a walking
show-gallery, a mistress of tongue-tied etiquette. A woman is a
consecrated intelligence--a love baptized--a hand employed in the work
of good. To be a woman requires exertion and prudence. Women are not
born; neither do they grow up of themselves; they are made. Their
virtues blossom in the garden of industry. Their fruits ripen on the
boughs of toil. Their treasures grow on the tree of labor. A woman with
nothing to do can not develop a truthful womanhood. A woman with no
Employment for her hands or mind can be only the shadow of a woman. What
is noble in her will doff its nobility. What is strong will become weak,
and she will soon be an imbecile dependent on some one else.

A dependent life is an ignoble one, unless compelled by misfortune; just
as ignoble in woman as in man. No woman of health and sound mind should
allow herself to be or feel dependent on any body for her living. The
sick are always dependent, though they have wealth at their command. But
the well should never be dependent. To eat and wear the fruits of
another's labor, tends to degradation. To feel that one is shining in
borrowed plumes and eating the bread of dependence, is degrading to a
noble mind. A noble mind will not willingly do it. The want of
Employment, and the dependence of many women, have ruined their
characters and made them little else than nuisances to their fellow-men.
Thousands of women have no Employment, and live through life in a state
of abject dependence. What are they, what can they be, under such
circumstances? It requires Employment to develop men, why should not it
to develop women? Dependent men are ninnies, why should not dependent
women be? Where is the difference between the male and female mind, that
one should be expected to be noble and magnanimous under circumstances
which would be ruinous to the other? We know that a young man thrown
upon his own resources is more likely to be a great, good man than when
cradled upon the lap of luxury or fortune. Why is it? Simply because he
seeks Employment and depends upon himself for what he is to be and do.
He leans not on another, and hence grows strong by standing alone. Plant
an acorn in the crevice of a barren rock, and it will strike down its
roots and send them out in search of fastening places till it will
surround the rock with a net of clinging fibers; and as the winds grow
fiercer and the storms howl wilder, the oak will strike deeper and wider
its anchor