[print edition page number: 285]

Mary Astell

A Serious Proposal to the Ladies,
For the Advancement of Their True and Greatest
Interest (1694)^[1]

Ladies,

Since the profitable adventures that have gone abroad in the world have met with so great encouragement, though the highest advantage they can propose is an uncertain lot for such matters as opinion (not real worth) gives a value to, things which if obtained are as flitting and fickle as that chance which is to dispose of them. I therefore persuade myself you will not be less kind to a proposition that comes attended with more certain and substantial gain, whose only design is to improve your charms and heighten your value by suffering you no longer to be cheap and contemptible. Its aim is to fix that beauty, to make it lasting and permanent, which nature with all the helps of art cannot secure, and to place it out of the reach of sickness and old age by transferring it from a corruptible body to an immortal mind, an obliging design which would procure them inward beauty to whom nature has unkindly denied the outward and not permit those ladies who have comely bodies to tarnish their glory with deformed souls. Would have you all be wits^[2] or what is better: wise.^[3] Raise you above the vulgar by something more truly illustrious than a founding title or a great estate. Would excite in you a generous emulation to excel in the best things and not in such trifles as every mean person who has but money enough may purchase as well as you. Not suffer you to take up with the low thought of distinguishing your selves by anything that is not truly valuable, and procure you such ornaments as all the treasures of [286] the Indies^[4] are not able to purchase. Would help you to surpass the men as much in virtue and ingenuity as you do in beauty, that you may not only be as lovely but as wise as angels. Exalt and establish your fame, more than the best wrought poems and loudest panegyrics, by ennobling your minds with such graces as really deserve it. And instead of the fustian^[5] complements and fulsome flatteries of your admirers, obtain for you the plaudit of good men and angels and the approbation of him who cannot err. In a word, render you the glory and blessing of the present age and the admiration and pattern of the next.

And sure, I shall not need many words to persuade you to close with this proposal. The very offer is a sufficient inducement, nor does it need the set-offs of rhetoric to recommend it, were I capable, which yet I am not, of applying them with the greatest force. Since you cannot be so unkind to yourselves as to refuse your real interest, I only entreat you to be so wise as to examine wherein it consists, for nothing is of worser consequence than to be deceived in a matter of so great concern. ’Tis as little beneath your grandeur as your prudence to examine curiously what is in this case offered you and to take care that cheating hucksters^[6] don’t impose upon you with deceitful ware. This is a matter infinitely more worthy your debates than what colors are most agreeable or what’s the dress becomes you best. Your glass^[7] will not do you half so much service as a serious reflection on your own minds, which will discover irregularities more worthy your correction and keep you from being either too much elated or depressed by the representations of the other. ’Twill not be near so advantageous to consult with your dancing-master as with your own thoughts how you may with greatest exactness tread in the paths of virtue, which has certainly the most attractive air, and wisdom the most graceful and becoming mien. Let these attend you, and your carriage will be always well composed and everything you do will carry its charm with it. No solicitude in the adornation of yourselves is discommended,^[8] provided you employ your care about that which is really your self and do not neglect that particle of divinity within you^[9] which must survive and may (if you please) be happy [287] and perfect when its unsuitable and much inferior companion is mouldring^[10] into dust. Neither will any pleasure be denied you, who are only desired not to catch at the shadow and let the substance go. You may be as ambitious as you please, so you aspire to the best things and contend with your neighbors as much as you can that they may not outdo you in any commendable quality. Let it never be said that they to whom preeminence is so very agreeable can be tamely content that others should surpass them in this and precede them in a better world! Remember, I pray you, the famous women of former ages, the Orindas of late,^[11] and the more modern Dacier,^[12] and others, and blush to think how much is now and will hereafter be said of them, when you yourselves (as great a figure as you make) must be buried in silence and forgetfulness! Shall your emulation fail there only where it is commendable? Why are you so preposterously humble as not to contend for one of the highest mansions in the court of heaven? Believe me ladies, this is the only place worth contending for; you are neither better nor worse in yourselves for going before or coming after now, but you are really so much the better by how much the higher your station is in an orb of glory. How can you be content to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make a fine show and be good for nothing, have all your glories set in the grave or perhaps much sooner? What your own sentiments are I know not, but I cannot without pity and resentment reflect that those glorious temples on which your kind creator has bestowed such exquisite workmanship should enshrine no better than Egyptian deities, be like a garnished sepulcher, which for all its glittering has nothing within but emptiness or putrefaction!^[13] What a pity it is that whilst your beauty casts a luster round about, your souls which are infinitely more bright and radiant (of which, if you had but a clear idea, as lovely as it is and as much as you now value it, you would then despise and neglect the mean case that encloses it) should be suffered to overrun with weeds, lie fallow and neglected, unadorned with any grace! Although the beauty of the mind is necessary to secure those conquests which your eyes have gained, and time, that mortal enemy to handsome faces, has no influence on a lovely soul, but to better and improve it, for shame, let us abandon that old and therefore (one would think) unfashionable employment of pursuing butterflies and trifles! No longer drudge on in the dull beaten road of vanity and folly, which so many have gone before us, but dare to break the enchanted [288] circle that custom has placed us in and scorn the vulgar way of imitating all the impertinencies^[14] of our neighbors. Let us learn to pride ourselves in something more excellent than the invention of a fashion, and not entertain such a degrading thought of our own worth as to imagine that our souls were given us only for the service of our bodies, and that the best improvement we can make of these is to attract the eyes of men. We value them too much, and ourselves too little if we place any part of our worth in their opinion and do not think ourselves capable of nobler things than the pitiful conquest of some worthless heart. She who has opportunities of making an interest in heaven, of obtaining the love and admiration of God and angels, is too prodigal of her time and injurious to her charms to throw them away on vain insignificant men. She need not make herself so cheap as to descend to court their applauses, for at the greater distance she keeps and the more she is above them, the more effectually she secures their esteem and wonder. Be so generous then, ladies, as to do nothing unworthy of you, so true to your interest as not to lessen your empire and depreciate your charms. Let not your thoughts be wholly busied in observing what respect is paid you, but a part of them at least in studying to deserve it. And after all, remember that goodness is the truest greatness, to be wise for yourselves the greatest wit, and that beauty the most desirable which will endure to eternity.

Pardon me the seeming rudeness of this proposal, which goes upon a supposition that there is something amiss in you which it is intended to amend. My design is not to expose but to rectify your failures. To be exempt from mistake is a privilege few can pretend to; the greatest is to be past conviction and too obstinate to reform. Even the men, as exact as they would seem and as much as they divert themselves with our miscarriages,^[15] are very often guilty of greater faults and such as, considering the advantages they enjoy, are much more inexcusable. But I will not pretend to correct their errors who either are or at least think themselves too wise to receive instruction from a woman’s pen. My earnest desire is that you ladies would be as perfect and happy as ’tis possible to be in this imperfect state, for I love you too well to endure a spot upon your beauties if I can by any means remove and wipe it off. I would have you live up to the dignity of your nature and express your thankfulness to God for the benefits you enjoy by a due improvement of them, as I know very many of you do who countenance that piety which the men decry and are the brightest patterns of religion that the age affords. ’Tis my grief that all the rest of our sex do not imitate such illustrious patterns, and, therefore, I would have them increased and rendered more conspicuous that vice being put out of countenance (because virtue is the only thing in fashion) may sneak out of the world and its darkness be dispelled by the [289] confluence of so many shining graces.^[16] Some perhaps will cry out that I teach you false doctrine, for because by their^[17] seductions some amongst us are become very mean^[18] and contemptible, they would fain persuade the rest to be as despicable and forlorn as they. We are indeed obliged to them for their management in endeavoring to make us so, who use all the artifice they can to spoil and deny us the means of improvement. So that instead of inquiring why all women are not wise and good, we have reason to wonder that there are any so. Were the men as much neglected and as little care taken to cultivate and improve them, perhaps they would be so far from surpassing those whom they now despise that they themselves would sink into the greatest stupidity and brutality. The preposterous returns^[19] that the most of them make to all the care and pains that is bestowed on them renders this no uncharitable nor improbable conjecture. One would, therefore, almost think that the wise disposer of all things, foreseeing how unjustly women are denied opportunities of improvement from without, has therefore by way of compensation endowed them with greater propensions^[20] to virtue and a natural goodness of temper within, which, if duly managed, would raise them to the most eminent pitch of heroic virtue. Hither ladies I desire you would aspire. ’Tis a noble and becoming ambition, and to remove such obstacles as lie in your way is the design of this paper. We will, therefore, inquire what it is that stops your flight, that keeps you groveling here below, like Domitian catching flies,^[21] when you should be busied in obtaining empires.

Whatever has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps of more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it. That hypothesis would render my endeavors impertinent, for then it would be in vain to advise the one or endeavor the reformation of the other. Besides, there are examples in all ages which sufficiently confute the ignorance and malice of this assertion.

The incapacity, if there be any, is acquired, not natural. And none of their follies are so necessary but that they might avoid them if the pleased themselves. Some disadvantages indeed they labor under, and what these are we shall see by and by and endeavor to surmount. But women need to take up with mean things [290] since (if they are not wanting to themselves)^[22] they are capable of the best. Neither God nor nature have excluded them from being ornaments to their families and useful in their generation. There is, therefore, no reason they should be content to be ciphers^[23] in the world, useless at the best, and in a little time a burden and nuisance to all about them. And ’tis very great pity that they who are so apt to overrate themselves in smaller matters should, where it most concerns them to know and stand upon their value, be so insensible of their own worth.

The cause, therefore, of the defects we labor under is, if not wholly, yet at least in the first place to be ascribed to the mistakes of our education. Which like an error in the first concoction,^[24] spreads its ill influence though all our lives.

