ck, and
discovering all the falsehood, twaddle, gossip, old saws, and almanac
stories, which have been strung together in 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 a thousand
trials to her feelings and temper, by the substitution of ignorant
foreigners, or shiftless slaves, which would be of little account to one
who had never enjoyed any better service.

Now, the larger portion of American women ar