The Patowmac Guardian, And Berkeley Advertiser

Advice to a Young Lady.---By the Rev.

John Bennet.

On visiting tea parties &c.

It would be uncomfortable to yourself to live wholly alone in the midst of society ; and to others it would carry the appearance of great pride, conceit or singularity. As we were born to be citizens of the world, we feel ourselves uncomfortable, when we are not in exchange of little civilities with people about us; and they, in their turn, contract unpleasant piques and prejudices against us. Mixing with company has certainly the good effect of promoting benevolence, and preventing many little shynesses and misconstructions. Nay, even the lightest and most insignificant conversation has a tendency to relieve intense thoughtfulness, and keep the mind from preying too much upon itself.

Tea parties are the general mode of society among ladies, And you must give into them in some degree, if you will cultivate any acquaintance with people of fortune. Some of your sex spend their time in a continual rotation of these visits, and have so many preconcerted engagements on their hands as require a very orderly arrangement upon paper.-- But this is a most useless and insipid life ; and where there is a family, cannot fail to interfere with many duties of far higher importance. The time that is taken up in dress alone, and the money it requires, are a prodigious sacrifice.

Nor, in the light of amusement alone, is this continual visiting to be much recommended. It affords neither air nor exercise, and frequently, not much agreeable or useful conversation, the generality of men are so much undomesticated, so lost to every thing that is innocent in taste, or natural in pleasure; that they are but seldom to be met with in these parties: A group of beautiful females are not, unfrequently, seen together; without one single person of the other sex to share the enjoyment ; and it is, I conceive, in mixed companies alone, that conversation has its proper interest, flavour or improvement.

Your visits, therefore, I trust, will be comparatively rare, and nicely selected ; and I hope you will always preserve yourself from the reproach which is generally thrown upon these meetings, as being vehicles of gossiping and scandal. It has been objected to your sex, that they are prone to satire. At a certain age, under some disappointments, perhaps this is true They have been collecting for many years, a quantity of spleen, and imprudently discharge it on every person that falls in their way. This renders a woman unlovely indeed. Nay, the attempt at wit, or saying smart things, is by no means to be encouraged. True humour is the lot of a few, and can never be of advantage to a woman. From her we expect the qualities that please, soothe, and enliven. Unfortunately they, who think themselves in possession of this weapon, are brandishing it indiscriminately on all occasions, so as sometimes to wound their nearest friends. If you could really say the smartest things, yet might be feared, but you never would be loved.

The curiosity of women is a proverbial object of satire, and gives birth to all that little gossiping, which I have reprobated. Never convince the world by attention to mere trifles, that you have so unfurnished a mind, or so little to engage in it. Read Hayley's truly humorous essays on old maids, and blush at the practice. Remember the fate of the poor unhappy spinster, who caught her death by her immoderate curiosity.

You can scarcely find infinite subjects for the entertainment of an hour without descending to these little things. If you cannot, it is high time to give up (what is only called) an amusement, for that which is a real one, a walk, a ride, a book, a garden, or the society of a chosen friend.

It is astonishing into how many difficulties a woman betrays herself, who is fond of this practice— what quarrels, misconstructions and explanations— what secret shynesses, aversions, mischiefs, such babblers create— what friends they separate, and what a badge of infamy they fix upon themselves in the eyes of all the sensible and the good.

There was a famous school among the ancients, where the pupils spent several years in learning the very necessary art of being silent.—Remember, my dear girl, that nature has given you two ears, and only one tongue; and that scripture has said, "be swift to hear, but slow to speak."