The soil is rich and would, if well cultivated, produce a noble harvest; if then the unskillful managers not only permit but encourage noxious weeds, though we shall suffer by their neglect, yet they ought not in justice to blame any but themselves if they reap the fruit of their own folly. Women are from their very infancy debarred those advantages with the want of which they are afterwards reproached, and nursed up in those vices which will hereafter be upbraided to^[25] them. So partial are men as to expect brick where they afford no straw,^[26] and so abundantly civil as to take care we should make good that obliging epithet of “ignorant,” which out of an excess of good manners they are pleased to bestow on us!

One would be apt to think indeed that parents should take all possible care of their children’s education not only for their sakes, but even for their own. And though the son conveys the name to posterity, yet certainly a great part of the honor of their families depends on their daughters. ’Tis the kindness^[27] of education that binds our duty fastest on us. For the being instrumental to the bringing us into the world is not matter of choice and, therefore, the less obliging. But to procure^[28] that we may live wisely and happily in it and be capable of endless joys hereafter is a benefit we can never sufficiently acknowledge. To introduce poor children into the world and neglect to fence them against the temptations of it, [291] and so leave them exposed to temporal and eternal miseries, is a wickedness for which I want^[29] a name; ’tis beneath brutality. The beasts are better natured, for they take care of their offspring till they are capable of caring for themselves. And if mothers had a due regard to their posterity, how great soever^[30] they are, they would not think themselves too good to perform what nature requires, nor through pride and delicacy remit the poor little one to the care of a foster parent. Or, if necessity enforce them to depute^[31] another to perform their duty, they would be as choice at least in the manners and inclinations as they are in the complexions of their nurses, lest with their milk they transfuse their vices and form in the child such evil habits as will not easily be eradicated.^[32]

Nature as bad as it is and as much as it is complained of is so far improvable by the grace of God upon our honest and hearty endeavors that, if we are not wanting to ourselves, we may all in some, though not in an equal measure, be instruments of his glory, blessings to this world, and capable of eternal blessedness in that to come. But if our nature is spoiled instead of being improved at first, if from our infancy we are nursed up in ignorance and vanity, are taught to be proud and petulant, delicate and fantastic,^[33] humorous^[34] and inconstant, ’tis not strange that the ill effects of this conduct appears in all the future actions of our lives. And seeing it is ignorance, either habitual or actual,^[35] which is the cause of all sin, how are they like to escape this who are bred up in that? That therefore women are unprofitable to most and a plague and dishonor to some men is not much to be regretted on account of the men, because ’tis the product of their own folly in denying them the benefits of an ingenious and liberal education, the most effectual means to direct them into and to secure their progress in the ways of virtue.

For that ignorance is the cause of most feminine vices may be instanced in that pride and vanity which is usually imputed to us and which, I suppose, if thoroughly sifted, will appear to be some way or other the rise^[36] and original of [292] all the rest. These, though very bad weeds, are the product of a good soil; they are nothing else but generosity degenerated and corrupted. A desire to advance and perfect its being is planted by God in all rational natures,^[37] to excite them hereby to every worthy and becoming action. For certainly, next to the grace of God, nothing does so powerfully restrain people from evil and stir them up to good as a generous temper.^[38] And therefore, to be ambitious of perfections is no fault, though to assume the glory of our excellencies to ourselves or to glory in such as we really have not, are.^[39] And were women’s haughtiness expressed in disdaining to do a mean and evil thing, would they pride themselves in somewhat truly perfective of a rational nature, there were no hurt in it. But then they ought not to be denied the means of examining and judging what is so; they should not be imposed on with tinsel ware.^[40] If by reason of a false light or undue medium they choose amiss, theirs is the loss, but the crime is the deceivers’. She who rightly understands wherein the perfection of her nature consists will lay out her thoughts and industry in the acquisition of such perfections. But she who is kept ignorant of the matter will take up with such objects as first offer themselves and bear any plausible resemblance to what she desires. A show of advantage is sufficient to render them agreeable baits to her who wants judgment and skill to discern between reality and pretence. From whence it easily follows that she who has nothing else to value herself upon will be proud of her beauty or money and what that can purchase, and think herself mightily obliged to him who tells her she has those perfections which she naturally longs for. Her inbred self-esteem and desire of good, which are degenerated into pride and mistaken self-love, will easily open her ears to whatever goes about to nourish and delight them. And when a cunning designing enemy from without has drawn over to his party these traitors within, he has the poor unhappy person at his mercy, who now very glibly swallows down his poison because ’tis presented in a golden cup^[41] and credulously hearkens to the most disadvantageous proposals because they come attended with a seeming esteem. She whose vanity makes her swallow praises by the wholesale, without examining whether she deserves them or [293] from what hand they come, will reckon it but gratitude to think well of him who values her so much, and think she must needs be merciful to the poor despairing lover whom her charms have reduced to die at her feet. Love and honor are what every one of us naturally esteem; they are excellent things in themselves and very worthy our regard. And by how much the readier we are to embrace whatever resembles them, by so much the more dangerous it is that these venerable names should be wretchedly abused and affixed to their direct contraries, yet this is the custom of the world. And how can she possibly detect the fallacy who has no better notion of either but what she derives from plays and romances?^[42] How can she be furnished with any solid principles whose very instructors are froth and emptiness? Whereas women were they rightly educated, had they obtained a well-informed and discerning mind, they would be proof against all these batteries,^[43] see through and scorn those little silly artifices which are used to ensnare and deceive them. Such a one would value herself only on her virtue and, consequently, be most chary^[44] of what she esteems so much. She would know that not what others say but what she herself does is the true commendation and the only thing that exalts her. The loudest encomiums^[45] being not half so satisfactory as the calm and secret plaudit^[46] of her own mind, which, moving on true principles of honor and virtue, would not fail on a review of itself to anticipate that delightful eulogy she shall one day hear.

Whence is it but from ignorance, from a want of understanding to compare and judge of things, to choose a right end, to proportion the means to the end, and to rate everything according to its proper value, that we quit the substance for the shadow, reality for appearance, and embrace those very things which, if we understood, we should hate and fly, but now are reconciled to merely because they usurp the name, though they have nothing of the nature, of those venerable objects we desire and seek? Were it not for this delusion, is it probable a lady who passionately desires to be admired should ever consent to such actions as render her base and contemptible? Would she be so absurd as to think either to get love or to keep it by those methods which occasion loathing and consequently end in hatred? Would she reckon it a piece of her grandeur or hope to gain esteem by such excesses as really lessen her in the eyes of all considerate and judicious [294] persons? Would she be so silly as to look big^[47] and think herself the better person because she has more money to bestow profusely or the good luck to have a more ingenious tailor or milliner^[48] than her neighbor? Would she, who by the regard she pays to wit seems to make some pretences to it, undervalue her judgment so much as to admit the scurrility and profane noisy nonsense of men, whose foreheads are better than their brains to pass under that character? Would she be so weak as to imagine that a few airy fancies, joined with a great deal of impudence (the right definition of modern wit) can bespeak him a man of sense who runs counter to all the sense and reason that ever appeared in the world? Than which nothing can be an argument of greater shallowness, unless it be to regard and esteem him for it. Would a woman, if she truly understood herself, be affected either with the praises or calumnies of those worthless persons whose lives are a direct contradiction to reason, a very sink of corruption by whom one would blush to be commended, lest they should be mistaken for partners or connivers at their crimes? Will she who has a jot of discernment think to satisfy her greedy desire of pleasure with those promising nothings that have again and again deluded her? Or will she, to obtain such bubbles,^[49] run the risk of forfeiting joys infinitely satisfying and eternal? In sum, did not ignorance^[50] impose on us, we would never lavish out the greatest part of our time and care on the decoration of a tenement in which our lease is so very short and which, for all our industry, may lose its beauty ere^[51] that lease be out, and in the meanwhile neglect a more glorious and durable mansion! We would never be so curious^[52] of the house and so careless of the inhabitant whose beauty is capable of great improvement and will endure forever without diminution or decay!

Thus ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice, and imitation and custom rear it up. Custom, that merciless torrent that carries all before and which indeed can be stemmed by none but such as have a great deal of prudence and a rooted virtue. For ’tis but decorous^[53] that she who is not capable of giving better rules should follow those she sees before her, lest she only change the instance^[54] and retain the absurdity. ’Twould^[55] puzzle a considerate person to account for all that sin and folly that is in the world (which certainly has nothing in itself to recommend it) did not custom help to solve the difficulty. For virtue [295] without question has on all accounts the preeminence of^[56] vice; ’tis abundantly more pleasant in the act as well as more advantageous in the consequences, as any one who will but rightly use her reason in a serious reflection on herself and the nature of things may easily perceive. ’Tis custom, therefore, that tyrant custom which is the grand motive to all those irrational choices which we daily see made in the world, so very contrary to our present interest and pleasure as well as to our future. We think it an unpardonable mistake not to do what others do round about us, and part with our peace and pleasure as well as our innocence and virtue merely in compliance with an unreasonable fashion. And having inured ourselves to folly, we know not how to quit it. We go on in vice not because we find satisfaction in it, but because we are unacquainted with the joys of virtue.

Add to this the hurry and noise of the world, which does generally so busy and pre-engage us that we have little time and less inclination to stand still and reflect on our own minds. Those impertinent amusements which have seized us keep their hold so well and so constantly buzz about our ears that we cannot attend to the dictates of our reason nor to the soft whispers and winning persuasives^[57] of the divine spirit, by whose assistance, were we disposed to make use of it, we might shake off these follies and regain our freedom. But alas, to complete our misfortunes by a continual application to vanity and folly, we quite spoil the contexture^[58] and frame of our minds, so loosen and dissipate that nothing solid and substantial will stay in it. By a habitual inadvertency we render ourselves incapable of any serious and improving thought, till our minds themselves become as light and frothy as those things they are conversant about. To all which, if we further add the great industry that bad people use to corrupt the good and that unaccountable backwardness that appears in too many good persons to stand up for and propagate the piety they profess (so strangely are things transposed that virtue puts on the blushes which belong to vice, and vice insults with the authority of virtue!) and we have a pretty fair account of the causes of our non-improvement.

