in her carriage, that she may be sure her men perform their duty. She understands several languages, and is now engaged in writing a work on the Northern languages of Europe. ‘In Germany, the influence of women on literature is considerable, though less obvious than in some other countries. Literary families frequently meet at each others’ houses, and learned and intelligent women are often the brightest ornaments of these social circles.’ France has produced many distinguished women, whose names are familiar to every lover of literature. And I believe it is conceded universally, that Madame de Stael was intellectually the greatest woman that ever lived. The United States have produced several female writers, some of whom have talents of the highest order. But women, even in this free republic, do not enjoy _all_ the intellectual advantages of men, although there is a perceptible improvement within the last ten or twenty years; and I trust there is a desire awakened in my sisters for solid acquirements, which will elevate them to their ‘appropriate sphere,’ and enable them to ‘adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.’ Thine in the bonds of womanhood, SARAH M. GRIMKE. LETTER XI. DRESS OF WOMEN. _Brookline, 9th Mo., 1837._ MY DEAR SISTER,--When I view woman as an immortal being, travelling through this world to that city whose builder and maker is God,--when I contemplate her in all the sublimity of her spiritual existence, bearing the image and superscription of Jehovah, emanating from Him and partaking of his nature, and destined, if she fulfils her duty, to dwell with him through the endless ages of eternity,--I mourn that she has lived so far below her privileges and her obligations, as a rational and accountable creature; and I ardently long to behold her occupying that sphere in which I believe her Creator designed her to move. Woman, in all ages and countries, has been the scoff and the jest of her lordly master. If she attempted, like him, to improve her mind, she was ridiculed as pedantic, and driven from the temple of science and literature by coarse attacks and vulgar sarcasms. If she yielded to the pressure of circumstances, and sought relief from the monotony of existence by resorting to the theatre and the ball-room, by ornamenting her person with flowers and with jewels, while her mind was empty and her heart desolate; she was still the mark at which wit and satire and cruelty levelled their arrows.