University of Virginia Library

Wednesday, A. M.

Miscellaneous Directions for
the Government of the Temper
and Manners.

“I shall now,” said Mrs. Williams,
“endeavour to sketch out for you the plan of
conduct, which I think will be most conducive
to your honor and happiness while in a single
state. Hitherto you have been under the direction
of parents, guardians, and instructors, who
have regulated your deportment, and laboured to
give you just ideas upon every subject and occasion.
That period is now over. You are
now launching into life, where you will think
and act more for yourselves.

“The path of rectitude, my dear young friends,
is narrow and intricate. Temptations lurk around
to beguile your feet astray; and dangers
which appear insurmountable will often arise to
affright you from the ways of virtue.

“But remember that a crown of honor and
happiness awaits the undeviating pursuit of truth
and duty. Let religion be your guide, and discretion
your handmaid. Thus attended, you

will escape the snares of youth, and surmount
the perplexing cares of more advanced age. At
your entrance on the stage of action, the allurements
of pleasure will spread innumerable charms
to court your acceptance. Beware of their fascinating
wiles; and whatever course you adopt, be
sure it is such as will bear the test of examination
and reflection. Let these be the criterion
of all your pursuits and enjoyments. Make it an
invariable practice to re-trace the actions and occurrences
of the day, when you retire to rest;
to account with your own hearts for the use and
improvement of the past hours; and rectify
whatever you find amiss, by greater vigilance and
caution, in future; to avoid the errors into
which you have fallen, and to discharge the duties
incumbent upon you.

“To neglect this, will be a source of great
inadvertencies and failings.

“To know yourselves, in every particular,
must be your constant endeavour. This knowledge
will lead you to propriety and consistency
of action. But this knowledge cannot be obtained
without a thorough and repeated inspection
of your various passions, affections, and propensities.
When obtained, however, it will
prevent the ill effects of flattery, by which you
will doubtless be endangered, as you advance
into the scenes of fashionable life. It will enable
you to distinguish flattery from that generous

praise which is the effusion of a feeling heart,
affected by the perception of real merit. A
young lady, unskilled in the deceitful arts of a
giddy world, is very apt to be misled by the adulation
which is offered at the shrine of vanity.
She is considered as a mark for the wit of every
coxcomb, who wishes to display his gallantry.

“Flattery is a dazzling meteor, which casts a
delusive glare before the eye; and which seduces
the imagination, perverts the judgment, and silences
the dictates of sound reason. Flattery is,
therefore, the poison and bane of the youthful
mind. It renders the receiver blind to those
defects which she ought to see and rectify, and
proud of imaginary graces which she never yet
possessed. Self-knowledge, as before observed,
will facilitate the detection of this disguised adversary,
by enabling you to investigate your real
accomplishments and merits.

“That praise which is the result of deserved
approbation from those, whose good opinion you
wish to enjoy, is worthy your attention and grateful
acceptance: but the fulsome compliments
and hyperbolical professions of unmeaning and
empty pretenders, calculated only to fill the imagination
with the inflammable air of self-conceit
and arrogant pride, should be rejected with disdain,
and cordially despised by every lady of sense
and sentiment, as an insult upon her understanding,
and an indignity to her sensibility.

“Let it, therefore, be known to those who
court your favour by an oftentatious parade of
admiration and obsequiousness, that their dissimulation
and duplicity are discovered, and that
you are superior to such futility.

“In order to discriminate between flattery and
merited praise, critically examine your own heart
and life. By this mean you will ascertain what
is really your due, and what is merely the effect
of this insidious art. But let no ideas of your
own endowments, however just, elate you with
an opinion of your superior powers of pleasing.

“Be not ostentatious of your charms, either
of person or mind. Let modesty, diffidence, and
propriety regulate you, in regard to each. Exalted
advantages will render you an object of
envy to the weak minded of your own sex, and
of satire to the ill-natured part of the other.
Never obtrude even your real graces and accomplishments
upon the world. The penetrating
and judicious will see and applaud them,
while retiring from the gaze of a misjudging
and misrepresenting throng.

