suggest a bad motive as the most probable, gossips take up the scandal, and friends in their turn believe it true; while we, surprised and indignant that so innocent a mode of action should bear so injurious a construction, are unable to defend it, simply because it was out of the ordinary pale of human conduct, though prompted by the same motives which influence the rest of mankind.
It may justly be said of the world, that in one sense it is a cruel censor of woman; but in another it is kind. It is, as I have just described, unjustly severe upon individual singularity; but by its harsh and ready censures, how many does it deter from entering upon the same course of folly, so sure to end in wounded feeling, if not in loss of influence and respectability.
Let it then, be kept in mind, that woman, if she would preserve her peace, her safe footing in society, her influence, and her unblemished purity, must avoid remark as an individual, at least in public. The piquant amusements of home, consist much in the display of originality of character, and there it is safe. There her feelings are understood, her motives are trusted to, because they have been long known, and there the brooding wing of parental love is, ever ready to shroud her peculiarities, from too dangerous an exposure. In the world it is not so. Society is very false to us in this respect. For the sake of an evening's, entertainment, singularity is encouraged and drawn out. The mistress of the house, who wishes only to see her party amused, feels no scruple in placing this temptation, before unguarded youth. But let not the ready laugh, the gay response, the flattering attention, for a moment deceive, you as to the real state of the case. It is "seeming all," and those who have been the most amused by your singularities, will not be the last to make them the subject of bitter and injurious remark.
