gument she ever used with such, was the _argumentum ad hominem_, which
saves the trouble of conviction by "giving over to hardness of heart."
New England was, to her, the land of Goshen--whither God's people had
been led by God's hand--"the land of the patriarchs, where it rains
righteousness"[81]--and all the adjacent country was a land of Egyptian
darkness.

She was commendably prudent in her personal deportment: being thoroughly
pure and circumspect herself, she could forgive no thoughtless
imprudence in her sister-woman: but she well-understood metaphysical
distinctions, and was tolerant, if not liberal, to marriageable men.
These she could hope to reform at some future time: and she had,
moreover, a just idea of the weakness of man's nature. But being a
woman, and a staid and sober-minded woman, she could never understand
the power of temptation upon her own sex, or the commonest impulses of
high spirits. Perhaps she was a little deficient in charity: but, as we
have seen, it was chiefly toward her female friends, and since none can
bear severe judgment more safely than woman, her austerity did little
harm.

But she sincerely regretted what she could never palliate; she hated not
the guilty, though she could not forgive the sin; and no one was more
easily melted to tears by the faults, and particularly by the _follies_,
of the world. Wickedness is a very melancholy thing, but it is to be
punished as well as lamented: and like the unfortunate governor who was
forced to condemn his own son, she wept while she pronounced judgment.
But earthly sorrow, by her, was given only to earthly faults: violations
of simple good morals, crimes against heavenly creeds and forms (or
rather _the_ form) of worship, claimed no tear. Her blood rose to
fever-heat at the mention of an unbeliever, and she would as soon have
wept for the errors of the fallen angels, as for those of
anti-Robinsonians.

But though thus rigid and austere, I never heard that she was at all
disinclined to being courted: especially if it gave her any prospect of
being able to make herself useful as a wife, either to herself, her
husband, or her country. She understood the art of rearing and managing
children, in her capacity as a teacher: she was thus peculiarly
well-fitted for matrimonial duties, and was unwilling that the world
should lose the benefit of her talents. But the man who courted her must
do so in the most sober, staid, and regulated spirit,