Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the
women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is
French novels or translations of them--in every one of those
countries the women, even to the highest, are the slaves of
superstition, and the puppets of priests. In proportion as, in
certain other countries--notably, I will say, in Scotland--the
women are highly educated, family life and family secrets are
sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to no confessor
or director, but to her own husband or to her own family.

I say plainly, that if any parents wish their daughters to succumb
at least to some quackery or superstition, whether calling itself
scientific, or calling itself religious--and there are too many of
both just now--they cannot more certainly effect their purpose
than by allowing her to grow up ignorant, frivolous, luxurious,
vain; with her emotions excited, but not satisfied, by the reading
of foolish and even immoral novels.

In such a case the more delicate and graceful the organisation,
the more noble and earnest the nature, which has been neglected,
the more certain it is--I know too well what I am saying--to go
astray.

The time of depression, disappointment, vacuity, all but despair
must come. The immortal spirit, finding no healthy satisfaction
for its highest aspirations, is but too likely to betake itself to
an unhealthy and exciting superstition. Ashamed of its own long
self-indulgence, it is but too likely to flee from itself into a
morbid asceticism. Not having been taught its God-given and