Young Woman's Guide to Excellence

<h5 id="id00415">OBSERVATION AND REFLECTION.</h5> <p id="id00416" style="margin-top: 2em">Advice of Dr. Dwight. Other counsels to the young. Some persons of both sexes are always seeing, but never reflecting. An object deserving of pity. Zimmerman's views. Reading to get rid of reflection. Worse things still.</p> <p id="id00417" style="margin-top: 2em">"Keep your eyes open," was the reiterated counsel of a distinguished theologian, of this country—the late Dr. Timothy Dwight—to a young student of his; and it was, in the main, very wholesome advice. And in so far as it is wholesome for young men, I do not see but it is equally so for young women.</p> <p id="id00418">"Your countenance open, your thoughts close, you will go safe through the world"—was the advice of another individual, of less eminence, to a young friend of his; and did it not savor a little too much of selfishness, and perhaps of concealment, it would, like the advice of Dr. Dwight, be worthy of careful consideration. It does not partake quite enough of the gospel spirit and sentiment—"As a man hath received, so let him give." It encourages us to get wisdom, but not to communicate it.</p> <p id="id00419">I have said that the advice of Dr. Dwight was, in the main, wholesome. The only objection that can be made to it is, that it gives no encouragement to reflection. Some may suppose it to mean, that observation, or <i>seeing</i>, is every thing. Now there are those who appear to see too much. They <i>always</i> have their eyes open. They are never satisfied otherwise. They absolutely hate all reflection.</p> <p id="id00420">Of this description of persons—I am sorry to say it—our young women furnish a full proportion. Not a very small number of the female sex are so educated, that it is quite painful for them to turn the current of their thoughts inward:—they will do almost any thing in the world, not absolutely criminal, to prevent it. It cannot, indeed, be quite said, that they observe too much; but it is perfectly safe to say, that they see too much. If they should see much less with their eyes, and the soul were left to its own reflections, the result would be, no doubt, exceedingly happy. Solitude is as necessary as action; and to both sexes.</p> <p id="id00421">No person is more pitiable than the individual of either sex—and such individuals are by no means scarce in our own-who cannot be easy unless perpetually running to see some new sight, or, like the Athenians of old, to hear or to tell some new thing; who is no where so happy as when in company, and no where so miserable as when alone.</p> <p id="id00422">Zimmerman, in his work on Solitude—a pleasant book, by the way, notwithstanding its gloomy name—has some very appropriate and useful remarks on the advantages of being by ourselves a part of the time, as a means of improvement. Should any of my young readers be sorely afflicted with the disease I have just mentioned-a dread of themselves, or of their own thoughts, rather—I beg them to read Zimmerman. But read him, if you read him at all, very thoroughly.</p> <p id="id00423">Some persons read solely to get rid of reflection. Worse than this, even; some persons read, work and play—and I had almost said, go to church, and put themselves in the attitude of prayer and praise—to get rid of themselves and their reflections. Who will show us any good thing? is their constant cry: not, Who will lead us, by external agencies, or by any other means, to sound and useful reflection. Who will show us ourselves? is a cry which, among the young women of New England, as well as those of most other countries, is too seldom heard.</p> <p id="id00424">The best advice I can give to such persons—next to that given in the Sermon on the Mount, where they are directed to enter into their closet—is, to read with great care, or rather to study, Watts on the Improvement of the Mind. That is a work which has probably done as much good in the way of which I am now speaking, as any book—the Bible excepted—in the English language.</p> <h2 id="id00425" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIV.</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />