what instinct is to brutes. It is very
different from genius or talent, as they are commonly defined; but much
better than either. It never blazes forth with the splendor of noon,
but shines with a constant and useful light. To the housewife--but,
above all, to the mother,--it is indispensable.

3. DESIRE FOR IMPROVEMENT.

Whatever other recommendations a lady may possess, she should have an
inextinguishable thirst for improvement. No sensible person can be
truly happy in the world, without this; much less qualified to make
others happy. But the genuine spirit of improvement, wherever it
exists, atones for the absence of many qualities which would otherwise
be indispensable: in this respect resembling that 'charity' which
covers 'a multitude of sins.' Without it, almost everything would be of
little consequence,--with it, every thing else is rendered doubly
valuable.

One would think that every sensible person, of either sex, would aspire
at improvement, were it merely to avoid the shame of being stationary
like the brutes. Above all, it is most surprising that any lady should
be satisfied to pass a day or even an hour without mental and moral
progress. It is no discredit to the lower animals that--'their little
all flows in at once,' that 'in ages they no more can know, or covet or
enjoy,' for this is the legitimate result of the physical constitution
which God has given them. But it is far otherwise with the masters and
mistresses of creation; for

'Were man to live coeval with the sun,
The patriarch pupil _should_ be learning still,
And dying, leave his lessons half unlearnt.'

There are,--I am sorry to say it--not a few of both sexes who never
appear to breathe out one hearty desire to rise, intellectually or
morally, with a view to the government of themselves or others. They
love themselves supremely--their friends subordinately--their
neighbors, perhaps not at all. But neither the love they bear to
themselves or others ever leads them to a single series of any sort of
action which has for its ultimate object the improvement of any thing
higher than the condition of the mere animal. Dress, personal
appearance, equipage, style of a dwelling or its furniture, with no
other view, however, than the promotion of mere physical enjoyment, is
the height of their desires for improvement!

Talk to them of elevating the intellect or improving the heart, and
they admit it is true; but they go their way an