rls to exaggerate the importance of getting married; and of course
to place an undue importance upon the polite attentions of gentlemen.
It was but a few days since, I heard a pretty and sensible girl say,
'Did you ever see a man so ridiculously fond of his daughters as Mr.
----? He is all the time with them. The other night, at the party,
I went and took Anna away by mere force; for I knew she must feel
dreadfully to have her father waiting upon her all the time, while the
other girls were talking with the beaux.' And another young friend of
mine said, with an air most laughably serious, 'I don't think Harriet
and Julia enjoyed themselves at all last night. Don't you think,
nobody but their _brother_ offered to hand them to the supper-room?'

That a mother should wish to see her daughters happily married, is
natural and proper; that a young lady should be pleased with polite
attentions is likewise natural and innocent; but this undue anxiety,
this foolish excitement about showing off the attentions of somebody,
no matter whom, is attended with consequences seriously injurious. It
promotes envy and rivalship; it leads our young girls to spend their
time between the public streets, the ball room, and the toilet; and,
worst of all, it leads them to contract engagements, without any
knowledge of their own hearts, merely for the sake of being married as
soon as their companions. When married, they find themselves ignorant
of the important duties of domestic life; and its quiet pleasures
soon grow tiresome to minds worn out by frivolous excitements. If they
remain unmarried, their disappointment and discontent are, of course,
in proportion to their exaggerated idea of the eclat attendant upon
having a lover. The evil increases in a startling ratio; for these
girls, so injudiciously educated, will, nine times out of ten,
make injudicious mothers, aunts, and friends; thus follies will be
accumulated unto the third and fourth generation. Young ladies should
be taught that usefulness is happiness, and that all other things are
but incidental. With regard to matrimonial speculations, they should
be taught nothing! Leave the affections to nature and to truth, and
all will end well. How many can I at this moment recollect, who have
made themselves unhappy by marrying for the sake of the _name_ of
being married! How many do I know, who have been instructed to such
watchfulness in the game, that they have lost it by trumping their own