When a poor young lady is taught to value herself on nothing but her clothes and to think she’s very fine when well accoutered,^[59] when she hears say that ’tis wisdom enough for her to know how to dress herself that she may become amiable in his eyes to whom it appertains to be knowing and learned, who can blame her if she lay out her industry^[60] and money on such accomplishments and sometimes extends it farther than her misinformer^[61] desires she should? When she sees the vain and the gay making parade in the world and attended with the courtship [296] and admiration of all about them, no wonder that her tender eyes are dazzled with the pageantry and, wanting judgment to pass a due estimate on them and their admirers, longs to be such a fine and celebrated thing as they! What though she be sometimes told of another world, she has however a more lively perception of this^[62] and may well think that if her instructors were in earnest when they tell her of hereafter they would not be so busied and concerned about what happens here. She is, it may be, taught the principles and duties of religion but not acquainted with the reasons and grounds of them. Being told ’tis enough for her to believe, to examine why and wherefore belongs not to her. And therefore, though her piety may be tall and spreading, yet because it wants foundation and root the first rude temptation overthrows and blasts it. Or perhaps the short-lived gourd^[63] decays and withers of its own accord. But why should she be blamed for setting no great value on her soul whose noblest faculty, her understanding, is rendered useless to her? Or censured for relinquishing a course of life whose prerogatives^[64] she was never acquainted with and, though highly reasonable in itself, was put upon the embracing it with as little reason as she now forsakes it? For if her religion itself be taken up as the mode^[65] of the country, ’tis no strange thing that she lays it down again in conformity to the fashion. Whereas she whose reason is suffered to display itself, to inquire into the grounds and motives of religion, to make a disquisition of its graces and search out its hidden beauties; who is a Christian out of choice, not in conformity to those about her; and cleaves to piety because ’tis her wisdom, her interest, her joy, not because she has been accustomed to it; she who is not only eminently and unmovably^[66] good, but able to give a reason why she is so; is too firm and stable to be moved by the pitiful allurements of sin, too wise and too well-bottomed^[67] to be undermined and supplanted by the strongest efforts of temptation. Doubtless a truly Christian life requires a clear understanding as well as regular affections^[68] that both together may move the will to a direct choice of good and a steadfast adherence to it. For [297] though the heart may be honest, it is but by chance that the will is right if the understanding be ignorant and cloudy. And what’s the reason that we sometimes unhappily see persons falling off from their piety, but because ’twas their affections, not their judgment, that inclined them to be religious? Reason and truth are firm and immutable; she who bottoms on them^[69] is on sure ground. Humor and inclination are sandy foundations, and she who is swayed by her affections more than by her judgment owes the happiness of her soul in a great measure to the temper of her body. Her piety may perhaps blaze higher, but will not last so long. For the affections are various and changeable, moved by every object, and the last comer easily undoes whatever its predecessor had done before it. Such persons are always in extremes; they are either violently good or quite cold and indifferent, a perpetual trouble to themselves and others, by indecent raptures^[70] or unnecessary scruples. There is no beauty and order in their lives; all is rapid and unaccountable. They are now very furious in such a course, but they cannot well tell why, and anon as^[71] violent in the other extreme. Having more heat than light, their zeal outruns their knowledge, and instead of representing piety as it is in itself, the most lovely and inviting thing imaginable, they expose it to the contempt and ridicule of the censorious world. Their devotion being ricketed,^[72] starved, and contracted^[73] in some of its vital parts and disproportioned and overgrown in less material instances, whilst one duty is overdone to commute^[74] for the neglect of another, and the mistaken person thinks the being often on her knees atones for all the miscarriages of her conversation, not considering that ’tis in vain to petition for those graces which we take no care to practice and a mockery to adore those perfections we run counter to and that the true end of all our prayers and external observances is to work our minds into a truly Christian temper, to obtain for us the empire of^[75] our passions and to reduce all irregular inclinations that so we may be as like God in purity, charity, and all his imitable excellencies as is consistent with the imperfection of a creature.

And now having discovered the disease and its cause, ’tis proper to apply a remedy. Single medicines are too weak to cure such complicated distempers; they require a full dispensatory.^[76] And what would a good woman refuse to do, could she hope by that to advantage the greatest part of the world and improve [298] her sex in knowledge and true religion? I doubt not, ladies, but that the age, as bad as it is, affords very many of you who will readily embrace whatever has a true tendency to the glory of God and your mutual edification, to revive the ancient spirit of piety in the world and to transmit it to succeeding generations. I know there are many of you who so ardently love God as to think no time too much to spend in his service nor anything too difficult to do for his sake and bear such a hearty goodwill to your neighbors as to grudge no prayers or pains to reclaim and improve them. I have, therefore, no more to do but to make the proposal to prove that it will answer these great and good ends and then ’twill be easy to obviate^[77] the objections that persons of more wit than virtue may happen to raise against it.

Now as to the proposal, it is to erect a monastery or, if you will (to avoid giving offense to the scrupulous and injudicious by names which, though innocent in themselves, have been abused by superstitious practices),^[78] we will call it a religious retirement, and such as shall have a double aspect, being not only a retreat from the world for those who desire that advantage but likewise an institution and previous discipline to fit us to do the greatest good in it. Such an institution as this (if I do not mightily deceive myself) would be the most probable method to amend the present and improve the future age. For here, those who are convinced of the emptiness of earthly enjoyments, who are sick of the vanity of the world and its impertinencies, may find more substantial and satisfying entertainments and need not be confined to what they justly loathe. Those who are desirous to know and fortify their weak side first do good to themselves that hereafter they may be capable of doing more good to others, or, for their greater security, are willing to avoid temptation may get out of that danger which a continual stay in view of the enemy and the familiarity and unwearied application of the temptation may expose them to, and gain an opportunity to look into themselves, to be acquainted^[79] at home and no longer the greatest strangers to their own hearts. Such as are willing in a more peculiar and undisturbed manner to attend the great business they came into the world about, the service of God and improvement of their own minds, may find a convenient and blissful recess from the noise and hurry of the world. A world so cumbersome, so infectious, that although through the grace of God and their own strict watchfulness they are kept from sinking down into its corruptions, ’twill however damp^[80] their flight to heaven, hinder them from attaining any eminent pitch of virtue. [299]

You are therefore, ladies, invited into a place where you shall suffer no other confinement but to be kept out of the road of sin. You shall not be deprived of your grandeur, but only exchange the vain pomps^[81] and pageantry of the world, empty titles and forms of state, for the true and solid greatness of being able to despise them. You will only quit^[82] the chat of insignificant people for an ingenious conversation, the froth of flashy wit for real wisdom, idle tales for instructive discourses, the deceitful flatteries of those who under pretence of loving and admiring you really served their own base ends for the seasonable reproofs and wholesome counsels of your hearty well-wishers and affectionate friends, which will procure you those perfections your feigned lovers pretended you had and kept you from obtaining. No uneasy task will be enjoined^[83] you, all your labor being only to prepare for the highest degrees of that glory, the very lowest of which is more than at present you are able to conceive, and the prospect of it sufficient to outweigh all the pains of religion, were there any in it, as really there is none. All that is required of you is only to be as happy as possibly you can and to make sure of a felicity that will fill all the capacities of your souls! A happiness which, when once you have tasted, you’ll be fully convinced you could never do too much to obtain it, nor be too solicitous to adorn your souls with such tempers and dispositions as will at present make you in some measure such holy and heavenly creatures as you one day hope to be in a more perfect manner, without which qualifications you can neither reasonably expect nor are capable of enjoying the happiness of the life to come. Happy retreat which will be the introducing you into such a paradise as your mother Eve forfeited,^[84] where you shall feast on pleasures that do not, like those of the world, disappoint your expectations, pall your appetites, and by the disgust they give you put you on the fruitless search after new delights, which when obtained are as empty as the former, but such as will make you truly happy now and prepare you to be perfectly so hereafter! Here are no serpents to deceive you, whilst you entertain yourselves in these delicious gardens. No provocations are given in this amicable society but to love and to good works, which will afford such an entertaining employment that you’ll have as little inclination as leisure to pursue those follies which in the time of your ignorance^[85] passed with you under the name of love, although there [300] is not in nature two more different things than true love and that brutish passion which pretends to ape it. Here will be no rivaling but for the love of God, no ambition but to procure his favor, to which nothing will more effectually recommend you than a great and dear affection to each other. Envy, that canker, will not here disturb your breasts. For how can she repine at^[86] another’s welfare who reckons it the greatest part of her own? No covetousness will gain admittance in this blest abode but to amass huge treasures of good works and to procure one of the brightest crowns of glory. You will not be solicitous to increase your fortunes but enlarge your minds, esteeming no grandeur like being conformable to the meek and humble Jesus. So that you only withdraw from the noise and trouble, the folly and temptation of the world that you may more peaceably enjoy yourselves and all the innocent pleasure it is able to afford you, and particularly that which is worth all the rest: a noble, virtuous, and disinteressed^[87] friendship. And to complete all that acme of delight which the devout seraphic soul^[88] enjoyed, when dead to the world she devotes herself entirely to the contemplation and fruition of her beloved, when having disengaged herself from all those lets^[89] which hindered her from without, she moves in a direct and vigorous motion towards her true and only good, whom now she embraces and acquiesces in^[90] with such an unspeakable pleasure as is only intelligible to them who have tried and felt it, which we can no more describe to the dark and sensual part of mankind than we can the beauty of color and harmony of sounds to the blind and deaf. In fine,^[91] the place to which you are invited will be a type^[92] and antepast^[93] of heaven where your employment will be as there to magnify God and to love one another and to communicate that useful knowledge which by the due improvement of your time in study and contemplation you will obtain and which, when obtained, will afford you a much sweeter and durable delight than all those pitiful diversions, those revellings and amusements, which now through your ignorance of better appear the only grateful^[94] and relishing^[95] entertainments. [301]

But because we were not made for ourselves nor can by any means so effectually glorify God and do good to our own souls as by doing offices of charity and beneficence to others, and to the intent that every virtue and the highest degrees of every virtue may be exercised and promoted the most that may be, your retreat shall be so managed as not to exclude the good works of an active from the pleasure and serenity of a contemplative life, but by a due mixture of both retain all the advantages and avoid the inconveniences that attend either. It shall not so cut you off from the world as to hinder you from bettering and improving it, but rather qualify you to do it the greatest good and be a seminary to stock the kingdom with pious and prudent ladies whose good example, it is to be hoped, will so influence the rest of their sex that women may no longer pass for those little useless and impertinent animals which the ill conduct of too many has caused them to be mistaken for.

