Emotion Is Condemned As Romantic And Vulgar
Sensibility, Interest As Enthusiasm."
The system which she reprehended is not followed at New York, and the
result is, not that the ladies "wear their hearts on their sleeves for
daws to peck at," but that they are unaffected, lively, and agreeable.
The
repose so studiously cultivated in England, and which is considered
perfect when it has become listlessness, apathy, and indifference, finds
no favour with our lively Transatlantic neighbours; consequently the
ladies are very naïve and lively, and their manners have the vivacity
without the frivolity of the French. They say themselves that they are not
so highly educated as the ladies of England. Admirable as the common
schools are, the seminaries for ladies, with one or two exceptions, are
very inferior to ours, and the early age at which the young ladies go into
society precludes them from completing a superior education; for it is
scarcely to be expected that, when their minds are filled with the desire
for conquest and the love of admiration, they will apply systematically to
remedy their deficiencies. And again, some of their own sex in the States
have so far stepped out of woman's proper sphere, that high attainments
are rather avoided by many from the ridicule which has been attached to
the unsuitable display of them in public. The young ladies are too apt to
consider their education completed when they are emancipated from school
restraints, while in fact only the basis of it has been laid.
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