114 LEARNED WOMEN AND SCIOLISTS. 



the' cultivation of their understandings by a course 

 of reading, it is forbidden by want of leisure and in- 

 clination. Their reading seldom extends beyond a 

 popular novel. They openly avow that they do not 

 think it necessary in order to make a figure in com- 

 pany, and therefore it is a useless labour ; " For," 

 says Charlotte, " if a young lady can dress, dance, 

 and play, there is no opportunity of inquiring whether 

 she knows a great deal. Besides, the men do not 

 choose learned wives, lest they should have more 

 knowledge than themselves." An elderly lady, who 

 was sitting by when she made this remark, said, that 

 men of sense were not afraid of women whose minds 

 were enriched with the productions of the best au- 

 thors ; but they very properly avoided the pedantic 

 display of smatterers in learning, who assumed, upon 

 very partial acquirements, a superiority to which 

 they had no pretensions : — that she who outstepped 

 the limits of that modesty which is the chief orna- 

 ment of the sex, whether in exhibiting her know- 

 ledge, or in the freedom of her manners, rendered her- 

 self equally an object of disgust and ridicule: — that 

 it was not ignorance, but humility, that was valued 

 in young women; and that, whilst they kept their 

 proper places, there was no danger of a well-fur- 

 nished mind exciting the jealousy of the other sex. 

 I was son*y her observations were interrupted by 



