Not that I very much wonder at literary men regarding the education of wives as a matter of moment. The worse halves of Socrates, Milton, Hooker, have been thorns in their sides, urging them into blasphemy against the sex. But is this a reason, I only ask you, for leaving, like an uncultivated waste, that holy army of martyrs, the spinsterhood of Great Britain?
Mr Editor, act like a man! Speak up for us! Write up for us! Tell these little writers of little books, that however they may think to secure dinners and suppers to themselves, by currying favour with the rulers of the roast, _the greatest of all women have been_ SINGLE! Tell them of our Virgin Queen, Elizabeth--the patroness of their calling, the protectress of learning and learned men. Tell them of Joan of Arc, the conqueror of even English chivalry. Tell them of all the tender mercies of the _Soeurs de Charité_! Tell them that, from the throne to the hospital, the spinster, unharassed by the cares of private life, has been found most fruitful in public virtue.
Then, perhaps, you will persuade them that we are worth our schooling; and the "Old Maids of England" may look forward to receive a tabby-bound manual of their duties, as well as its "Wives." I have really no patience with the selfish conceit of these married women, who fancy their well-doing of such importance. See how they were held by the ancients!--treated like beasts of burden, and denied the privilege of all mental accomplishment. When the Grecian matrons affected to weep over the slain, after some victory of Themistocles, the Athenian general bade them "dry their tears, and practise a single virtue in atonement of all their weaknesses." It was to their single women the philosophers of the portico addressed their lessons; not to the domestic drudges, whom they considered only worthy to inspect the distaffs of their slaves, and produce sons for the service of the country.
In Bath, Brighton, and other spinster colonies of this island, the demand for such a work would be prodigious. The sale of canary-birds and poodles might suffer a temporary depression in consequence; but this is comparatively unimportant. Perhaps--who knows--so positive a recognition of our estate as a definite class of the community, might lead to the long desiderated establishment of a lay convent, somewhat similar to the _béguinages_ of Flanders, though less ostensibly subject to religious law--a convent where single gentlewomen might unite together in their meals and devotions, under the government of a code of laws set forth in their tabby-bound Koran.