MODEL WOMEN.
TO YOUNG WOMEN.
My dear Friends,
This volume is dedicated to you, because Ibelieve in the principles it enunciates, and hope thatmany of your sex may get them lodged in theirminds; and the conclusions to which they lead carriedout in their lives. While feeling a warm interestin your honour, I have endeavoured to avoid allindiscriminate eulogiums on the eminent women hereportrayed. The object of biography is to teach byexample; and although perfection is claimed for noneof the models here presented, yet each is worthy ofbeing enshrined in your hearts.
Whilst I should be sorry to see woman exchangingher home for the market-place, and her nursery forthe arena, I am anxious that she should not berobbed of some of the purest joys of life; and thatsociety, which so much needs her help, should not bedefrauded of her service. The housewife is woman’sproudest name. Honourable is her distaff, andequally honourable her careful management andthrift. But while discharging these duties with propriety—whiletaking nothing from her family—sheought to give fair attention to the many grievouswrongs which at present shackle her independenceand limit her usefulness. Woman is something morethan a mere housekeeper or nurse. Let her be trainedas a thinking being. By aiming at being only domestic,she will cease to be truly domestic.
In my selection of examples, I have necessarilybeen under the control of circumstances. Not a fewwomen, eminent in many respects, have been excludedfrom this collection, because, in consequence of somesad defects, they could not be held up as models oftrue womanhood. Several fairly entitled to placesamong “Model Women” would have been here, but,happily, they are still living; and for various reasonsI determined to confine myself to the dead. My intentionhas been to include only a few of the actorsand thinkers who have attained extensive celebrity;and the difficulty of fixing upon these I have foundso great, that I am prepared to have the judiciousnessof my choice frequently questioned. But I t