LETTERS TO YOUNG WOMEN. LETTER I. Dress-Its Proprieties and Abuses. A creature not too bright or good For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. I have observed, among all nations, that the women ornament themselves more than the men. JOHN LEDYARD. I ACCOUNT a pure, beautiful, intelligent, and well-bred woman, the most attractive object of vision and contemplation in the world. As mother, sister, and wife, such a woman is an angel of grace and goodness, and makes a heaven of the home which is sanctified and glorified by her presence. As an element of society she invites into finest demonstrations all that is good in the heart, and shames into secrecy and silence all that is unbecoming and despicable. There may be more of greatness and of glory in the higher developments of manhood, but, surely, in womanhood God most delights to show the beauty of the holiness and the sweetness of the love of which he is the infinite source. It is for this reason that a girl or a young woman is a very sacred thing to me. It is for this reason that a silly young woman or a vicious one makes me sigh or shudder. It is for this reason that I pray that I may write worthily to young women. In getting at a piece of work, it is often necessary, as a preliminary, to clear away rubbish; and I say at first that I do not write to masculine young women. I deem masculine women abnormal women, and I therefore refer all those women who wish to vote, who delight in the public exhibition of themselves, who bemoan the fate which drapes them in petticoats, who quarrel with St. Paul and their lot, who own more rights than they possess; and fail to fulfil the duties of their sphere while seeking for its enlargement-I refer all these to the eight letters recently addressed to young men. They will find some practical remarks in those letters upon masculine development and a manly discharge of life's duties. My theory may be very unsound, but it is my belief, that the first natural division of the human race is marked by the line that distinguishes the sexes. I believe that a true woman is just as different from a true man as a true man is different from a true woman. The nature and the constitution of the masculine are one, and the nature and constitution of the feminine are another. So of the glory attached to each; so of the functions; so of the sphere. Therefore, if there be "strong-minded women who read these letters, I bid them, with all kindness, to turn to the other series for that which will most benefit them. I shall talk first of that thing which, worthily or most unworthily, engages the minds of all young women, viz,-DRESS. I speak of this first, because it is part of the rubbish which I wish to get out of the way before commencing more serious work; and yet this is not altogether trivial. I believe in dress. I believe that God delights in beautiful things, and as he has never made anything more beautiful than woman, I believe that that mode of dressing the form and face which best harmonizes with their beauty, is that which pleases him best. I believe the mode of female dress prevalent among the Shaker women is absolute desecration. To take anything which infinite ingenuity and power have made beautiful, and capable by the gracefulness of its form and the harmony of its parts of producing the purest pleasure to the observer, and clothe it with a meal bag and crown it with a sugar-scoop, is an irreverent trifling with sacred things which should be punished by mulct and imprisonment. |