ings; she was made to romp, and to
dance and to play; to read story books, and make dolls' clothes. Her
physical powers were thus occupied; but where was her mind the while?
Feeding itself with fancies, for want of truths; drawing false
conclusions, forming wrong judgments, and brooding over its own
mistakes, for want of a judicious occupation of its activities.

Another maxim was, to keep Jemima ignorant of her own capacity, lest she
should set up for a genius, and be undomesticated. She was told she had
none, and was left in ignorance of what she was capable, and for what
she was responsible. Made to believe that her fine feelings were
oddities, her expansive thoughts absurdities, and her love of knowledge
unfeminine and ungraceful, she kept them to herself, and became
reserved, timid, and artificial.

Nobody could prevent Jemima's acquiring knowledge; she saw every thing,
reflected upon every thing, and learned from every thing; but without
guide, and without discretion, she gathered the honey and the gall
together, and knew not which was which. She was sent to school that she
might learn to play, and fetched home that she might learn to be useful.
In the former place she was shunned as an oddity, because she preferred
to learn; and, finding herself disliked without deserving it,
encouraged herself to independence by disliking every body. In the
latter, she sewed her work awry, while she made a couplet to the moon,
and unpicked it while she made another; and being told she did every
thing ill, believed it, and became indolent and careless to do any
thing. Consumed, meanwhile, by the restless workings of her mind, and
tasked to exercise for which its delicate frame-work was unfit, her
person became faded, worn, and feeble.

To be brief, her parents succeeded in baffling nature's promise, but
failed of the fulfillment of their own. At twenty, Jemima was a puzzle
to every body, and a weariness to herself. Conscious of her powers, but
not knowing how to spend them, she gave in to every imaginable caprice.
Having made the discovery of her superiority, she despised the opinions
of others, while her own were too ill-formed to be her guide. Proud of
possessing talent, and yet ashamed to show it; unaccustomed to explain
herself; certain of being misunderstood, and least of all understanding
herself; ignorant, in the midst of knowledge, and incapable with
unlimited capacity; tasteless for every thing she did, and ignorant ho