curves
of form, yet delicacy and refinement in every portion of her anatomy,
she breathed love and radiated sympathy. I thought of her as the ideal
woman in embryo; and the brightness of her intellect was the finishing
touch to a perfect girlhood. I saw her again at twenty-four. She had
graduated from an American college and had taken two years in a foreign
institution of learning. She had carried away all the honours--but,
alas, the higher education had carried away all her charms of person and
of temperament. Attenuated, pallid, sharp-featured, she appeared much
older than her years, and the lovely, confiding and tender qualities of
mind, which made her so attractive to older people, had given place to
cold austerity and hypercriticism.

Men were only objects of amusement, indifference, or ridicule to her.
Sentiment she regarded as an indication of crudity, emotion as an
insignia of vulgarity. The heart was a purely physical organ, she knew
from her studies in anatomy. It was no more the seat of emotion than
the liver or lungs. The brain was the only portion of the human being
which appealed to her, and "educated" people were the only ones who
interested her, because they were capable of argument and discussion of
intellectual problems--her one source of entertainment.

Half an hour in the society of this over-trained young person left one
exhausted and disillusioned with brainy women. I beg you to pay no such
price for an education as this young girl paid. I remember you as a
robust, rosy girl, with charming manners. Your mother was concerned, on
my last visit, because I called you a pretty girl in your hearing. She
said the one effort of her life was to rear a sensible Christian
daughter with no vanity. She could not understand my point of view when
I said I should regret it if a daughter of mine was without vanity, and
that I should strive to awaken it in her. Cultivate enough vanity to
care about your personal appearance and your deportment. No amount of
education can recompense a woman for the loss of complexion, figure,
or charm. And do not let your emotional and affectional nature grow
atrophied.

Control your emotions, but do not crucify them.

Do not mistake frigidity for serenity, nor austerity for self-control.
Be affable, amiable, and sweet, no matter how much you know. And listen
more than you talk.

The woman who knows how to show interest is tenfold more attractive than
the woman who is for ever a