this heart-searching process is what few young persons submit to, before commencing an intimacy.

In friendship, as well as in all other reciprocal engagements, it is highly important to limit our expectations of benefit according to the exact measure of our deserts; and by this means we may avoid many of those bitter disappointments, for which the world is

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so unjustly and unsparingly blamed. world is bad enough; but let us be honest, and take our share of condemnation, for making at least one item of the world such as it is; and by thus acquiring the habit of strict and candid self-examination in early life, we see that we have little right to charge the world with falsehood, when our first engagement, beyond the circle of our own family, has been entered into by a system of deceit.

There is, too, a rashness and impetuosity in the formation of early friendships, which of themselves are sufficient to render such intimacies uncertain, and of short duration. Few characters can be considered as really formed, under the age of twenty-one, or twenty-five; yet friendships sometimes begin at a much earlier date. It is not in nature, then, that the friend we loved at sixteen, should be the same to us at twenty-six; or that the features of our own character should have undergone no change during that period. Yet it must not be called falsehood, or fickleness either, which causes such friendships to fail. It is consistent with the laws of reason, and of nature, that they should do so; for had the same individuals who thus deplore each other's falsehood, met for the first time at the age of twenty-six, they would probably each have been the very last which the other would have chosen as a friend.

Again, there must be an equality in friendship, to render it either lasting or desirablean equality not only in rank and station, but, as far as may be, in intellectual advantages. However warm may be the attachment of two friends of different rank in society, they must occasionally be involved in dilemmas, from which it is impossible to escape without wounded feeling, either on one side or both. Each of these friends, it must be remembered, will have her relatives and connections, through whom her pride will be perpetually subject to imaginary insult, and her susceptibility to real pain. Those who are inferior in mind are, however, much more objectionable as friends, than those who are inferior only

in worldly circumstances; because they must always be incapable of judging of persons more highly gifted than themselves, and thus they will bestow their praise and their blame with equal injustice. The ignorant, too, are always prejudiced; and, therefore, in the choice of friends whose minds are unenlightened, the young must necessarily incur the risk of imbibing opinions formed upon false conclusions, which in all probability will exercise a powerful influence upon the whole of their subsequent lives.

Young people are too apt to think the only use of talent is to interest in conversation; if, then, they find themselves interested without it, they are satisfied to dispense with this quality in a friend. But how emptyhow unprofitable must become that intimacy where mind is not taken into account-how worthless, how unsatisfactory in every case of trial, the society of that friend who cannot advise, as well as pity!

Were it not for equality being requisite to the mutual participation of the pleasures of friendship, I should strongly recommend all young persons to seek a friend among those who are older, and more experienced than themselves. In this case, however, too much must not be expected in return, for it is scarcely possible that the confiding intimacy of a young girl should always be interesting, or even acceptable to a woman more advanced in life; unless, indeed, the kindness of relationship should render the office of the elder confidant a welcome duty.

Regardless of these wholesome rules, it is more than probable that the greater part of my young readers will go on forming intimacies according to circumstances, or individual fancy, and with little reference to future consequences. In time, however, some of these intimacies will become irksome, while others will die away. It will then become a serious question, "Whom shall I endeavor to retain as friends?" Try, then, to ascertain, in this stage of your short experience, whose society has had the happiest effect upon your own character; and let not this great question remain unsettled, until

deep mystery of that electric chain of feeling which ever vibrates through the heart of woman, and which man, with all his philosophy, can never understand. She learns that every touch of that chain is like the thrilling of a nerve; and she thus acquires a power peculiar to herself, of distinguishing exactly between the links which thrill with pleasure, and those which only thrill with pain.

Thus, while her sympathy and her tenderness for a chosen few is strengthened by the bond of friendship into which she has entered, though her confidence is still confined to them, a measure of the same sympathy and tenderness is extended to the whole sisterhood of her sex, until, in reality, she becomes what woman ever must be-in her noblest, purest, holiest character-the friend of woman.

What should we think of a community of slaves, who betrayed each other's interests? of a little band of shipwrecked mariners upon a friendless shore, who were false to each other? of the inhabitants of a defenceless nation, who would not unite together in earnestness and good faith against a common enemy? We are accustomed to hear of the meanness of the powerful, when they forsake the weak; but there is a meanness of a lower gradewhen the weak forsake each other.

No party, however, can be weak, which has truth for its element, and love for its bond of union. Women are only weak in their vanity, their selfishness, their falsehood to each other. In their integrity, their faithfulness, their devoted affection, they rise to an almost superhuman eminence; because they are strong in the elements of immaterial being, and powerful in the nature which is capable, when regenerated, of being shared with angels.

From the nature of true friendship, we turn to the consideration of what are its requirements. These, also, are mutual. If we expect to receive, we must be studious to give. An interchange of kind offices and evident❘ proofs of affection are essential to the vitality of friendship; avoiding, however, the slightest approach to any thing like a debtor and creditor account of the number of presents

given or received, or even of the number of letters exchanged.

It seems a strange anomaly in friendship, that young persons, however ardently attached, should so seldom write, except when a letter is considered to be due by a certain length of time having elapsed since the last was received. It often happens, that one friend is particularly engaged, while the other has an abundance of unoccupied time; but a letter is still required by the idle party, or the love which she thinks so glowing and so tender, finds no channel of expression to her friend. Perhaps a friend is ill; and then is the time, above all others, when real love would dictate a succession of kind letters, such as would not tax the afflicted, or the feeble one, with the effort of making any return. There is, in fact, a mystery about the letter-writing of young women, which I have never been able fully to understand. It occupies their time; it used to drain their purses, or the purses of their friends! it calls forth more complaining than almost any thing else they have to do; the letters they receive are seldom fraught with much interest; and yet they plunge into this reciprocity of annoyance, as if the chief business of life was to be wriing or receiving letters.

Still, I am very far from supposing that this means of interchanging sentiment and thought, might not be rendered highly beneficial to the youthful mind; because I believe writing is of great importance as a branch of education. Without this habit, few persons, and especially women, think definitely. The accustomed occupation of their minds is that of musing; and they are, consequently, seldom able to disentangle a single clear idea from the current of vague thoughts, which they suffer perpetually to flow, and which affords them a constant, but, at the same time, a profitless amusement, in the variety of ideas it presents, alike without form, and void. But, in order to write with any degree of perspicuity, we are, to a certain extent, compelled to think; and consequently, the habit of writing letters, if the subject-matter be well chosen, might be rendered highly advantage