an indifference to topics the most important; from a cold vanity, from the overflows of self-love, exhibiting itself under the smiling mask of an engaging flattery; and from all the factitious manners of artificial intercourse.  We do wish to see the time passed in polished and intelligent society considered as the pleasant portion of our existence, and not consigned to premeditated trifling and systematic unprofitableness.  Women too little live or converse up to their understandings; and however we deprecate affectation and pedantry, let it be remembered that both in reading and conversing, the understanding gains more by stretching than stooping.  The mind by applying itself to objects below its level, contracts and shrinks itself to the size of the object about which it is conversant.  In the faculty of speaking well, ladies have such a happy promptitude of turning their slender advantages to account, that though never taught a rule of syntax, they hardly ever violate one, and often possess an elegant arrangement of style without having studied any of the laws of composition, And yet they are too ready to produce not only pedantic expressions, but crude notions and hackneyed remarks with all the vanity of conscious discovery, and all from reading mere abridgments and scanty sketches rather than exhausting subjects.”

Equally forcible are her remarks on society:—­

“Perhaps,” said she, “the interests of friendship, elegant conversation, and true social pleasure, never received such a blow as when fashion issued the decree that everybody must be acquainted with everybody.  The decline of instructive conversation has been effected in a great measure by the barbarous habit of assembly en masse, where one hears the same succession of unmeaning platitudes, mutual insincerities, and aimless inquiries.  It would be trite, however, to dwell on the vapid talk which must almost of necessity mark those who assemble in crowds, and which we are taught to call society, which really cannot exist without the free interchange of thought and sentiment.  Hence society only truly shines in small and select circles of people of high intelligence, who are drawn together by friendship as well as admiration.”

About two years after this work on education appeared,—­education in the broadest sense, pertaining to woman at home and in society as well as at school,—­Hannah More moved from her little thatched cottage, and built Barley Wood,—­a large villa, where she could entertain the increasing circle of her friends, who were at this period only the learned, the pious, and the distinguished, especially bishops like Porteus and Horne, and philanthropists like Wilberforce.  The beauty of this new residence amid woods and lawns attracted her sisters from Bath, who continued to live with her the rest of their lives, and to co-operate with her in deeds of benevolence.  In this charming retreat she wrote perhaps the most famous of her books,