“Those who are solicitous for beauty should
remember that the expression of the countenance,

in which its very essence consists, depends on the
disposition of the mind.

“Beauty, my dear girls, is indeed a desirable
quality. Neither the pen of the moralist, nor
the spleen of the satyrist, nor the envy of such
as want it, could ever bring it into contempt or
neglect. Yet mere external beauty is transient
as the meteor, and frail as the bubble, which
floats on the surface of the watery element.

“Behold the disconsolate and despised Flirtilla!
and from her fate learn not to trust in the
effects or duration of this adventitious quality.

“Early in life, Flirtilla was taught that her
charms were irresistible; that she might aspire
to an absolute ascendency over the hearts and
passions of her votaries. A superficial, but fashionable
education added the allurements of art
to those of person, and rendered her a finished
coquette.

“Her beauty and the gaiety of her manners
gained her numerous admirers, who swarmed
around, like the insect tribe, eager to sip the

fragrance of the equally fair and fading rose.
The incense of flattery, in every form, was her
tribute.

“Elated by this, she gave free scope to her
ruling passions, the love of pleasure and dissipation.
Her best days were spent in the chase of
vanity; and she culled the flowers of life, without
considering, that substantial fruit would be
required at a more advanced period, as a substitute
for the fading blossoms of youth. Her
mind was barren of improvement, and consequently
destitute of resources.

“She vainly imagined the triumphs of beauty
to be permanent, till its declared enemy, the
small-pox, convinced her of the egregious mistake.
By this she found her empire suddenly
overturned. The merciless disorder had reduced
her to a level with the generality of her sex, in
appearance, and, in enjoyment, far below them.
Her glass faithfully represented this insupportable
reduction. Regret and chagrin heightened
the apparent calamity. She was remembered
only as the contrast of what she once had been.
Her lovers were disgusted with the change, and
sought more pleasing objects of attention; while
men of sentiment could not find a similarity of
disposition, in her, to induce a connexion.

“Her female acquaintance, who had envied
her as a rival, or feared her as a superior, now
insulted her with their pity, or mortified her

by remarks on the surprising alteration in her
appearance.

“Finding no alleviation from society, she retired
from the world to nurse, in solitude, the
vexation and disappointment she experienced.

“View her now, peevish, discontented, and
gloomy! Her ideas of pleasure were centered in
that person, which is now neglected; in those endowments
which have now forsaken her forever!

“Thought she studiously shuns; for she has
nothing pleasing to occupy her reflections, but
what is irretrievably lost!

“Miserable Flirtilla! thou trustedst in vanity,
and vanity is thy recompense! How happy
mightest thou have been, even in this change,
if thy heart had been rectified, thy understanding
improved, and thy mind liberally stored with
useful sentiments, knowledge, and information!

“Cultivate, then, my young friends, those
dispositions and attainments, which will yield
permanent and real satisfaction, when sickness,
adversity, or age shall have robbed your eyes of
their lustre, and diminished the bloom and spright-liness
of your forms.

“You are doubtless sensible that your happiness,
in life, does not depend so much on your
external, as your internal graces.

“The constitutional temper of your minds
was given you by nature; but reason is added
for its regulation.

“Our passions were certainly implanted for
wife and benevolent purposes; and, if properly
directed, may be of great utility. This direction
nature will teach, and education improve. To
their precepts we must implicitly listen, if we
would become respectable or contented.

“Examine yourselves, therefore, with impartial
scrutiny. Find out your particular faults in
this respect, and exert your unwearied industry
to amend them.

“Possibly you may be naturally hasty, passionate,
or vindictive. If so, how wretched, at times,
must the indulgence of this temper render you!
When reason, awhile suspended, resumes its
empire, and calm reflection succeeds the riot of
passion, how severe must be your self-condemnation,
and how keen your sensations of regret!
Perhaps an unkindness of expression to some particular
friend, disrespectful treatment of an honored
superior, ill-timed resentment to a beloved
equal, or imperious and unbecoming severity to
a deserving inferior, may give you the most painful
emotions, and degrade you in your own, as
well as in the estimation of every observer! To
prevent this evil, accustom yourselves to check
the first risings of anger, and suspend every expression
of displeasure, till you can deliberate
on the provocation, and the propriety of noticing

it. It may have been undesigned, and, therefore,
not justly provoking. You may have misunderstood
the word, or action of offence, and inquiry
may remove the grounds of your suspicion:
or the person offending may be one with whom
prudence and honor require you not to enter the
lists. But if neither of these considerations occur,
reflect a moment, that your own reputation
and consequent happiness are at stake; and that
to lose the command of yourselves and your passions
is inconsistent with the delicacy of ladies,
the moderation of christians, and the dignity of
rational beings.