We have hitherto considered our retirement only in relation to religion, which is indeed its main, I may say its only, design. Nor can this be thought too contracting^[96] a word since religion is the adequate business of our lives and, largely considered, takes in all we have to do, nothing being a fit employment for a rational creature which has not either a direct or remote tendency to this great and only end. But because, as we have all along observed, religion never appears in its true beauty but when it is accompanied with wisdom and discretion, and that without a good understanding we can scarce be truly, but never eminently, good, being liable to a thousand seductions and mistakes (for even the men themselves, if they have not a competent degree of knowledge, they are carried about with every wind of doctrine),^[97] therefore, one great end of this institution shall be to expel that cloud of ignorance which custom has involved us in, to furnish our minds with a stock of solid and useful knowledge that the souls of women may no longer be the only unadorned and neglected things. It is not intended that our religious^[98] should waste their time and trouble their heads about such unconcerning^[99] matters as the vogue of the world has turned up for learning (the impertinency of which has been excellently exposed by an ingenious pen)^[100] but busy themselves in a serious inquiry after necessary and perfective truths, something which it concerns them to know and which tends to their real interest and perfection, and what that is the excellent author just now mentioned will [302] sufficiently inform them. Such a course of study will neither be too troublesome nor out of the reach of a female virtuoso,^[101] for it is not intended she should spend her hours in learning words but things and, therefore, no more languages than are necessary to acquaint her with useful authors. Nor need she trouble herself in turning over a huge number of books but take care to understand and digest a few well-chosen and good ones. Let her but obtain right ideas and be truly acquainted with the nature of those objects that present themselves to her mind and then no matter whether or no she be able to tell what fanciful people have said about them. And thoroughly to understand Christianity as professed by the Church of England will be sufficient to confirm her in the truth, though she have not a catalog of those particular errors which oppose it. Indeed, a learned education of the women will appear so unfashionable that I began to startle at the singularity of the proposition but was extremely pleased when I found a late ingenious author (whose book I met with since the writing of this)^[102] agree with me in my opinion. For, speaking of the repute that learning was in about 150 years ago: “It was so very modish,” says he, “that the fair sex seemed to believe that Greek and Latin added to their charms, and Plato and Aristotle untranslated were frequent ornaments of their closets.^[103] One would think by the effects that it was a proper way of educating them, since there are no accounts in history of so many great women in any one age as are to be found between the years 1500 and 1600.”

For, since God has given women as well as men intelligent souls, why should they be forbidden to improve them? Since he has not denied us the faculty of thinking, why should we not (at least in gratitude to him) employ our thoughts on himself, their noblest objects, and not unworthily bestow them on trifles and gaieties and secular affairs? Being the soul was created for the contemplation of truth as well as for the fruition of good, is it not as cruel and unjust to preclude women from the knowledge of the one as well as from the enjoyment of the other? Especially since the will is blind and cannot choose but by the direction of the understanding or, to speak more properly, since the soul always wills according as she understands so that if she understands amiss, she wills amiss. And as exercise enlarges and exalts any faculty, so through want of using it becomes cramped and lessened. If we make little or no use of our understandings we shall shortly have none to use, and the more contracted^[104] and unemployed the deliberating [303] and directive power is, the more liable is the elective to^[105] unworthy and mischievous options. What is it but the want of an ingenious education that renders the generality of feminine conversations so insipid and foolish and their solitude so insupportable? Learning is therefore necessary to render them more agreeable and useful in company and to furnish them with becoming entertainments when alone, that so they may not be driven to those miserable shifts^[106] which too many make use of to put off their time, that precious talent^[107] that never lies on the hands of a judicious person. And since our happiness in the next world depends so far on those dispositions which we carry along with us out of this that without a right habitude^[108] and temper of mind we are not capable of felicity, and seeing our beatitude^[109] consists in the contemplation of the divine truth and beauty as well as in the fruition of his goodness, can ignorance be a fit preparative for heaven? Is’t^[110] likely that she whose understanding has been busied about nothing but froth and trifles should be capable of delighting herself in noble and sublime truths? Let such therefore as deny us the improvement of our intellectuals^[111] either take up his paradox who said that women have no souls,^[112] which at this time a day when they are allowed to brutes, would be as unphilosophical as it is unmannerly, or else let them permit us to cultivate and improve them. There is a sort of learning indeed which is worse than the greatest ignorance: a woman may study plays and romances all her days and be a great deal more knowing, but never a jot the wiser. Such a knowledge as this serves only to instruct and put her forward in the practice of the greatest follies. Yet how can they justly blame her who forbid or at least won’t afford opportunity of better? A rational mind will be employed; it will never be satisfied in doing nothing. And if you neglect to furnish it with good materials, ’tis like to take up with such as come to hand.

We pretend not that women should teach in the church or usurp authority where it is not allowed them. Permit us only to understand our own duty and not be forced to take it upon trust from others, to be at least so far learned as to be able to form in our minds a true idea of Christianity, it being so very necessary to fence us against the danger of these last and perilous days in which [304] deceivers, a part of whose character is to lead captive silly women, need not creep into houses,^[113] since they have authority to proclaim their errors on the house top. And let us also acquire a true practical knowledge, such as will convince us of the absolute necessity of holy living as well as of right believing and that no heresy is more dangerous than that of an ungodly and wicked life. And since the French tongue is understood by most ladies, methinks they may much better improve it by the study of philosophy (as I hear the French ladies do), Descartes,^[114] Malebranche,^[115] and others, than by reading idle novels and romances. ’Tis strange we should be so forward to imitate their fashions and fopperies^[116] and have no regard to what is truly imitable in them! And why shall it not be thought as genteel to understand French philosophy as to be accoutered in a French mode? Let therefore the famous Madam D’acier,^[117] etc. and our own incomparable Orinda^[118] excite the emulation of the English ladies.

The ladies, I’m sure, have no reason to dislike this proposal, but I know not how the men will resent it to have their enclosure broke down and women invited to taste of that tree of knowledge^[119] they have so long unjustly monopolized. But they must excuse me if I be as partial to my own sex as they are to theirs and think women as capable of learning as men are and that it becomes them as well. For I cannot imagine wherein the hurt lies if, instead of doing mischief to one another by an uncharitable and vain conversation, women be enabled to inform and instruct those of their own sex at least, the Holy Ghost having left it on record that Priscilla as well as her husband catechized the eloquent Apollos and the great apostle found no fault with her.^[120] It will, therefore, be very proper for [305] our ladies to spend part of their time in this retirement in adorning their minds with useful knowledge.

To enter into the detail of the particulars concerning the government of the religious, their offices of devotion, employments, work, etc. is not now necessary. Suffice it at present to signify that they will be more than ordinarily careful to redeem their time, spending no more of it on the body than the necessities of nature require, but by a judicious choice of their employment, and a constant industry about it, so improve this invaluable treasure that it may neither be buried in idleness nor lavished out in unprofitable concerns. For a stated portion of it being daily paid to God in prayers and praises, the rest shall be employed in innocent, charitable, and useful business, either in study (in learning themselves or instructing others, for it is designed that part of their employment be the education of those of their own sex) or else in spiritual and corporal works of mercy,^[121] relieving the poor, healing the sick, mingling charity to the soul with that they express to the body, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the afflicted, and correcting those that err and do amiss.

And as it will be the business of their lives, their meat and drink, to know and do the will of their heavenly father, so will they pay a strict conformity to all the precepts of their holy mother the Church, whose sacred injunctions are too much neglected, even by those who pretend the greatest zeal for her. For besides the daily performance of the public offices after the cathedral manner,^[122] in the most affecting and elevating way, the celebration of the holy Eucharist every Lord’s day and holy day, and a course of solid instructive preaching and catechizing, our religious, considering that the holy Jesus punctually observed the innocent usages of the Jewish church, and though in many instances the reason of the command ceased as to him, yet he would obey the letter to avoid giving offence and to set us an admirable pattern of obedience.^[123] Therefore, though it may be thought such pious souls have little occasion for the severities of fasting and mortification, yet they will consider it as a special part of their duty carefully [306] to observe all the fasts of the Church, viz. Lent, Ember,^[124] and Rogation days,^[125] Fridays, and vigils, times so little heeded by the most that one would scarce believe them set apart for religious purposes did we not find them in the antiquated rubrics.^[126] And as their devotion will be regular, so shall it likewise be solid and substantial. They will not rest in the mere outside of duty, nor fancy the performance of their fasts and offices will procure them license to indulge a darling^[127] vice. But having long since laid the ax to the root of sin and destroyed the whole body of it,^[128] they will look upon these holy times of recollection and extraordinary devotion (without which fasting signifies little) as excellent means to keep it down and to pluck up every the least fiber that may happen to remain in them. But we intend not by this to impose any intolerable burden on tender constitutions, knowing that our Lord has taught us that mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice^[129] and that bodily exercise profiteth but a little,^[130] the chief business being to obtain a divine and godlike temper of mind.

