Thus spoke Hannah More at the age of fifty-four, with a wider experience of society and a profounder knowledge of her sex than any Englishwoman of the eighteenth century, and as distinguished for her intellectual gifts and cultivation as she was for her social graces and charms,—­the pet and admiration of all who were great and good in her day, both among men and women.  Bear these facts in mind, ye obscure, inexperienced, discontented, envious, ambitious seekers after notoriety or novelty!—­ye rebellious and defiant opponents of the ordinances of God and the laws of Nature, if such women there are!—­remember that the sentiments I have just quoted came from the pen of a woman, and not of a man; of a woman who was the best friend of her sex, and the most enlightened advocate of their education that lived in the last century; and a woman who, if she were living now, would undoubtedly be classed with those whom we call strong-minded, and perhaps masculine and ambitious.  She recognizes the eternal distinction between the sphere of a man and the sphere of a woman, without admitting any inferiority of woman to man, except in physical strength and a sort of masculine power of generalization and grasp.  And she would educate woman for her own sphere, not for the sphere of man, whatever Christianity, or experience, or reason may define that sphere to be.  She would make woman useful, interesting, lofty; she would give dignity to her soul; she would make her the friend and helpmate of man, not his rival; she would make her a Christian woman, since, with Christian virtues and graces and principles, she will not be led astray.

But I would not dwell on ground which may be controverted, and which to some may appear discourteous or discouraging to those noble women who are doomed by dire and hard misfortunes, by terrible necessities, to labor in some fields which have been assigned to man, and in which departments they have earned the admiration and respect of men themselves.  This subject is only one in a hundred which Hannah More discussed with clearness, power, and wisdom.  She is equally valuable and impressive in what she says of conversation,—­a realm in which she had no superior.  Hear what she says about this gift or art: 

“Do we wish to see women take a lead in metaphysical disquisitions,—­to plunge in the depths of theological polemics?  Do we wish to enthrone them in the chairs of our universities, to deliver oracles, harangues, and dissertations?  Do we desire to behold them, inflated with their original powers, laboring to strike out sparks of wit, with a restless anxiety to shine, and with a labored affectation to please, which never pleases?  All this be far from them!  But we do wish to see the conversation of well-bred women rescued from vapid commonplaces, from uninteresting tattle, from trite communications, from frivolous earnestness, from false sensibility, from a warm interest about things of no moment, and