“Let every sally alarm, and excite you to rally
and new-discipline your forces; and to be
more strictly on your guard against the assaults
of your foe.

“The character of Camilla is a pattern worthy
of your imitation. While very young, Camilla
was unfortunately deprived of the instruction
and regulating hand of a discreet and
judicious mother. Her father was too much
immersed in business to attend to the cultivation
of his daughter's mind.

“He gave her the means of a genteel education,
praifed her excellencies, and chid her
faults, without being at the pains of teaching
her how to amend them. The irritability of her
temper he rather indulged, confidering her as a
girl of spirit, who would make her way in the

world, in spite of obstacles. She was naturally
generous, tender-hearted, and humane; but her
temper was as uncontrollable as the whirlpool,
and as impetuous as the wind. Happily for her,
she had an uncommon strength of mind, a ready
apprehension, a quick perception, and a depth
of understanding, seldom equalled. She saw her
errors, was conscious of her failings, and a severe
sufferer for her faults. But such was the
extreme quickness of her feelings, and so passionate
her resentment of any thing which appeared
injurious or affrontive, that she could not always
repress them. She married a gentleman of a similar
temper, and of equal prudence. In the union
of such violent spirits, great harmony could not
be presaged. Their passions were lively, their
affections ardent.

“Inadvertencies gave offence; frequent altercations
arose; both were tenacious of their
rights, and averse to condescension. Camilla
saw the impending danger; she became sensible
that the happiness of her life depended on
amendment and caution; she resolved to avoid

giving or taking offence, with the greatest diligence;
to suppress every emotion of anger;
and when she thought herself injured, to retire,
or be silent, till passion had subsided, and she
could regain her calmness.

“This was a hard task, at first; but perseverance
rendered it effectual to a thorough reformation
in each.

“Her example and pathetic admonitions induced
her husband to adopt her prudent plan.
They found their mutual endeavours productive
of real satisfaction, and happiness the reward of
their exertions to secure it.

“To be vindictive is equally, perhaps more
fatal to our own, and the peace of others, than
to be passionate. Violent passions of all kinds
are generally transient; but revenge is the offspring
of malice, the parent of discord, and the
bane of social love. It is an evidence of a weak
and sickly mind. True greatness will rise superior
to this ignoble spirit, so peculiarly ungraceful
in a lady, and inconsistent with that delicacy
and sostness, which ought ever to characterize
the sex.

“But an envious temper is, of all others, the
most degrading and miserable. Envy is a malignant
poison, which rankles in the heart, and
destroys the inward peace; even while there is
an outward appearance of serenity. That mind,
which cannot rejoice in the happiness of others,

is capable of very little in itself. To look with
a grudging and evil eye on the enjoyments of our
neighbour, must be a source of perpetual chagrin
and mortification.

“Envy indulged, is a punishment to its possessor.
Eradicate, then, the first, and every emotion of
so corroding and destructive a nature; and endeavour
to excel only by that virtuous emulation,
which is productive of improvement and respectability.

“A kind, compassionate, benevolent, humane
disposition is an invaluable treasure. It will render
you blessings to society, and objects of universal
esteem.

“This amiable temper, however, may sometimes
degenerate into weakness.

“Prudence should be exercised, even in the
indulgence of the most engaging qualities. In
the progress of life, occasions may call for that
resolution and fortitude, which admit not of apparent
softness; but such occasions very seldom
occur.

“How alluring are the charms of sympathy and
charity! Happy are they who always feel the

one, and have power and inclination to exemplify
the other!