It is our design to present a pleasing and interestingmiscellany, which will serve to beguile theleisure hour, and will at the same time coupleinstruction with amusement. We have used butlittle method in the arrangement: Choosing ratherto furnish the reader with a rich profusion of narrativesand anecdotes, all tending to illustrate the
FEMALE CHARACTER,
to display its delicacy, its sweetness, its gentle orsometimes heroic virtues, its amiable weaknesses,and strange defects—than to attempt an accurateanalysis of the hardest subject man ever attemptedto master, viz—WOMAN.
It will be seen that we do not set down Womanas a cipher in the account of human beings. Weaccord to her her full share of importance in theworld, and we have not attempted to relieve herfrom a sense of her responsibility as an accountablebeing. Above all, we have not failed to impressupon her the obligations she is under to Christianity,whose benign influences have raised herto be the companion and bosom-friend of man,[pvi] instead of his mere handmaid and dependant. Itis religion that must form such a character as thefollowing, which though applied by Pope to one ofthe most accomplished women of his time, is thatof a Christian Wife in every age and station,—