When those who have been born in the lap of luxury, have been nurtured with tenderness, instructed with care, reared in plenty, surrounded by blessings, caressed with kindred’s holy affection, elevated above the incitements of want, and gifted with that knowledge of good and evil which is imparted by the cultivation of the mind and the aid of religion, yield to temptation, and fall away before seductive arts--what shall be said of her who, unaided by any of these advantages, passes through her path of fire uncharred? What is she among her human sisters, who, endowed alone with that fatal gift to the poor girl--fair looks, struggles with penury and starvation, toils from dawn far, far into the long night, with dim and weary eyelids, and aching fingers, endures the severest straits of destitution, arising from most scantily remunerated labour, yet faces her danger nobly--resists those fascinating temptations which are so terrible in their power to the beautiful but penniless of her sex--wrestles bravely with her narrowed means, and rising superior to all those allurements, which are aided by the urgings of grim want, preserves her purity and her self-respect unsullied, and her independence unabased?
What is she among women who, being driven by society itself--in its hunger on the one hand after wealth, and on the other after cheapness--into the very corner of desperation, comes from her crushing ordeal unbruised and undefiled?
Oh! reader, look about you; there are many Lotte Clintons in the throes of mortal agony nearer to you than you suspect. If they are fainting under their burden, can you not afford them a little aid to surmount their miserable destitution, and lift them out of their despair?
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flower Of The Flock, Volume III (of III), by Pierce Egan