claimed
by sound of trumpet amid the mocks of the world. No, no; there are young
women in these days, but there is no such thing as youth--the bloom of
existence is sacrificed to a fashionable education, and where we should
find the rose-buds of the spring, we see only the fullblown, flaunting,
precocious roses of the hot-bed.

ALDA.

Blame then that _forcing_ system of education, the most pernicious, the
most mistaken, the most far-reaching in its miserable and mischievous
effects, that ever prevailed in this world. The custom which shut up
women in convents till they were married, and then launched them
innocent and ignorant on society, was bad enough; but not worse than a
system of education which inundates us with hard, clever, sophisticated
girls, trained by knowing mothers, and all-accomplished governesses,
with whom vanity and expediency take place of conscience and
affection--(in other words, of romance)--"frutto senile in sul giovenil
fiore;" with feelings and passions suppressed or contracted, not
governed by higher faculties and purer principles; with whom
opinion--the same false honor which sends men out to fight duels--stands
instead of the strength and the light of virtue within their own souls.
Hence the strange anomalies of artificial society--girls of sixteen who
are models of manner miracles of prudence, marvels of learning, who
sneer at sentiment, and laugh at the Juliets and the Imogens; and
matrons of forty, who, when the passions should be tame and wait upon
the judgment, amaze the world and put us to confusion with their doings.

MEDON.

Or turn politicians to vary the excitement--How I hate political women!

ALDA.

Why do you hate them?

MEDON.

Because they are mischievous.

ALDA.

But why are they mischievous?

MEDON.

Why!--why are they mischievous? Nay, ask them, or ask the father of all
mischief, who has not a more efficient instrument to further his designs
in this world, than a woman run mad with politics. The number of
political intriguing women of this time, whose boudoirs and
drawing-rooms are the _foyers_ of party-spirit, is another trait of
resemblance between the state of society now, and that which existed at
Paris before the revolution.

ALDA.

And do you think, like some interesting young lady in Miss Edgeworth's
tales, tha