: Essays on Various Subjects Principally Designed for Young Ladies by More Hannah - Essays; Women Education; Women Conduct of life

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husiast, or the latter that of a pedant.

THAT silence is one of the great arts of conversation is allowed by Cicero himself, who says, there is not only an art but even an eloquence in it. And this opinion is confirmed by a great modern, in the following little anecdote from one of the ancients.

WHEN many Grecian philosophers had a solemn meeting before the ambassador of a foreign prince, each endeavoured to shew his parts by the brilliancy of his conversation, that the ambassador might have something to relate of the Grecian wisdom. One of them, offended, no doubt, at the loquacity of his companions, observed a profound silence; when the ambassador, turning to him, asked, "But what have you to say, that I may report it?" He made this laconic, but very pointed reply: "Tell your king, that you have found one among the Greeks who knew how to be silent."

THERE is a quality infinitely more intoxicating to the female mind than knowledge--this is Wit, the most captivating, but the most dreaded of all talents: the most dangerous to those who have it, and the most feared by those who have it not. Though it is against all the rules, yet I cannot find in my heart to abuse this charming quality. He who is grown rich without it, in safe and sober dulness, shuns it as a disease, and looks upon poverty as its invariable concomitant. The moralist declaims against it as the source of irregularity, and the frugal citizen dreads it more than bankruptcy itself, for he considers it as the parent of extravagance and beggary. The Cynic will ask of what use it is? Of very little perhaps: no more is a flower garden, and yet it is allowed as an object of innocent amusement and delightful recreation. A woman, who possesses this quality, has received a most dangerous present, perhaps not less so than beauty itself: especially if it be not sheathed in a temper peculiarly inoffensive, chastised by a most correct judgment, and restrained by more prudence than falls to the common lot.

THIS talent is more likely to make a woman vain than knowledge; for as Wit is the immediate property of its possessor, and learning is only an acquaintance with the knowledge of other people, there is much more danger, that we should be vain of what is our own, than of what we borrow.

BUT Wit, like learning, is not near so common a thing as is imagined. Let not therefore a young lady be alarmed at the acuteness of her own wit, any more than at the abundance of her own knowledge. The great danger is, lest she should mistake pertness, flippancy, or imprudence, for this brilliant quality, or imagine she is witty, only because she is indiscreet. This is very frequently the case, and this makes the name of wit so cheap, while its real existence is so rare.

LEST the flattery of her acquaintance, or an over-weening opinion of her own qualifications, should lead some vain and petulant girl into a false notion that she has a great deal of wit, when she has only a redundancy of animal spirits, she may not find it useless to attend to the definition of this quality, by one who had as large a portion of it, as most individuals could ever boast:

'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest, Admir'd with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk, which can that title gain, The proofs of wit for ever must remain. Neither can that have any place, At which a virgin hides her face; Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just, The author blush there, where the reader must.

COWLEY.

BUT those who actually possess this rare talent, cannot be too abstinent in the use of it. It often makes admirers, but it never makes friends; I mean, where it is the predominant feature; and the unprotected and defenceless state of womanhood calls for friendship more than for admiration. She who does not desire friends has a sordid and insensible soul; but she who is ambitious of making every man her admirer, has an invincible vanity and a cold heart.

I HAVE always been delighted with the story of the little girl's eloquence, in one of the Children's Tales, who received from a friendly fairy the gift, that at every word she uttered, pinks, roses, diamonds, and pearls, should drop from her mouth. The hidden moral appears to be this, that it was the sweetness of her temper which produced this pretty fanciful effect: for when her malicious sister desired the same gift from the good-natured tiny Intelligence, the venom of her own heart converted it into poisonous and loathsome reptiles.

A MAN of sense and breeding will sometimes join in the laugh, which has been raised at his expence by an ill-natured repartee; but if it was very cutting, and one of those shocking sort of truths, which as they can scarcely be pardoned even in private, ought never to be uttered in public, he does not laugh because he is pleased, but because he wishes to conceal how much he is hurt. As the sarcasm was uttered by a lady, so far from seeming to resent it, he will be the first to commend it; but notwithstanding that, he will remember it as a trait of malice, when the whole company shall have forgotten it as a stroke of wit. Women are so far from being privileged by their sex to say unhandsome or cruel things, that it is this very circumstance which renders them more intolerable. When the arrow is lodged in the heart, it is no relief to him who is wounded to reflect, that the hand which shot it was a fair one.

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