If you waste in trivial amusement the next three or four years of your life, which are the prime season of improvement, believe me you will hereafter bitterly regret their loss: when you come to feel yourself inferior in knowledge to almost every one you converse with--and, above all, if you should ever be a mother, when you feel your own inability to direct and assist the pursuits of your children--you will then find ignorance a severe mortification and a real evil. Let this, my dear, animate your industry; and let not a modest opinion of your own capacity be a discouragement to your endeavours after knowledge: a moderate understanding, with diligent and well-directed application, will go much further than a more lively genius, if attended with that impatience and inattention, which too often accompanies quick parts. It is not from want of capacity that so many women are such trifling insipid companions, so ill qualified for the friendship and conversation of a sensible man, or for the task of governing and instructing a family: it is much oftener from the neglect of exercising the talents which they really have, and from omitting to cultivate a taste for intellectual improvement: by this neglect, they lose the sincerest of pleasures; a pleasure which would remain when almost every other forsakes them; which neither fortune nor age can deprive them of, and which would be a comfort and resource in almost every possible situation of life. If I can but inspire you, my dear child, with the desire of making the most of your time and abilities, my end is answered; the means of knowledge will easily be found by those who diligently seek them, and they will find their labours abundantly rewarded. * * * * *