And as this institution will strictly enjoin all pious and profitable employments, so does it not only permit but recommend harmless and ingenious diversions, music particularly, and such as may refresh the body without enervating the mind. They do a disservice to religion who make it an enemy to innocent nature and injure the Almighty when they represent him as imposing burdens that are not to be borne.^[131] Neither God nor wise men will like us the better for an affected severity and waspish sourness. Nature and grace will never disagree, provided we mistake not the one nor indulge the petulancy of the other, there being no displacencies^[132] in religion but what we ourselves have unhappily made. For true piety is the most sweet and engaging thing imaginable, as it is most obliging to others, so most easy to ourselves. ’Tis in truth the highest epicurism^[133] exalting our pleasures by refining them, keeping our appetites in that due regularity [307] which not only grace but even nature and reason require, in the breach of which, though there may be a transport,^[134] there can be no true and substantial delight.

As to lodging, habit, and diet, they may be quickly resolved on by the ladies who shall subscribe, who I doubt not will make choice of what is most plain and decent, what nature, not luxury, requires. And since neither meat nor clothes commend us unto God, they’ll content themselves with such things as are fit and convenient, without occasioning scruple to themselves or giving any trouble or offence to others. She who considers to how much better account that money will turn which is bestowed on the poor then that which is laid out in unnecessary expenses on herself needs no admonitions against superfluities. She who truly loves herself will never waste that money on a decaying carcass which, if prudently disbursed, would procure her an eternal mansion. She will never think herself so fine as when the backs of the poor do bless her and never feast so luxuriously as when she treats a hungry person. No perfume will be thought so grateful as the odor of good works nor any wash so beautifying as her own tears. For her heroic soul is too great to ambition^[135] any empire but that of her own breast or to regard any other conquest than the rescuing poor unhappy souls from the slavery of sin and Satan, those only unsupportable tyrants. And therefore, what decays she observes in her face will be very unconcerning, but she will with greatest speed and accuracy rectify the least spot that may prejudice the beauty of her lovely soul.

In a word, this happy society will be but one body whose soul is love, animating and informing it and perpetually breathing forth itself in flames of holy desires after God and acts of benevolence to each other. Envy and uncharitableness are the vices only of little and narrow hearts, and therefore, ’tis supposed they will not enter here amongst persons whose dispositions as well as their births are to be generous. Censure will refine into friendly admonition; all scoffing and offensive railleries^[136] will be abominated and banished hence, where not only the words and actions but even the very thoughts and desires of the religious tend to promote the most endearing love and universal goodwill, for though there may be particular friendships, they must by no means prejudice the general amity. Thus these innocent and holy souls should run their race, measuring their hours by their devotions and their days by the charitable works they do. Thus would they live the life of heaven whilst on earth and receive an earnest^[137] of its joys in their hearts. And now, what remains for them to do at night but to review the actions of day, to examine what passions have been stirring, how their devotions were performed, in what temper their hearts are, what good they have done, and what progress made towards heaven, and with the plaudit of a satisfied conscience sweetly to sleep in peace and safety, angels pitching their tents [308] round about them, and he that neither slumbers nor sleeps rejoicing over them to do them good!

And to the end that these great designs may be the better pursued and effectually obtained, care shall be taken that our religious be under the tuition of persons of irreproachable lives, of a consummate prudence, sincere piety, and unaffected gravity. No novices in religion, but such as have spent the greatest part of their lives in the study and practice of Christianity, who have lived much, whatever the time of their abode in the world has been. Whose understandings are clear and comprehensive, as well as their passions at command and affections regular, and their knowledge able to govern their zeal. Whose scrutiny into their own hearts has been so exact that they fully understand the weaknesses of human nature, are able to bear with its defects, and by the most prudent methods procure its amendment, plentifully furnished with instructions for the ignorant and comfort for the disconsolate. Who know how to quicken the slothful, to awaken the secure, and to dispel the doubts of the scrupulous. Who are not ignorant when to use the spur and when the rein, but duly qualified to minister to all the spiritual wants of their charge, watching over their souls with tenderness and prudence, applying fitting medicines with sweetness and affability, sagacious in discovering the very approaches of a fault, wise in preventing and charitable in bearing with all pitiable infirmities. The sweetness of whose nature is commensurate to all the rest of their good qualities and all conspire together to make them loved and reverenced. Who have the perfect government of themselves and, therefore, rule according to reason, not humor, consulting the good of the society, not their own arbitrary sway, yet know how to assert their authority when there is just occasion for it and will not prejudice their charge by an indiscreet remissness and loosening the reins of discipline. Yet what occasion will there be for rigor when the design is to represent virtue in all her charms and native loveliness, which must needs attract the eyes and enamor the hearts of all who behold her? To join the sweetness of humanity to the strictness of philosophy that both together being improved and heightened by grace may make up an accomplished Christian, who (if truly so) is certainly the best-bred and best-natured person in the world, adorned with a thousand charms, most happy in herself, and most agreeable and beneficial to all about her. And that everyone who comes under this holy roof may be such an amiable, such a charming creature, what faults they bring with them shall be corrected by sweetness, not severity, by friendly admonitions, not magisterial reproofs. Piety shall not be roughly imposed but wisely insinuated by a perpetual display of the beauties of religion in an exemplary conversation,^[138] the continual and most powerful sermon of a holy life. And since inclination can’t be forced (and nothing makes people more uneasy than the fettering themselves with unnecessary bonds) there shall be no [309] vows or irrevocable obligations, not so much as the fear of reproach to keep our ladies here any longer than they desire. No, every act of our religious votary shall be voluntary and free, and not other tie but the pleasure, the glory, and advantage of this blessed retirement to confine her to it.

And now, I suppose you will save me the labor of proving that this institution will very much serve the ends of piety and charity. It is, methinks, self-evident, and the very proposal sufficient proof. But if it will not promote these great ends, I shall think myself mightily obliged to him that will show me what will. For, provided the good of my neighbor be advanced, ’tis very indifferent to me whether it be by my method or by another’s. Here will be no impertinent visits, no foolish amours, no idle amusements to distract our thoughts and waste our precious time, a very little of which is spent in dressing (that grand devourer) and its concomitants^[139] and no more than necessity requires in sleep and eating, so that here’s a huge treasure gained which, for ought I know, may purchase a happy eternity. But we need not rest in generals;^[140] a cursory view of some particulars will sufficiently demonstrate the great usefulness of such a retirement, which will appear by observing first a few of those inconveniences to which ladies are exposed by living in the world and in the next place the positive advantages of a retreat.

And first, as to the inconveniences of living in the world: no very small one is that strong idea and warm perception it gives us of its vanities. Since these are ever at hand, constantly thronging about us, they must necessarily push aside all other objects, and the mind, being prepossessed and gratefully entertained with those pleasing perceptions which external objects occasion, takes up with them as its only good, is not at leisure to taste those delights which arise from a reflection on itself nor to receive the ideas which such a reflection conveys and, consequently, forms all its notions by such ideas only as sensation has furnished it with, being unacquainted with those more excellent ones which arise from its own operations and a serious reflection on them and which are necessary to correct the mistakes and supply the defects of the other, from whence arises a very partial knowledge of things, nay, almost a perfect ignorance in things of the greatest moment. For though we are acquainted with the sound of some certain words, v.g.^[141] “God,” “Religion,” “Pleasure” and “Pain,” “Honor” and “Dishonor,” and the like, yet having no other ideas but what are conveyed to us by those trifles we converse with, we frame to ourselves strange and awkward notions of them, conformable only to those ideas sensation has furnished us with, which sometimes grow so strong and fixed that ’tis scarce possible to introduce a new [310] scheme of thoughts and so to disabuse us, especially whilst these objects are thick about us.^[142]

Thus she who sees herself and others respected in proportion to that pomp and bustle they make in the world will form her idea of honor accordingly. She who has relished no pleasures but such as arise at the presence of outward objects will seek no higher than her senses for her gratification. And thus we may account for that strange insensibility that appears in some people when you speak to them of any serious religious matter. They are then so dull you’ll have much ado to make them understand the clearest truth, whereas if you rally the same persons or chat with them of some mode or foppery, they’ll appear very quick, expert, and ingenious. I have sometimes smiled to hear women talk as gravely and concernedly about some trifling disappointment from their milliner or tailor as if it had related to the weightiest concerns of the soul, nay, perhaps more seriously than others who would pass for good do about their eternal interest. But turn the talk that way and they grow as heavy and cold as they were warm and sensible before. And whence is this, but because their heads are full of the one and quite destitute of such ideas as might give them a competent notion of the other, and, therefore, to discourse of such matters is as little to the purpose as to make mathematical demonstrations to one who knows not what an angle or triangle means. Hence, by the way, will appear the great usefulness of judicious catechizing,^[143] which is necessary to stir up clear ideas in the mind, without which it can receive but little benefit from the discourses of the pulpit, and perhaps the neglect of the former is the reason that the great plenty of the latter has no better effect. By all which it appears that if we would not be imposed on by false representations and impostures, if we would obtain a due knowledge of the most important things, we must remove the little toys and vanities of the world from us or ourselves from them, enlarge our ideas, seek out new fields of knowledge, whereby to rectify our first mistakes.

From the same original, viz. the constant flattery of external objects, arises that querulousness and delicacy observable in most persons of fortune and which betrays them to many inconveniences. For besides that, it renders them altogether unfit to bear a change, which, considering the great uncertainty, the swift vicissitudes of worldly things, the greatest and most established ought not to be unprepared for. Besides this, it makes them perpetually uneasy, abates the delight of their enjoyments, for such persons will very rarely find all things to their mind, and then some little disorder which others would take no notice of, like an aching tooth or toe, spoils the relish of their joys. And though many great ladies [311] affect this temper, mistaking it for a piece of grandeur, ’tis so far from that that it gives evidence of a poor, weak mind, a very childish humor that must be cockered^[144] and fed with toys and baubles to still its frowardness^[145] and is like the crazy stomach^[146] of a sick person, which no body has reason to be fond of or desire.

