Letters to Young Women

LETTER III.

ACQUISITIONS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Show us how divine a thing
A woman may be made.

Wordsworth.

It is a matter of special importance to you that you comprehend and thoroughly appreciate the difference between accomplishments and scientific and literary acquisitions. A woman may have many acquisitions, and no accomplishments, in the usual meaning of that word, and vice versa. As the life of woman goes in this country, these acquisitions perform their most important office in the process by which they are achieved ; — that is, the great work which they do for a woman is that of training and disciplining her mind. Many a woman thoroughly learned Algebra at school, with decided advantage to herself, who never makes a practical use of Algebra. She may have been a good Latin or Greek scholar, but, having no important use for her acquisition in practical life, she suffers her knowledge of those languages to fade out. In short, there are very few of her text-books which, in five years after leaving school, she would not be obliged to review with the severest study before she could re-acquire the credit she won in her last examination. A woman may have a pet acquisition which she transforms, by her manner of treatment, into an accomplishment. Botany is thus transformed, not unfrequently, into a very graceful thing.

An accomplishment differs from a science, or a system of truth of any kind, acquired during the process of education, in that it needs to be permanent, and so far as possible perfect, to be of any use to the individual or to society. Music, drawing, conversation, composition, the French language, dancing — all these in America are regarded as accomplishments ; yet of fifty women who acquire either of them, or all of them, not more than two retain them.

Miss Georgiana Aurelia Atkins Green was an intimate friend of mine, or, rather, perhaps I should say, her mother’s brother boarded my horse, and I bought my meat of her father. It was the determination of Mrs. Green that her daughter should be a finished lady. During the finishing process I saw but little of her. It occupied three years, and was performed at a fashionable boarding-school, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, regardless of expense. When she was finished off, she was brought home in triumph, and exhibited on various occasions to crowds of admiring friends. I went one evening to see her, She was really very pretty, and took up her role with spirit, and acted it admirably. I saw a portfolio lying upon her piano, and knowing that I was expected to seize upon it at once, I did so, against Miss Green’s protestation, which she was expected to make, of course. I found in it various pencil drawings, a crayon head of the infant Samuel, and a terrible shipwreck in India ink. The sketches were not without merit. These were all looked over, and praised, of course. Then came the music. This was some years ago, and the most that I remember is that she played O Dolce Concento with the variations, and the Battle of Prague, the latter of which the mother explained to me during its progress. The pieces were cleverly executed, and then I undertook to talk to the young woman, I gathered from her conversation that Mrs. Martinet, the principal of the school where she had been finished, was a lady of “so much style!” that Miss Kittleton of New York was the dearest girl in the school, and that she (Georgiana) and the said Kittleton were such friends that they always dressed alike; snd that Miss Kittleton’s brother Fred was a magnificent fellow. The last was said with a blush, from the embarrassments of which she escaped gracefully by stating that the old Kittleton was a banker, and rolled in money. It was easy to see that the parents of this dear girl admired her profoundly. I pitied her and them, and determined, as a matter of duty, that I would show her just how much her accomplishments were worth. I accordingly asked of my wife the favor to invite the whole family to tea, in a quiet way. They all came, on the appointed evening, and after the tea was over, I expressed my delight that there was one young lady in our neighborhood who could do something to elevate the tone of our society. I then drew out, in a careless way, a letter I had just received from a Frenchman, and asked of Miss Georgiana the favor to read it to me. She took the letter, blushed, went half through the first line correctly, then broke down on a simple word, and confessed that she could not read it. It was a little cruel ; but I wished to do her good, and proceeded with my experiment. I took up a piece of music, and asked her if she had seen it. She had not. I told her there was a pleasure in store for both of us. I had heard the song once, and I would try to sing it if she would play the accompaniment. She declared she could not do it without practice, but I told her she was too modest by half. So I dragged her, protesting, to the piano. She knew she should break down. I knew she would, and she did. Well, I would not let her rise, for as Mr. and Mrs. Green were fond of the old-fashioned church music and had been singers in their day, and in their way, I selected an old tune, and called them to the piano to assist. Miss Green gave us the key, and we started off in fine style. It was a race to see which would come out ahead. Georgiana won, by skipping most of the notes, She rose from the piano with her cheeks as red as a beet.

“By the way,” said I, “Georgiana, your teacher of drawing must have been an excellent one.” I did not tell her that I had seen evidence of this in her own efforts in art, but I touched the right spring, and the lady gave me the teacher’s credentials, and told me what such and such people had said of her. “Well,” said I, “I am glad if there is one young woman who has learned drawing properly. Now you have nothing to do but to practise your delightful art, and you must do something for the benefit of your friends. I promised a sketch of my house to a particular friend, at a distance, and you shall come up to-morrow and make one. I remember that beautiful cottage among your sketches ; and I should prize a sketch of my own, even half as well done, very highly.” The poor girl was blushing again, and from the troubled countenances of her parents, I saw that they had begun indistinctly to comprehend the shallowness — the absolute worthlessness — of the accomplishments that had cost them so much. Georgiana acknowledged that she had never sketched from nature — that her teacher had never required it of her, and that she had no confidence that she could sketch so simple an object as my house. The Greens took an early leave, and I regret to say a cool one. They were mortified, and there was not good sense enough in the girl to make an improvement of the hints I had given her.

