But it is not so. Probably few set too high an estimate upon it. Its _absolute_ importance has, I am confident, been seldom overrated. It is true I do not like a _bookish_ woman better than a bookish man; especially a great devourer of that most contemptible species of books with whose burden the press daily groans: I mean _novels_. But mental cultivation, and even what is called _polite_ learning, along with the foregoing qualifications, are a most valuable acquisition, and make every female, as well as all her associates, doubly happy. It is only when books, and music, and a taste for the fine arts are substituted for other and more important things, that they should be allowed to change love or respect to disgust. It sometimes happens, I know, that two persons are, in this respect, pretty equally yoked. But what of that? It only makes each party twofold more the child of misfortune than before. I have known a couple of intelligent persons who would sit with their 'feet in the ashes,' as it were, all day, to read some new and bewitching book, forgetting every want of the body; perhaps even forgetting that they _had_ bodies. Were they therefore happy, or likely to be so? Drawing, music, embroidery, (and I might mention half a dozen other things of the same class) where they do not exclude the more useful and solid matters, may justly be regarded as appropriate branches of female education; and in some circumstances and conditions of life, indispensable. Music,--vocal and instrumental--and drawing, to a certain extent, seem to me desirable in all. As for dancing, I do not feel quite competent to decide. As the world is, however, I am almost disposed to reject it altogether. At any rate, if a young lady is accomplished in every other respect, you need not seriously regret that she has not attended to dancing, especially as it is conducted in most of our schools. CHAPTER VII. Criminal Behavior. SECTION I. _Inconstancy and Seduction._