A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

her books, no charitable mode of accounting for the medley remains, but to suppose her the pitiable dupe of that love of hoaxing so often found in our Country. Again, Miss Martineau says, "We passed an unshaded meadow, where the grass had caught fire, _every day_, at _eleven o'clock_, the preceding Summer. This demonstrates the necessity of shade"! A woman, with so little common sense, as to swallow such an absurdity for truth, and then tack to it such an astute deduction, must be a tempting subject for the abovementioned mischievous propensity. CHAPTER II. DIFFICULTIES PECULIAR TO AMERICAN WOMEN. In the preceding chapter, were presented those views, which are calculated to inspire American women with a sense of their high responsibilities to their Country, and to the world; and of the excellence and grandeur of the object to which their energies may be consecrated. But it will be found to be the law of moral action, that whatever involves great results and great benefits, is always attended with great hazards and difficulties. And as it has been shown, that American women have a loftier position, and a more elevated object of enterprise, than the females of any other nation, so it will appear, that they have greater trials and difficulties to overcome, than any other women are called to encounter. Properly to appreciate the nature of these trials, it must be borne in mind, that the estimate of evils and privations depends, not so much on their positive nature, as on the character and habits of the person who meets them. A woman, educated in the savage state, finds it no trial to be destitute of many conveniences, which a woman, even of the lowest condition, in this Country, would deem indispensable to existence. So a woman, educated with the tastes and habits of the best New England or Virginia housekeepers, would encounter many deprivations and trials, which would never occur to one reared in the log cabin of a new settlement. So, also, a woman, who has been accustomed to carry forward her arrangements with well-trained domestics, would meet