ision and clearness in
which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because
they have so few inducements to test and classify what they
receive. To ascertain what pursuits are best suited to us, in
our time and state of society, and how we may make best use of
our means for building up the life of thought upon the life of
action.

'Could a circle be assembled in earnest, desirous to answer
the questions,--What were we born to do? and how shall we do
it?--which so few ever propose to themselves till their best
years are gone by, I should think the undertaking a noble one,
and, if my resources should prove sufficient to make me its
moving spring, I should be willing to give to it a large
portion of those coming years, which will, as I hope, be my
best. I look upon it with no blind enthusiasm, nor unlimited
faith, but with a confidence that I have attained a distinct
perception of means, which, if there are persons competent to
direct them, can supply a great want, and promote really high
objects. So far as I have tried them yet, they have met with
success so much beyond my hopes, that my faith will not easily
be shaken, nor my earnestness chilled. Should I, however, be
disappointed in Boston, I could hardly hope that such a plan
could be brought to bear on general society, in any other city
of the United States. But I do not fear, if a good beginning
can be made. I am confident that twenty persons cannot be
brought together from better motives than vanity or pedantry,
to talk upon such subjects as we propose, without finding
in themselves great deficiencies, which they will be very
desirous to supply.

'Should the enterprise fail, it will be either from
incompetence in me, or that sort of vanity in them which wears
the garb of modesty. On the first of these points, I need not
speak. I cannot be supposed to have felt so much the wants of
others, without feeling my own still more deeply. And, from
the depth of this feeling, and the earnestness it gave, such
power as I have yet exerted has come. Of course, those who are
inclined to meet me, feel a confidence in me, and should they
be disappointed, I shall regret it not solely or most on my
own account. I have not given my gauge without measuring my
capacity to sustain defeat. For the other, I know it is very