This also disposes them to inconstancy (for she who is continually supplied with variety knows not where to fix), a vice which some women seem to be proud of, and yet nothing in the world so reproachful and degrading because nothing is a stronger evidence of a weak and injudicious mind. For it supposes us either so ignorant as to make a wrong choice at first, or else so silly as not to know and stick to it when we have made a right one. It bespeaks an unthinking inconsiderate mind, one that lives at random without any design or end, who, wanting judgment to discern where to fix or to know when she’s well, is ever fluctuating and uncertain, undoing today what she had done yesterday, which is the worst character that can be given of one’s understanding.

A constant scene of temptations and the infection of ill company is another great danger which conversing in the world exposes to. ’Tis a dangerous thing to have all the opportunities of sinning in our power, and the danger is increased by the ill precedents we daily see of those who take them. Liberty (as somebody says) will corrupt an angel.^[147] And though it is indeed more glorious to conquer than to fly, yet since our virtue is so visibly weakened in other instances, we have no reason to presume on’t^[148] in this. ’Tis become no easy matter to secure our innocence in our necessary civilities and daily conversation, in which, if we have the good luck to avoid such as bring a necessity^[149] on us, either of seeming rude to them or of being really so to God almighty whilst we tamely hear him, our best friend and benefactor affronted, and swallow it at the same time that we would reckon’t^[150] a very pitiful spirit to hear an acquaintance traduced^[151] and hold our tongue, yet, if we avoid this trial, our charity is however in continual danger, censoriousness being grown so modish that we can scarce avoid being active or passive in it, so that she who has not her pert jest ready to pass upon others shall as soon as her back is turned become a jest herself for want of wit.

In consequence of all this, we are insensibly betrayed to a great loss of time, a treasure whose value we are too often quite ignorant of till it be lost past redemption. And yet, considering the shortness and uncertainty of life, the great [312] work we have to do, and what advantages accrue to us by a due management of our time, we cannot reconcile it with prudence to suffer the least minute to escape us. But besides our own lavish expenses (concerning which one may ask as Solomon does of labor, “What fruit have we of all the sport and pastime we have taken under the sun?”),^[152] so unreasonable is the humor of the world that those who would reckon it a rudeness to make so bold with our money never scruple to waste and rob us of this infinitely more precious treasure.

In the last place, by reason of this loss of time and the continual hurry we are in, we can find no opportunities for thoughtfulness and recollection. We are so busied with what passes abroad that we have no leisure to look at home nor to rectify the disorders there. And such an unthinking, mechanical way of living, when like machines we are condemned every day to repeat the impertinencies of the day before, shortens our views, contracts our minds, exposes to a thousand practical errors and renders improvement impossible, because it will not permit us to consider and recollect, which is the only means to attain it. So much for the inconveniences of living in the world. If we inquire about retirement, we shall find it does not only remove all these, but brings considerable advantages of its own.

For first, it helps us to mate^[153] custom and delivers us from its tyranny, which is the most considerable thing we have to do, it being nothing else but the habituating ourselves to folly that can reconcile us to it. But how hard is it to quit an old road? What courage as well as prudence does it require? How clear a judgment to overlook the prejudices of education and example and to discern what is best, and how strong a resolution, notwithstanding all the scoffs and noises of the world, to adhere to it! For custom has usurped such an unaccountable authority that she who would endeavor to put a stop to its arbitrary sway and reduce it to reason is in a fair way to render herself the butt for all the fops^[154] in town to shoot their impertinent censures at. And though a wise woman will not value their censure, yet she cares not be the subject of their discourse. The only way then is to retire from the world as the Israelites did out of Egypt,^[155] lest the sacrifice we must make of its follies should provoke its spleen.^[156]

This also puts us out of the road of temptation and very much redeems our time, cutting off those extravagances on which so much of it was squandered away before, and, furnishing us constantly with good employment, secures us from being seduced into bad. Great are the benefits of holy conversation which will be here enjoyed. As vice is, so virtue may be catching. And to what heights [313] of piety will not she advance who is placed where the sole business is to be good, where there is no pleasure but in religion, no contention but to excel in what is truly commendable, where her soul is not defiled nor her zeal provoked by the sight or relation of those villainies the world abounds with?

And by that learning which will be here afforded and that leisure we have to inquire after it and to know and reflect on our own minds, we shall rescue ourselves out of that woeful incogitancy^[157] we have slipped into, awaken our sleeping power, and make use of that reason which God has given us. We shall then begin to wonder at our folly that amongst all the pleasures we formerly pursued, we never attended to that most noble and delicious one which the chase of truth affords us, and bless ourselves at last that our eyes are opened to discern how much more pleasantly we may be entertained by our own thoughts than by all the diversion which the world affords us. By this means we are fitted to receive the influences of the Holy Spirit and are put in a due frame of devotion. No doubt but he has often knocked at the door of our hearts, when the crowd and noise of our vanities would not suffer us to regard of hear him, and could find no admittance when our house was so filled with other company. Here, therefore, is the fittest place for his entertainment, when we are freed from outward disturbances and entirely at leisure to attend so divine a guest. Our devotions will be performed with due attention, those objects that used to distract being now removed from us. Simplicity of desire will beget simplicity of thought, and that will make our minds most intense and elevated when we come to address ourselves to the throne of grace. Being dead to the things of this world, we shall with greater fervor petition for those of another, and living always in a lively and awful^[158] sense of the divine majesty, our hearts will ever be disposed to approach him in the most solemn, serious, and reverent manner. ’Tis a very unseemly thing to jump from our diversion to our prayers, as if when we have been entertaining ourselves and others with vanity we were instantly prepared to appear in the sacred presence of God. But a religious retirement and holy conversation will procure us a more serious temper, a graver spirit, and so both make us constantly fit to approach and likewise stir us up to be more careful in our preparations when we do. For besides all other improvements of knowledge, we shall hereby obtain truer notions of God than we were capable of before, which is of very great consequences, since the want of right apprehensions concerning him is the general cause of mistakes in religion and errors in practice, for as he is the noblest object of our understanding, so nothing is more necessary or of such consequence to us as to busy our thoughts about him. And did we rightly consider his nature, we should neither dare to forget him nor draw near to him with unclean hands and unholy hearts. [314]

From this sacred mountain where the world will be placed at our feet, at such a distance from us that the streams of its corruptions shall not obscure our eyesight, we shall have a right prospect of it and clearly discern that all its allurements, all those gaieties and pageantries which at present we admire so much, are no better than insignificant toys^[159] which have no value but what our perverse opinion imposes on them, things which contribute so very little to our real good that even at present (which is their only season) we may live much happier without than with them, and which are so far from being necessary to true felicity that they shall vanish and be no more when that is consummate and perfect. Many are the topics from whence we might declaim against the vanity of the world, but methinks experience is so convincing that it supersedes all the rest and would certainly reclaim us from the immoderate love of earthly enjoyments did we but seriously hearken to it. For tell me, ladies, if your greatest pleasures are not attended with a greater sting? When you think to grasp them, do they not either vanish into froth or gall your fingers? To want^[160] or to enjoy them is equally tormenting; the one produces in you the pain of hunger, the other of loathing. For in reality, there is no good in them, nothing but the shadow and appearance. If there were, you could not so easily loathe your old delights and be so fond of variety, what is truly desirable never ending in disgust. They are not therefore pleasures but amusements which you now pursue and which, through your ignorance of better joys, pretend to fill their place, toll^[161] you on with fair pretences, and repay your labor with defeated hopes, joys not near so lasting as the slightest toy you wear. The most capricious humorist^[162] among you is more constant far than they. Come hither, therefore, and take a true view of ’em that you may no longer deceive yourselves with that which profits not, but spurning away these empty nothings, secure a portion in such a bliss as will not fail, as cannot disappoint you! A felicity which, depending on God only and your own minds, is out of fortune’s reach, will place you above the batteries of the world, above its terrors and allurements, and enable you at once to triumph over and despise it. And what can be more glorious than to have a mind unshaken by the blandishments of prosperity or the rough shocks of adversity, that passes through both with the same indifferency^[163] and integrity, is not to be tempted by either to a mean unworthy and indecent action?

