at a profanation as the clergy
would do if the laity should presume to exercise the functions of the
priesthood. I desire you would take notice, I would not have learning
enjoined them as a task, but permitted as a pleasure, if their genius
leads them naturally to it. I look upon my granddaughters as a sort of
lay nuns: destiny may have laid up other things for them, but they have
no reason to expect to pass their time otherwise than their aunts do at
present; and I know, by experience, it is in the power of study not only
to make solitude tolerable, but agreeable. I have now lived almost seven
years in a stricter retirement than yours in the Isle of Bute, and can
assure you, I have never had half an hour heavy on my hands, for want of
something to do. Whoever will cultivate their own mind, will find full
employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the
planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing, as exotic fruits
and flowers. The vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural
product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search
after knowledge (every branch of which is entertaining), and the longest
life is too short for the pursuit of it; which, though in some regards
confined to very strait limits, leaves still a vast variety of
amusements to those capable of tasting them, which is utterly impossible
for those that are blinded by prejudices which are the certain effect of
an ignorant education. My own was one of the worst in the world, being
exactly the same as Clarissa Hawlowe's; her pious Mrs. Norton so
perfectly resembling my governess, who had been nurse to my mother, I
could almost fancy the author was acquainted with her. She took so much
pains, from my infancy, to fill my head with superstitious tales and
false notions, it was none of her fault I am not at this day afraid of
witches and hobgoblins, or turned methodist. Almost all girls are bred
after this manner. I believe you are the only woman (perhaps I might
say, person) that never was either frighted or cheated into anything by
your parents. I can truly affirm, I never deceived anybody in my life,
excepting (which I confess has often happened undesignedly) by speaking
plainly; as Earl Stanhope used to say (during his ministry) he always
imposed on the foreign ministers by telling them the naked truth, which,
as they thought impossible to come from the mouth of a statesman, they
never failed to write informati