The Green family resided upon a street that I always took on my way to the post-office, and there was rarely a pleasant evening that did not show their parlor alight, and company within it. I heard the same old variations of O Dolce Concento evening after evening. The Battle of Prague was fought over and over again. The portfolio of drawings (such of them as had not been expensively framed) was exhibited, I doubt not, to admiring friends until they were soiled with thumbing. At last, Georgiana was engaged, and then she was married — married to a very good fellow, too. He loved music, loved painting, and loved his wife. Two years passed away; and I determined to ascertain how the pair got along. She was the mother of a fine boy, whom I knew she would be glad to have me see. I called, was treated cordially, and saw the identical old portfolio, on the identical old piano. I asked the favor of a tune. The husband with a sigh informed me that Georgiana had dropped her music. I looked about the walls, and saw the crayon Samuel, and the awful ship wreck in India ink. Alas! the echoes of the Battle of Prague that came back over the field of memory, and these fading mementoes around me, were all that remained of the accomplishments of the late Miss Georgiana Aurelia Atkins Green.

Now, young woman, I think you will not need any assurance from me that I have drawn a genuine portrait, for which any number of your acquaintances may have played the original. What do you think of accomplishments like these? How much do they amount to? My opinion of them is that they are the shabbiest of all things that can be associated with a woman’s life and history. I have told you this story in order to show you the importance of incorporating your accomplishments with your very life. It is comparatively an easy task to learn a few tunes by rote; to get up, with the assistance of a teacher, a few drawings; to go through with a few French exercises ; but it is not so easy to learn the science of music, and go through the manual practice necessary to make the science available under all circumstances. It is not easy to sketch with facility from nature. It is not easy to comprehend the genius of the French language, and so to familiarize yourself with it that it shall ever remain an open language to you, and give you a key to a new literature. A true accomplishment is won only by hard work; but when it is won, it is a part of you, which nothing but your own neglect can take away from you.

And now let me tell you a secret. Multitudes of married men are led to seek the society of other women, or go out among their own fellows, and often into bad habits, because they have drunk every sweet of life which their wives can give them. They have heard all their tunes, seen all their efforts at art, sounded their minds, and measured every charm, and they see that henceforth there is nothing in the society of their wives but insipidity. They married women of accomplishments, but they see never a new development — no improvement. Their wives can do absolutely nothing. The shell is broken; the egg is eaten.

The first accomplishment that I would urge upon you, is that of using the English language with correctness, elegance, and facility. There are, comparatively, few young women who can write a good note. I know of hardly one who can punctuate her sentences properly. I beg of you never to write affection with a single f, or friendship without an i in the first syllable. Such slips destroy the words, and the sentiments they represent. If you accomplish yourselves in nothing else, learn thoroughly how to use your mother tongue. I remember one young woman with whom, when in youth, I had the misfortune to correspond. In the barrenness of subjects upon which to engage her pen, she once inquired by note whether I ever saw such “a spell of wether,” as we had been having. I frankly informed her that I never did, and that I hoped she would never indulge in such another, for it made me cool. She took the hint, and broke off the correspondence. There are many who can write tolerably well, but who cannot talk. Conversation I am inclined to rank among the greatest accomplishments and the greatest arts. Natural aptness has much to do with this, but no woman can talk well who has not a good stock of definite information. I may add to this, that no woman talks well and satisfactorily who reads for the simple purpose of talking. There must exist a genuine interest in the affairs which most concern all men and women. The book, magazine, and newspaper literature of the time, questions of public moment, all matters and movements relating to art, affairs of local interest — all these a woman may know something of, and know something definitely. Of all these she can talk if she will try, because there is something in all which excites feeling of some kind, and shapes itself into opinion.

But whatever accomplishment a young woman attempts to acquire, let her by all means acquire it thoroughly and keep it bright. Accomplishments all occupy the field of the arts. They are things which have no significance or value save in the ability of doing. They become, or should become, the exponents of a woman’s highest personality. They are her most graceful forms of self-expression, and into them she can pour the stream of her thoughts and fancies, and through them utter the highest language of her nature and her culture. Accomplishments make a woman valuable to herself. They greatly increase her pleasure, both directly in the practice, and indirectly through the pleasures which she gives to society. A truly accomplished woman — one whose thoughts have come naturally to flow out in artistic forms, whether through the instrumentality of her tongue, her pen, her pencil, or her piano, is a treasure to herself and to society. Such a woman as this would I have you to be. There may be something to interfere with your being all this; but this you can do: you can acquire thoroughly every accomplishment for which you have a natural aptitude, or you can let it alone. Do not be content with a smattering of anything. Do not be content to play parrot to your teachers, until your lesson is learned, and then think you are accomplished. Do not be content with mediocrity in any accomplishment you undertake. Do not be content to be a Miss Georgiana Aurelia Atkins Green.