Farther yet, besides that holy emulation which a continual view of the brightest and most exemplary lives will excite in us, we shall have opportunity of contracting the purest and noblest friendship, a blessing the purchase of which [315] were richly worth all the world besides! For she who possesses a worthy person has certainly obtained the richest treasure, a blessing that monarchs may envy, and she who enjoys is happier than she who fills a throne, a blessing which, next to the love of God, is the choicest jewel in our celestial diadem which, were it duly practiced, would both fit us for heaven and bring it down into our hearts whilst we tarry here. For friendship is a virtue which comprehends all the rest, none being fit for this who is not adorned with every other virtue. Probably one considerable cause of the degeneracy of the present age is the little true friendship that is to be found in it. Or perhaps you will rather say that this is the effect of our corruption. The cause and the effect are indeed reciprocal, for were the world better there would be more friendship and were there more friendship we should have a better world. But because iniquity abounds, therefore the love of many is not only waxen cold but quite benumbed and perished.^[164] But if we have such narrow hearts, be so full of mistaken self-love, so unreasonably fond of ourselves that we cannot spare a hearty goodwill to one or two choice persons, how can it ever be thought that we should well acquit ourselves of that charity which is due to all mankind? For friendship is nothing else but charity contracted.^[165] It is (in the word of an admired author) a kind of revenging ourselves on the narrowness of our faculties by exemplifying that extraordinary charity on one or two which we are willing but not able to exercise towards all.^[166] And therefore, ’tis without doubt the best instructor to teach us our duty to our neighbor and a most excellent monitor^[167] to excite us to make payment as far as our power will reach. It has a special force to dilate our hearts, to deliver them from that vicious selfishness and the rest of those sordid passions which express a narrow, illiberal temper and are of such pernicious consequence to mankind. That institution, therefore, must needs be highly beneficial which both disposes us to be friends ourselves and helps to find them. But by friendship I do not mean anything like those intimacies that are about in the world, which are often combinations in evil and at best but insignificant dearnesses,^[168] as little resembling true friendship as modern practice does primitive Christianity. But I intend by it the greatest usefulness, the most refined and disinterested benevolence, a love that thinks nothing within the bounds of power and duty too much to do or suffer for its beloved and [316] makes no distinction betwixt its friend and its self,^[169] except that in temporals^[170] it prefers her interest. But though it be very desirable to obtain such a treasure, such a medicine of life (as the wise man speaks),^[171] yet the danger is great, lest being deceived in our choice we suck in poison where we expected health.^[172] And considering how apt we are to disguise ourselves, how hard it is to know our own hearts, much less another’s, it is not advisable to be too hasty in contracting so important a relation. Before that be done, it were well if we could look into the very soul of the beloved person to discover what resemblance it bears to our own, and in this society we shall have the best opportunities of doing so. There are no interests here to serve, no contrivances for another to be a stale^[173] to. The souls of all the religious will be open and free, and those particular friendships must be no prejudice to the general amity. But yet, as in heaven, that region of perfect love, the happy souls (as some are of opinion) now and then step aside from more general conversations to entertain themselves with a peculiar friend, so in this little emblem of this blessed place what should hinder but that two persons of a sympathizing disposition, the make and frame of whose souls bears an exact conformity to each other and, therefore, one would think were purposely designed by heaven to unite and mix, what should hinder them from entering into a holy combination to watch over each other for good, to advise, encourage, and direct, and to observe the minutest fault in order to its amendment, the truest effect of love being to endeavor the bettering the beloved person? And therefore, nothing is more likely to improve us in virtue and advance us to the very highest pitch of goodness than unfeigned friendship, which is the most beneficial as well as the most pleasant thing in the world.

But to hasten, such an institution will much confirm us in virtue and help us to persevere to the end, and by that substantial piety and solid knowledge we shall here acquire fit us to propagate it when we return into the world. A habitual practice of piety for some years will so root and establish us in it, that religion will become a second nature, and we must do strange violences to ourselves if after that we dare venture to oppose it. For besides all the other advantages that virtue has over vice, this will disarm it of custom (the only thing that recommends it), bravely win its strongest fort, and turn its own cannon against itself. How almost impossible would it be for her to sin whose understanding being clearly [317] illuminated with the knowledge of the truth is too wise to be imposed on by those false representations that sin would deceive it with, whose will has found out and united itself to its true center and, having been long habituated to move in a right line, has no temptation to decline to an oblique, whose affections have daily regaled^[174] on those delicious fruits of paradise, which religion presents them with and are, therefore, too sublime and refined to relish the muddy pleasures of sensual delights. It must certainly be a miracle if such a one relinquish her glory and joy. She must be as bad as Lucifer himself who after such enjoyments can forsake her heaven. ’Tis too unreasonable to imagine such an apostasy; the supposition is monstrous and, therefore, we may conclude will never, or very rarely, happen. And then what a blessed world should we have, shining with so many stars of virtue who, not content to be happy themselves, for that’s a narrowness of mind too much beneath their godlike temper, would like the glorious lights of heaven or rather like him who made them, diffuse their benign influences round about. Having gained an entrance into paradise themselves, they would both show the way and invite all others to partake of their felicity. Instead of that froth and impertinence, that censure and pragmaticalness,^[175] with which feminine conversations so much abound, we should hear their tongues employed in making proselytes to heaven, in running down vice, in establishing virtue, and proclaiming their maker’s glory. ’Twould be more genteel to give and take instructions about the ornaments of the mind than to inquire after the mode,^[176] and a lecture on the fashions would become as disagreeable as at present any serious discourse is. Not the follies of the town, but the beauties and the love of Jesus would be the most polite and delicious entertainment. ’Twould be thought as rude and barbarous to send our visitors away uninstructed as our foolishness at present reckons it to introduce a pertinent and useful conversation. Ladies of quality would be able to distinguish themselves from their inferiors by the blessings they communicated and the good they did. For this is their grand prerogative, their distinguishing character, that they are placed in a condition which makes that which is everyone’s chief business to be their only employ. They have nothing to do but to glorify God and to benefit their neighbors, and she who does not thus improve her talent is more vile and despicable than the meanest creature about her.

And if after so many spiritual advantages it be convenient to mention temporals, here heiresses and persons of fortune may be kept secure from the rude attempts of designing men. And she who has more money than discretion need not curse her stars for being exposed a prey to bold importunate^[177] and rapacious vultures. She will not here be inveigled and imposed on, will neither be bought nor sold nor be forced to marry for her own quiet when she has no inclination to [318] it, but what the being tired out with a restless importunity occasions. Or if she be disposed to marry, here she may remain in safety till a convenient match be offered by her friends and be freed from the danger of a dishonorable one. Modesty requiring that a woman should not love before marriage but only make choice of one whom she can love hereafter, she who has none but innocent affections being easily able to fix them where duty requires.

And though at first I proposed to myself to speak nothing in particular of the employment of the religious, yet to give a specimen how useful they will be to the world, I am now inclined to declare that it is designed a part of their business shall be to give the best education to the children of persons of quality, who shall be attended and instructed in lesser matters by meaner persons deputed to that office, but the forming of their minds shall be the particular care of those of their own rank, who cannot have a more pleasant and useful employment than to exercise and increase their own knowledge by instilling it into these young ones, who are most like to profit under such tutors. For how can their little pupils forbear to credit them, since they do not decry the world (as others may be thought to do) because they could not enjoy it, but when they had it in their power, were courted and caressed by it, for very good reasons and on mature deliberation thought fit to relinquish and despise its offers for a better choice? Nor are mercenary people on other accounts capable of doing so much good to young persons because, having often but short views of things themselves, sordid and low spirits, they are not like to form a generous temper in the minds of the educated. Doubtless ’twas well considered of him who would not trust the breeding of his son to a slave, because nothing great of excellent could be expected from a person of that condition.

And when by the increase of their revenue the religious are enabled to do such a work of charity, the education they design to bestow on the daughters of gentlemen who are fallen into decay will be no inconsiderable advantage to the nation. For hereby many souls will be preserved from great dishonors and put in a comfortable way of subsisting, being either received into the house if they incline to it or otherwise disposed of,^[178] it being supposed that prudent men will reckon the endowments they here acquire a sufficient dowry and that a discreet and virtuous gentlewoman will make a better wife than she whose mind is empty though her purse be full.

But some will say: may not people be good without this confinement? May they not live at large in the world and yet serve God as acceptably as here? ’Tis allowed they may. Truly wise and virtuous souls will do it by the assistance of God’s grace in despite of all temptations, and I heartily wish that all women were of this temper. But it is to be considered that there are tender virtues who need to be screened from the ill airs of the world. Many persons who had begun well might have gone to the grave in peace and innocence had it not been their [319] misfortune to be violently tempted. For those who have honest hearts have not always the strongest heads, and sometimes the enticements of the world and the subtle insinuations of such as lie in wait to deceive may make their heads giddy, stagger^[179] their resolutions, and overthrow all the fine hopes of a promising beginning. ’Tis fit, therefore, such tender cyons^[180] should be transplanted by the prop of virtuous friendship and confirmed in goodness by holy examples which, alas, they will not often meet with in the world. And such is the weakness of human nature that bad people are not so apt to be bettered by the society of the good as the good are to be corrupted by theirs. Since, therefore, we daily pray against temptation,^[181] it cannot be amiss if we take all prudent care to avoid it and not out of a vain presumption face the danger, which God may justly permit to overcome us for a due correction of our pride. It is not impossible for a man to live in an infected house or town and escape with life and heath, yet if he have a place in the country to retire to, he will not make slight of that advantage. And surely the health of our souls is of greater consideration than the health of our bodies. Besides, she has need of an established virtue and consummated^[182] prudence who so well understands the great end she was sent into the world about and so faithfully pursues it that, not content to be wise and good herself alone, she endeavors to propagate wisdom and piety to all about her. But neither this prudence nor heroic goodness are easily attainable amidst the noise and hurry of the world; we must, therefore, retire a while from its clamor and importunity^[183] if we generously design to do it good. And, having calmly and sedately observed and rectified what is amiss in ourselves, we shall be fitter to promote a reformation in others. A devout retirement will not only strengthen and confirm our souls that they be not infected by the world’s corruptions but likewise so purify and refine them that they will become antidotes to expel the poison in others and spread a salutary air round about them.

If any object against a learned education that it will make women vain and assuming and, instead of correcting, increase their pride, I grant that a smattering in learning may, for it has this effect on the men, none so dogmatical^[184] and so forward to show their parts as your little pretenders to science. But I would not have the ladies content themselves with the show; my desire is that they should not rest till they obtain the substance. And then she who is most knowing will be [320] forward to own^[185] with the wise Socrates^[186] that she knows nothing: nothing that is matter of pride and ostentation, nothing but what is attended with so much ignorance and imperfection that it cannot reasonably elate and puff her up. The more she knows, she will be the less subject to talkativeness and its sister vices because she discerns that the most difficult piece of learning is to know when to use and when to hold one’s tongue and never to speak but to the purpose.

