Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/84

Rh from a want of knowledge, as little can we estimate the amount of good, of which knowledge lays the foundation. Perhaps one of its greatest recommendations to a woman, is the tendency it has to diffuse a calm over the ruffled spirit, and to supply subjects of interesting reflection, under circumstances the least favourable to the acquisition of new ideas.

Such is the position in society which many estimable women are called to fill, that unless they have stored their minds with general knowledge during the season of youth, they never have the opportunity of doing so again. How valuable, then, is such a store, to draw upon for thought, when the hand throughout the day is busily employed, and sometimes when the head is also weary. It is then that knowledge not only sweetens labour, but often, when the task is ended, and a few social friends are met together, it comes forth unbidden, in those glimpses of illumination which a well-informed, intelligent woman, is able to strike out of the humblest material. It is then that, without the slightest attempt at display, her memory helps her to throw in those apt allusions, which clothe the most familiar objects in borrowed light, and make us feel, after having enjoyed her society, as if we had been introduced to a new, and more intellectual existence than we had enjoyed before.

It is impossible for an ignorant, and consequently a short-sighted, prejudiced woman, to exercise this influence over us. We soon perceive the bounds of the narrow circle within which she reasons, with self ever in the centre; we detect the opinions of others, in her own; and we feel the vulgarity with which her remarks may turn upon ourselves, the moment we are gone.

How different is the enjoyment, the repose we feel in the society of a well-informed woman, who has acquired in early youth the habit of looking beyond the little affairs of