nd we
are for the Time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls or
in the Field. Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these? and
ought not his Ambition and Expectations to be greater? Let us be
Adventurers for another World: 'Tis at least a fair and noble Chance;
and there is nothing in this worth our Thoughts or our Passions. If we
should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our
Fellow-Mortals; and if we succeed in our Expectations, we are
eternally happy._

_Steele._

THE EMPLOYMENTS OF A HOUSEWIFE IN THE COUNTRY

To _The Rambler_.

Sir,

As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from
the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of
your attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness
and diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this
sober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the
employments of those who look with contempt on the pleasures and
diversions of polite life, and employ all their powers of censure and
invective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly of dress, visits,
and conversation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to
the house where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together,
had at last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after the
civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and
tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if well
conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care and a
tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded and
every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation,
was, indeed, very full of the happiness which she received from my
visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, insisted that
I should recompense the long delay of my company with a promise not to
leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and caresses, she
very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxious
earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed to send
them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would
not suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must leave me
for a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but was again
disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the same
trepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of busi