chafe not their spirit; to the morally blind, the heavy weight of human iniquity is no burden, the deep misery of moral evil is unfelt by them; to the selfish, and the stupid, and the worldly, the follies and the sufferings of mankind, the anxieties of public interests, and the burden of private sympathies, are unknown;

to all these alike, life is a lighter and an easier thing than it is to nobler minds and more feeling hearts. But shall we, for this, envy, and seek to assimilate ourselves to, the worldly, the stupid, and the ignorant, the strangers to holy thoughts and benevolent impulses? Surely not: the heart has but one answer to such a question, and so, likewise, there is but one to that we have proposed. Though mental cultivation should make women at times feel dependence more galling, inaction more wearisome, let them take the penalty with the privilege of a higher station, and seek, in better things than in the numbing of their faculties, for consolation amid the trials of this transitory condition. It seems hardly to need proof that such consolation is most surely to be found in whatever bears least connection with the trammels of earth, and lifts the mind most habitually to a region where all is freedom, and tranquillity, and peace.

If a woman does not marry at all, and the trials of those hard years which follow on the excitement of youth terminate in the calm dreariness of a solitary life, who can express how precious the love of knowledge may be to her? There are, in such a life, moments of bitterness which nothing can soothe so well as the absorbing interest of intellectual pursuits; moments when a woman cannot but feel as if cut off from the universe, - utterly insignificant to the busy throng of her fellow-creatures, and even to those whom she loves best less important than the least of those who are bound to them by the ties she can never know. While her sympathy and her care are exacted without measure, those who receive them, immersed in their own joys, or sorrows, or interests, have little leisure to scan her feelings or remember her trials; to her is emphatically revealed the force of the Preacher's words, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness"; how sweet, then, to that lonely heart the bond which, through the pursuit of knowledge, seems to

unite it with the brightest and noblest intellects! The aspect of her solitary existence is changed under its influence; she is still cut off from the busy scenes of life and from its dearest joys; but hours of lofty meditation may be hers, of communing with those glorious spirits whom God, from time to time, has sent down to cheer and ennoble their toiling brethren. She cannot feel ambition for herself or others; no earthly hope gilds her lonely path; but hers may be the fervent aspirations after truth,- the earnest search for its treasures; and in these aims, in these hopes, she may find a peaceful joy, which often may make the heart forget the absence of happiness.

Even in a far happier position, in the enjoyment of all that makes life dear, the loss of youth is generally most painful to women, whose middle age is not, like that of men, filled up with active employments, which render them in some measure insensible to the ravages of the great despoiler. Women are too often sadly unprovided with means of enjoyment as years steal on; when not only youthful pleasures are left behind, and accomplishments have ceased to please, but when the nursery cares, which have, perhaps, engrossed many years, are at an end, and their children are engaged in the labors of study which their own knowledge does not fit them to superintend; - or later still, when their sons are dispersed in professions, and their daughters have left them, perhaps for distant homes, then all the occupation of life is gone! Each period has been taken up with anxious or busy cares, but all within that one small circle; there was nothing beyond home, and now the home is left almost solitary; with no companion but a husband, still, perhaps, engaged in a profession, engrossed with interests in which they never took a share, occupied with pursuits and schemes in which they never cared to sympathize. It is because women are so ill provided against this trying period that we see them generally withdraw from life much earlier than men, sink back neglected in society, and reduced at home to some mechanical occupation for amusement; while the latter are still keen in some favorite pursuit, reaping at the head of a profession the honors due to their knowledge and experience, or watch

ing with eager interest those who are following in their steps.*

Such is the fate of too many excellent and amiable women, a fate which love of knowledge would effectually secure them against, filling up the void caused by the cessation of family cares, and preventing the isolation which is one of the saddest trials of age when it cannot sympathize in the feelings and pursuits of the young. Disparity of years vanishes before similarity of tastes; thus, we find in intellectual activity the true "fontaine de jouvence" of which poets sang. For the mind eager in the pursuit of truth is never old; its energies die not, its ardor is not quenched. When all other pleasures of early life have vanished, and with them the very feelings and wishes that made us take delight in them; when the busy schemes of former years have long been accomplished, or the sorrow for their failure forgotten; when the bustle of the world in which we are no longer able to join passes us by, and its smiles and honors are held out to reward the exertions of those whom we have nursed in our arms; when all that is bright in life has faded, and even its sober tints are becoming sad; even then one aspiration of our youth may yet remain unchanged, one sphere of active delight be open to us as in our most joyous days, and be all the dearer to us for having thus endured through life's checkered scene, and bearing some of the brightest associations of Spring into Autumn's cheerless season.

*There are some excellent remarks on the different effects of age upon men and women, in the Essay of Sidney Smith on Female Education, already quoted.

CHAPTER XIII

CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION.

THE imaginative faculty may be called the creative power of the human mind. All the other faculties deal with the actual and the known; this alone reaches forth to the unknown; combines, discovers, invents, first enlarges the dominion of thought, then leads the way to new discoveries of truth. In this sense it is not too much to say, with Professor Sedgwick,* that “It is by the Imagination more perhaps than by any other faculty of the soul, that man is raised above the condition of a beast.

Beasts,' he proceeds to say, "have senses in common with ourselves, and often in higher perfection; to a certain extent they also possess, I think, the powers of abstraction; but of the imaginative powers they offer no single trace. These high attributes of the soul confer on it a creative energy, aid it even in its generalizations from pure reason, bring before it vivid images of the past and glowing anticipations of the future, teach it to link together material and immaterial things, and to mount up from earth to heaven. All that is refined in civilized life, all that is lofty in poetry or ennobling in art, flows chiefly from this one fountain.”

If we consider imagination in this light, it is evident that no system of education can be complete which does not lay some stress on its due culture and regulation. It is then singularly unfortunate that the prevailing mode of female education, which we have had occasion to blame so frequently, as affording little aid to the development of reason, should fail as signally in this

* On the Studies of Cambridge.

respect also. The two deficiencies may probably be traced to the same cause, namely, indifference to all the really valuable results of education as compared with the showy accomplishments required by fashion.

The mere dogmatic mode of teaching, requiring in the pupil a simple effort of the understanding and recollection, draws out little thought. The mind is not made to work out results for itself, it is not forced to reflect even upon what it receives, still less is it led to original speculation, which, however meagre and weak in its beginnings, is the cradle of imagination, at the same time that it fosters the first efforts of reason. Where this system is in operation, continual dread is entertained, lest the pupil should say something foolish, something at variance with received maxims of wisdom or prudence; whereas the real ground of fear is, lest she should not have sufficient thought to say any thing original at all. Better a thousand vagaries, a thousand wild theories or false conclusions, which, when expressed, it is in the teacher's power to correct, than the dull silence of vacant thought or repressed feeling and imagination, chilled by the fear of ridicule, and finally stunted by want of exercise. Under the influence of that frigid routine, imagination is not cultivated even by those studies which appeal to it most directly. Hours are spent on accomplishments without their becoming the means of inspiring a love for the fine arts, and poetry shares the fate of music and painting. Page after page is probably learnt by heart, but it is as an exercise of the memory, a mere lesson in which verbal exactness only is required, and no attention is given to the beauty of the language, no discrimination of its character and peculiarities, no observation, in short, of that which constitutes it poetry. We see the result in the want of high poetic feeling, and the neglect of our great poets which is so common among young persons in the present day.

The prevailing influences in society are no less chilling than those of the school-room. On the one hand, narrow conceptions of Utilitarian Philosophy strive to throw discredit on imagina. tion, and scorn the beauty that flows from it, forgetting that all