Letters For Literary Ladies

Your tastes, you say, are fixed; if they are so, you must be doubly careful to ensure their gratification. If you cannot make them subservient to external circumstances, you should certainly, if it be in your power, choose a situation in which circumstances will be subservient to them. If you are convinced that you could not adopt the tastes of another, it will be absolutely necessary for your happiness to live with one whose tastes are similar to your own.

In three linked sections, Maria Edgeworth's first book makes a humorous contribution to the 1790s debate on women's intellectual emancipation.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 edition. Excerpt: ... LETTERS OF JULIA And CAROLINE. No penance can absolve their guilty fame, Nor tears, that wash out guilt, can wash out sliame. Prior. Iz JULIA And CAROLINE. LETTER I. Julia To Caroline. 1 N vain, dear Caroline, you urge me to think, I profess only to seel. "Refieil upon my own feelings! analyse w my notions of happiness 1 explain to "you my system!"--My system! But I have no system: that is the very difference between us. My notions of happiness cannot be resolved into simple, fixed, principles. Nor dare I even 13 attempt attempt to analyse them; the subtle essence would escape in the process: just punishment to the alchemist in morality! You, Caroline, are of a more sedate, contemplative character. Philosophy becomes the rigid mistress of your life, enchanting enthusiasm the companion of mine. Suppose she lead me now and then in pursuit of a-meteor; am not I happy in the chace? When one illu lion vanishes, another shall appear, and still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, thft happy prospect of futurity shall vanish, only with my existence. "Reflect upon my feelings!"--Deau Caroline, is it not enough, that I, do feel?--All that I dread is that apathy which which philosophers call tranquillity. You tell me that by continually indulge ing I shall weaken my natural sensibii lity;--are not all the faculties of the foul improved, refined by exercise, and why shall this be excepted from the general law? But I must not, you tell me, indulge: my taste for romance and poetry, lestI-waste that sympathy on fiStion whieb reality so much better deserves. My dear friend, let us cherish the precious propensity to pity! no matter what the object; sympathy with fiction or rea. lity, arises from the fame disposition. When...

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