ciating enter into their company, and what an exhibition of
Beauty and display would follow! Not one of them would try so much to
show her good sense as her pretty face. Let good sense sit back and look
on, and methinks it would be not a little disgusted.

Take fifty of the plainest young women from the same circles in our
town, and place them under similar circumstances, and, if I mistake not,
their behavior would be much more genteel and becoming, their
conversation much more interesting and intelligent, and their feelings
much more refined and noble. Am I wrong in this supposition? If I am
wrong, I have read woman-life to a poor purpose.

I have often seen sisters, one of whom was plain and the other handsome,
and almost invariably I have found the plain one more sensible and kind,
less vain and frivolous. Indeed, I have generally found value of
character to depreciate with increase of Beauty.

Why is it so? Is Beauty connected with less natural endowments of mind,
less kindness of heart? By no means. Is Beauty an evil in itself
considered? By no means. Is it morally corrupting? Not of itself. The
fault is with those who possess it. They abuse the lovely gift. They
attempt to make it answer in the place of good sense. They weigh it
against goodness of heart, and find it woefully wanting. They substitute
it for moral worth, put it in the place of refinement of manners, try to
make it win for them the esteem and love which can be given only to a
cultivated and noble spirit. And for all these purposes it utterly
fails. Besides this abuse of it, they usually become vain, proud, silly,
and frivolous. It need not be so, but it generally is so. I have often
noticed that people are not generally so vain of their own attainments
as they are of the gifts of God. A beautiful woman is more vain of her
beauty than she is of her personal attainments. A talented man is more
likely to be vain of his natural talents than of the culture he has
given them. A rich singer is more likely to be vain of his voice than of
what he has done to train it. So it is generally; we are more apt to be
vain of what God does for us than of what we do for ourselves. It is so
with the possessor of personal Beauty, and hence beautiful women are so
tempted to vanity and a neglect of all useful culture of mind and heart.
They think their Beauty will carry them through the world, and they need
not strive for worth of character; they may neglect the ordinary