_Sorceresses_ I would make you, my gentle friends; but your spells should be those of nature and of virtue. While I exhort you to preserve your persons in comeliness, to array yourselves in elegance and sweet attractive grace, I would not lead you to believe, that these are all your charms; that these are sufficient “to take the captive soul of love, and lap it in Elysium!” No; woman was created for higher attainments; many a heart was formed to pant for dearer joys than these can produce. Woman must, in every respect, and at all times, regard her form as a secondary object; her mind is the point of her first attention; it is the strength of her power; the part that links her with angels; and, as such, she must respect, cultivate, and exalt it. But as these familiar pages are expressly intended as a little treatise on _the dress_ of these admirable qualities, I do not suppose it demanded of me to enter so minutely into the subject of mind, as I otherwise should have esteemed it my duty. We have before admitted, that while on this earth wandering amongst the erring and voluptuous sons of men, virtue must be clad in an attractive garb, else few will love her for herself. To this end, then, like Solon of Athens, I give the best directions the inmates of this gay world are capable of receiving--though, perhaps, not the best I could lay down. I would win the too earth-clinging soul by his senses, to give up his sensual enjoyments, and, caught by earthly charms, see and feel his connexion, and leaving the grosser part, aspire to mingle being with those alone which partake of immortality. It is not by the showy attire of meretricious splendor, by the seductive air of Sybaritical refinement, that I would effect this. “It is good that virtue keep ever with its like!” my means should ever be consistent with their object. So, with me, beauty, elegance, and grace, should be the only pleaders for the empire of morals and religion. On these principles, as I am aware that the most estimable and amiable qualities adorn the wives and daughters of our isle, I cannot but be the more solicitous that their outward deportment and appearance should exhibit a fair specimen of their inward worth. “An upright heart, and sensibility of soul, are doubtlessly the most noble qualifications of the fair sex. These, Englishwomen possess in an eminent degree. But there are lighter, and perhaps more catching attractions, which, though they will not bear a competition, are nevertheless great smoothers of the rough passages of life, and very necessary conducives to social happiness.”