THE . Mr. Sherlock being one day in company with a number of young ladies, the conversation happened to turn on the courage of their own sex. One observed, that Miss Lovelace had a resolution above being by her , and was to dress as she liked; while another gave it as her opinion, that it would be better for her to check her temper, and submit to the will of her guardians. "If ever I should be married," said one of the young ladies, "I think I shall have courage enough to make my husband do as I please."—"You may be right, miss," said another, "but I think, should I ever be married, I shall always consult my husband's opinion, and readily submit to it, whenever reason seems to require it."
The young ladies kept up this kind of conversation for some time; when, at last, finding their opinions were so different, they requested the reverend divine to give them his sentiments, wherein true female courage consisted.
"I have," said Dr. Sherlock, "been listening to your conversation, and, as you have been pleased to appeal to me, I shall speak truth, without the least reserve. I hope you will attend to what I am going to say, and treasure it up in your minds.
"I consider true courage as one of the noblest of the fair sex, since it must be allowed, that without a becoming resolution, many female would be lost, and sunk in obscurity, and that even itself, unassisted by true courage, would soon to a shadow. I doubt not but that each of you young ladies flatter yourselves with being of this noble ; but permit me to tell you, that it is not every possessor of a pretty face who knows what it is. It is not Xantippe, but Lucretia, whom I call the woman of true courage.
"Xantippe is the daughter of two noble personages, and the wife of a sensible and man; the mother of a blooming offspring, and the sole mistress of a fortune, the produce of which her husband cannot receive without her order. Elated with the thoughts of her high birth, and sensible of the her husband has on her will, she subjects him to the most rigorous discipline, is cruelly severe to her children, and arbitrary and tyrannical over her servants.—Insolent and disdainful in her behaviour to her equals, and and in her demeanour to her superiors, her is equalled only by her ill-nature; the most innocent freedom of her husband to a visitor is sufficient to give rise to the former; and the most is sure to occasion the latter. These are her qualities, which she is so far from endeavouring to , that she considers them as marks of true courage; or, to speak in a more polite phrase, they make her pass for a woman of spirit!
"How reverse is the conduct of Lucretia!—Possessed of no other fortune than what good sense and a proper education give her, she passes through life with peace and of mind.—The will of her husband, the care of her children, and the due of order and economy in her house, are her principal studies. Easy, good-natured, and affable to her equals, and , submissive, and obliging to her superiors; as no height of prosperity makes her forgetful of adversity, so no storms of angry fortune137 are able to disturb the calm within her breast, or deprive her of that hope with which true courage will always support those who possess it.
"True courage, rightly understood, and properly cultivated, will inspire the fair sex with the noblest sentiments of honour and . It will elevate their minds above those mean and methods, which too many of them put in practice, to captivate the hearts of the giddy and unthinking. It will raise in them a noble and for literary studies, which will rescue them from the odium that is too frequently, and too justly, cast on many of them, of being pretty, but silly, creatures. It is true courage only that can raise in them such sentiments as shall preserve them the and affecti............