But the men, if they rightly understand their own interest, have no reason to oppose the ingenious education of the women, since ’twould go a great way towards reclaiming the men. Great is the influence we have over them in their childhood, in which time if a mother be discreet and knowing as well as devout, she has many opportunities of giving such a form and season to the tender mind of the child as will show its good effect through all the stages of his life. But though you should not allow her capable of doing good, ’tis certain she may do hurt. If she do not make the child, she has power to mar him by suffering her fondness to get the better of discreet affection. But besides this, a good and prudent wife would wonderfully work on an ill man. He must be a brute indeed who could hold out against all those innocent arts, those gentle persuasives and obliging methods she would use to reclaim him. Piety is often offensive when it is accompanied with indiscretion, but she who is as wise as good possesses such charms as can hardly fail of prevailing. Doubtless, her husband is a much happier man and more likely to abandon all his ill courses than he who has none to come home to but an ignorant, froward,^[187] and fantastic^[188] creature. An ingenious conversation will make his life comfortable, and he who can be so well entertained at home needs not run into temptations in search of diversions abroad. The only danger is that the wife be more knowing than the husband. But if she be, ’tis his own fault since he wants no opportunities of improvement, unless he be a natural blockhead, and then such a one will need a wise woman to govern him, whose prudence will conceal it from public observation and at once both cover and supply his defects. Give me leave, therefore, to hope that no gentleman who has honorable designs will henceforward decry knowledge and ingenuity in her he would pretend to honor. Or if he does, it may serve for a test to distinguish the feigned and unworthy from the real lover.

Now, who that has a spark of piety will go about to oppose so religious a design? What generous spirit that has a due regard to the good of mankind will not be forward to advance and perfect it? Who will think 500 pounds too much to lay out for the purchase of so much wisdom and happiness? Certainly we should not think them too dearly paid for by a much greater sum, did not our pitiful and [321] sordid spirits set a much higher value on money than it deserves. But granting so much of that dear idol is given away, a person thus bred will easily make it up by her frugality and other virtues. If she bring less, she will not waste so much as others do in superfluous and vain expenses. Nor can I think of any expedient so useful as this to persons of quality who are overstocked with children, for thus they may honorably dispose of them without impairing their estates. Five or six hundred pounds may be easily spared with a daughter when so many thousand would go deep^[189] and yet, as the world goes, be a very inconsiderable fortune for ladies of their birth, neither maintain them in that port^[190] which custom makes almost necessary nor procure them an equal match, those of their own rank (contrary to the generous custom of the Germans)^[191] choosing rather to fill their coffers than to preserve the purity of their blood and, therefore, think a weighty bag the best gentility, preferring a wealthy upstart before the best descended and best qualified lady. Their own extravagancies perhaps having made it necessary that they may keep up an empty shadow of greatness, which is all that remains to show what their ancestors have been.

Does any think their money lost to their families when ’tis put in here? I will only ask what course they can take to save it and at once to preserve their money, their honor, and their daughters too? Were they sure the ladies would die unmarried, I should commend their thrift. But experience has too often shown us the vanity of this expectation. For the poor lady, having past the prime of her years in gaiety and company, in running the circle of all the vanities of the town, having spread all her nets and used all her arts for conquest and finding that the bait fails where she would have it take, and having all this while been so over-careful of her body that she had no time to improve her mind which, therefore, affords her no safe retreat now she meets with disappointments abroad, and growing every day more and more sensible^[192] that the respect which used to be paid her decays as fast as her beauty, quite terrified with the dreadful name of “old maid,” which yet none but fools will reproach her with nor any wise woman be afraid of, to avoid this terrible mormo^[193] and the scoffs that are thrown on superannuated virgins, she flies to some dishonorable match as her last, though much mistaken, refuge, to the disgrace of her family and her own irreparable ruin. And now let any person of honor tell me if it were not richly worth some thousand pounds to prevent all this mischief and the having an idle fellow and perhaps a race of beggarly children to hang on him and to provide for? [322]

Could I think of any other objection I would consider it. There’s nothing indeed which witty persons may not argue for and against, but they who duly weigh the arguments on both sides, unless they be extremely prejudiced, will easily discern the great usefulness of this institution. The beaux,^[194] perhaps, and topping sparks^[195] of the town will ridicule and laugh at it. For virtue herself as bright as she is can’t escape the lash of scurrilous tongues. The comfort is whilst they impotently endeavor to throw dirt on her, they are unable to foil her beauty and only render themselves the more contemptible. They may therefore, if they please, hug themselves in their own dear folly and enjoy the diversion of their own insipid jests. She has but little wisdom and less virtue who is to be frighted from what she judges reasonable by the scoffs and insignificant noises of ludicrous wits and pert buffoons. And no wonder that such as they (who have nothing to show for their pretences to wit but some scraps of plays and blustering nonsense, who fancy a well-adjusted peruke^[196] is able to supply their want of brains and that to talk much is a sign of ingenuity, though’t^[197] be never so little to the purpose) object against our proposal. ’Twould indeed spoil the trade of the gay fluttering fops, who would be at a loss had they nobody as impertinent as themselves to talk with. The criticism of their dress would be useless and the labor of their valet de chambre^[198] lost unless they could peaceably lay aside their rivaling and one ass^[199] be content to complement and admire another. For the ladies would have more discernment than to scorn and despise him. They would never be so sottish^[200] as to imagine that he who regards nothing but his own brutish appetite should have any real affection for them, nor ever expect fidelity from one who is unfaithful to God and his own soul. They would not be so absurd as to suppose that man can esteem them who neglects his maker, for what are all those fine idolatries by which he would recommend himself to his pretended goddess but mockery and delusion from him who forgets and affronts the true deity? They would not value themselves on account of the admiration of such incompetent judges nor consequently make use of those little trifling arts that are necessary to recommend them to such admirers, neither would they give opportunity to profess themselves their slaves so long till at last they become their masters.

What now remains but to reduce to practice that which tends so very much to our advantage? Is charity so dead in the world that none will contribute to the saving their own and their neighbors’ souls? Shall we freely expend our money to purchase vanity and, oftentimes, both present and future ruin and find none for [323] such an eminent good work which will make the ages to come arise and call us blessed?^[201] I would fain persuade myself better things and that I shall one day see this religious retirement happily settled and its great designs wisely and vigorously pursued. And methinks I have already a vision of that luster and glory our ladies cause round about them! Let me therefore entreat the rest of our sex who though at liberty in the world are the miserable slaves of their own vile affections. Let me entreat them to lay aside their prejudices and whatever borders on envy and malice and with impartial eyes to behold the beauties of our religious. The native innocency^[202] and unaffectedness of whose charms and the unblameable integrity of their lives are abundantly more taking^[203] than all the curious artifices and studied arts the other can invent to recommend them, even bad men themselves being judges who often betray a secret veneration for that virtue they would seem to despise and endeavor to corrupt. As there is not anything, no not the least shadow of a motive, to recommend vice but its fashionableness and the being accustomed to it, so there is nothing at all forbidding in virtue but her uncouthness. Acquaint yourselves with her a little and you’ll wonder how you could be so foolish as to delight in any thing besides! For you’ll find her conversation most sweet and obliging, her precepts most easy and beneficial, her very tasks joys, and her injunctions the highest pleasures.^[204] She will not rob you of any innocent delight, not engage you to anything beneath your birth and breeding, but will put a new and more grateful relish into all your enjoyments and make them more delicious with her sweetness. She’ll preserve and augment your honor by allying you to the king of heaven, secure your grandeur by fixing it on a firm bottom, such as the caprice of fortune cannot shake or overthrow. She’ll enlarge your souls, raise them above the common level, and encourage that allowable pride of scorning to do a base unworthy action. Make you^[205] truly amiable in the eyes of God and man, preserve even the beauty of your bodies as long as ’tis possible for such a brittle thing to last, and when it must of necessity decay, impress such a loveliness of your minds as will shine through and brighten your very countenances, enriching you with such a stock of charms that time, which devours every other thing, shall never be able to decay. In a word, ’tis virtue only which can make you truly happy in this world as well as in the next.

There is a sort of bravery and greatness of soul which does more truly ennoble us than the highest title, and it consists in the living up to the dignity of our natures, scorning to do a mean unbecoming thing, in passing indifferently through good and evil fortune without being corrupted by the one or depressed by the other. [324] For she that can do so gives evidence that her happiness depends not on so mutable a thing as this world but, in a due subserviency to the almighty, is bottomed^[206] only on her own great mind. This is the richest ornament, and renders a woman glorious in the lowest fortune. So shining is real worth that, like a diamond, it loses not its luster though cast on a dunghill, whereas she who is advanced to some eminent station and wants this natural and solid greatness is no better than fortune’s May game,^[207] rendered more conspicuous that she may appear the more contemptible. Let those, therefore, who value themselves only on external accomplishments consider how liable they are to decay and how soon they may be deprived of them and that, supposing they should continue, they are but sandy foundations to build esteem upon. What a disappointment will it be to a lady’s admirer as well as to herself that her conversation should lose and endanger the victory her eyes had gained! For when the passion of a lover is evaporated into the cool temper of a husband and a frequent review has lessened the wonder which her charms at first had raised, she’ll retain no more than such a formal respect as decency and good breeding will require, and perhaps hardly that. But unless he be a very good man (and indeed the world is not overfull of ’em), her worthlessness has made a forfeit of his affections, which are seldom fixed by any other thing than veneration and esteem, whereas a wise and good woman is useful and valuable in all ages and conditions. She who chiefly attends the one thing needful, the good part which shall not be taken from her,^[208] lives a cheerful and pleasant life, innocent and sedate, calm and tranquil, and makes a glorious exit, being translated from the most happy life on earth to unspeakable happiness in heaven, a fresh and fragrant name, embalming her dust and extending its perfume to succeeding ages, whilst the fools and the worst sort of them, the wicked, live as well as die in misery, go out in a snuff, leaving nothing but stench and putrefaction behind them.

To close all, if this proposal, which is but a rough draft and rude essay and which might be made much more beautiful by a better pen, give occasion to wiser heads to improve and perfect it, I have my end. For imperfect as it is, it seems so desirable that she who drew the scheme is full of hopes it will not want kind hands to perform and complete it. But if it miss of that, it is but a few hours thrown away and a little labor in vain, which yet will not be lost if what is here offered may serve to express her hearty goodwill and how much she desires your improvements, who is

Ladies,
Your very humble servant.