Virtue is embraced for its charms—it is not admired for deformity or its negligence of mind; it has its attractions and its means of compensation, as much as has vice—but they are not always as obvious. The young must be made to _trust_ in the results of a virtuous course; they must have their faith fixed by the graces of parental, of maternal precept and example—and this good cannot be hoped for if the mother is incapable of attracting, if she has not the means of charming—if, indeed, she cannot show that what constitute the pleasures of life (pleasures which in excess become crimes) are, while properly enjoyed, wholesome and advantageous, and at the same time can show the line of demarcation between their uses and their abuses. She must know what are the true accomplishments of life—she must understand the influence of refinement and cultivation on the mind—and she must bring herself to apply all these. She must know the difference, too, between the uses and the abuses of cultivated talents, and she must learn to discriminate. She who would deny to the young the cultivation of talents, musical, literary or artistic, is like the beings who would pile up the snows of winter, that the accumulated heap might prevent the budding and the blossoming of spring; while she who would force the mind of her child to an unnatural development of merely ornamental faculties, is like one who would concentrate the rays of the sun through a burning-glass, in order to accelerate the growth of a delicate plant. What we mean to assert is the obvious fact, that the female, the mother, cannot discharge the high responsibilities of her sex, without many of those acquisitions which are condemned as worthless in themselves, and perhaps the condemnation is in some measure correct; that is, the acquisition separately considered may be rather injurious than beneficial. Music itself, if it be the only or the principal attainment of a woman, must be valuable only as a means of obtaining money or fame. So of dancing—so of painting—so of poetry, that divine gift—each one of these, allowed to become predominant, loses its meliorating influence, and devotes the possessor to a solitary enjoyment, or, at most, assists her in acquiring notoriety and a living.