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Page 61
Have you not, then, felt at the quiet parties of which I have spoken (as
contrasted with dissipated ones) that it was pleasure enough for you to
spend your whole evening talking with persons of your own sex and age
over the simple occupations o� your daily-life, or the studies which
engage the interest of your already cultivated mind? Lady L. may have
collected a circle of admirers around her, and Miss M.'s music may have
been extolled as worthy of an artist, but upon all this you looked
merely as a spectator; without either wish or idea of sharing in their
publicity or their renown, you probably did not form a thought,
certainly not a wish, of the kind. In the ball-room, however, the case
is altogether different; the most simple and fresh-minded woman cannot
escape from feelings of pain or regret at being neglected or unobserved
here. She goes for the professed purpose of dancing; and when few or no
opportunities are afforded her of sharing in that which is the amusement
of the rest of the room, should she feel neither mortification at her
own position, nor envy, however disguised and modified, at the different
position of others, she can possess none of that sensitiveness which is
your distinctive quality. It is true, indeed, that the experienced
chaperon is well aware that the girl who commands the greatest number of
partners is not the one most likely to have the greatest number of
proposals-at the end of the season, nor the one who will finally make
the most successful _parti_. This reconciles the prudential looker-on to
the occasional and partial appearance of neglect. Not so the young and
inexperienced aspirant to admiration: _her_ worldliness is now in an
earlier phase; and she thinks that her fame rises or falls among her
companions according as she can compete with them in the number of her
partners, or their exclusive devotion to her, which after a season or
two is discovered to be a still safer test of successful coquetry. Thus
may the young innocent heart be gradually led on to depend for its
enjoyment on the factitious passing admiration of a light and
thoughtless hour; and still worse, if possessed of keen susceptibilities
and powers of quick adaptation, the lesson is often too easily learned
of practising the arts likely to attract notice, thus losing for ever
the simplicity and modest freshness of a woman's nature. That may be a
fatal evening to you on which you will first attract sufficient notice
to have it said of you that you were more admired than Lucy D. or Ellen
M.; this may be a moment for a poisonous plant to spring up in your
heart, which will spread around its baleful influence until your dying
day. It is a disputed point among ethical metaphysicians, whether the
seeds of every vice are equally planted in each human bosom, and only
prevented from germinating by opposing circumstances, and by the grace
of God assisting self-control. If this be true, how carefully ought we
to avoid every circumstance that may favour the commencing existence of
before unknown sins and temptations. The grain that has been destitute
of vitality for a score of centuries is wakened into unceasing, because
continually renewed existence, by the fostering influences of light and
air and a suitable soil. Evil tendencies may be slumbering in your
bosom, as destitute of life, as incapable of growth, as the oats in the
foldings of the mummy's envelope. Be careful lest, by going into the way
of temptation, you may involuntarily foster them into the very existence
which they would otherwise never possess.
When once the craving for excitement has become a part of our nature,
there is of course no safety in the quietest, or, under other
circumstances, most innocent kind of society. The same amusements will
be sought for in it as those which have been enjoyed in the ball-room,
and every company will be considered insufferably wearisome which does
not furnish the now necessary stimulant of exclusive attention and
general admiration.
I write the more strongly to you on the subject of worldly amusements,
because I see with regret a tendency in the writings and conversation of
the religious world, as it is called, to extol every other species of
self-denial, but to Observe a studied silence respecting this one.
A reaction seems to have taken place in the public mind. Instead of the
puritanic strictness that condemned the meeting of a few friends for any
purposes besides those of reading the Scriptures and praying extempore,
practices are now introduced, and favoured, and considered harmless,
almost as strongly contrasted with the former ones as was the
promulgation of the Book of Sports with the strict observances that
preceded it. We see some, of whose piety and excellence no doubt can be
entertained, mingling unhesitatingly in the most worldly amusements of
those who are by profession as well as practice "lovers of pleasure more
than lovers of God."
How cruelly are the minds of the simple and the timid perplexed by the
persons who thus act, as well as by those popular writings which
countenance in professedly religious persons these worldly and
self-indulgent habits of life. The hearts and the consciences of the
"weak brethren" re-echo the warnings given them by the average opinions
of the wise and good in all ages of the world, namely, that, with
respect to worldly amusements, they must "come out and be separate." How
else can they be sons and daughters of Him, to whom they vowed, as the
necessary condition of entering into that high relationship, that they
would "renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world?" If the
question of pomps should be perplexing to some by the different
requirements of different stations in life, there is surely less
difficulty of the same kind in relation to its vanities. But while the
"weak in faith" are hesitating and trembling at the thought of all the
opposition and sacrifices a self-denying course of conduct must, under
any circumstances, involve, they are still further discouraged by
finding that some whom they are accustomed to respect and admire have in
appearance gone over to the enemy's camp.
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