"I should like to know why you think this," rejoined her friend; "it appears to me she should be much more so."
"My view of it is this," Mrs. W. replied: "a woman's sphere of usefulness, of happiness, and of affection, is a domestic circle; and even beyond it, all her task of life is to please and to be useful."
"In this we are quite agreed," said Mrs. A.; "but, since we are well set for an argument, let us have a little method in it. You would have your child useful, happy, and beloved, and so would I; but you think the means to this end, is to leave her mind uncultivated, narrow, and empty, and consequently weak."
"This, is not my meaning," replied Mrs. W.; "there are many steps between stupidity and talent, ignorance and learning. I will suppose my child what I wish her to be, about as much taught as women in general, who are esteemed clever, well-mannered, and well-accomplished. I think it is all that can contribute to her happiness. If her mind is occupied, as you will say, with little things, those little things are sufficient to its enjoyment, and much more likely to be within her reach than the greater matters that fill greater minds. My less accomplished character will enjoy herself where your superior woman would go to sleep, or hopelessly wish she might. In short, she will find fellowship and reciprocation in every little mind she meets with, while yours is left to pine in the solitude of her own greatness."
At the close of this speech, I felt quite determined that I would not be such a woman.
Mrs. A. rejoined, "You have left my genius in a doleful condition, though I question whether you will persuade her to come down. I will admit, however, for I am afraid I must, that the woman of talent is less likely to find reciprocation, or to receive enjoyment from ordinary people and ordinary circumstances; but then she is like the camel that traverses the desert safely where others perish, because it carries its sustenance in its own bosom. I never remember to have heard a really sensible and cultivated woman complain of _ennui_, under any circumstances--no small balance on the side of enjoyment positive, is misery escaped. But, to leave jesting, admitting that the woman of more elevated mind derives less pleasure from the adventitious circumstances that surround her, from what money can purchase, and a tranquil mind enjoy, and activity gather, of the passing flowers of life--she has enjoyments, independent of them, in the treasures of her own intellect. Where she finds reciprocation, it is a delight of which the measure compensates the rareness; and where she finds nothing else to enjoy, she can herself. And when the peopled walks of life become a wilderness; and the assiduities of friendship rest unclaimed; and sensible gratifications are withered before the blight of poverty; and the foot is too weary, and the eye is too dim, to go after what no one remembers to bring; still are her resources untouched. Poverty cannot diminish her revenue, or friendlessness leave her unaccompanied, or privation of every external incitement consign her to the void of unoccupied powers. She will traverse the desert, for her store is with her; and if, as you have suggested, she be doomed to supply others what no one pays her back, there is One who has said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"