repay attendance, if they consisted only in supplying a point of union to well-educated and thinking women, in a city which, with great pretensions to mental refinement, boasts at present nothing of the kind; and where I have heard many of mature age wish for some such place of stimulus and cheer; and those younger, for a place where they could state their doubts and difficulties, with a hope of gaining aid from the experience or aspirations of others. And if my office were only to suggest topics, which would lead to conversation of a better order than is usual at social meetings, and to turn back the current when digressing into personalities or commonplaces, so that what is most valuable in the experience of each might be brought to bear upon all, I should think the object not unworthy of the effort. But my ambition goes much farther. It is to pass in review the departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in due relation to one another in our mind. To systematize thought and give a precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and classify what they receive. To ascertain what pursuits are best suited to us, in our time and state of society, and how we may make the best use of our means for building up the life of thought upon the life of action. …
“I believe I have written as much as any one will wish to read. I am ready to answer any questions which may be put, and will add nothing more here except,
Always yours truly,
The conversations began November 6, 1839, at
- ↑ MS.
