The Christian Lady's Magazine (Volume 18) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1842. Excerpt: ... FEMALE WRITERS. My Dear Friend, You are too intimately acquainted with our venerable martyrologist, not to remember an amusing incident in his account of the degradation of that stout old martyr Dr. Rowland Taylor, how he kept even the fists of the bloody Bonner from giving the accustomed blow by the menace, " If you strike me, I will strike again." I much fear that you will think me animated by something of the same pugnacious spirit--but no--it is not pugnacity, it is not the love of clenched fists and a battery of blows, that induces me to take up the pen. Seriously and soberly, dear friend, it is just this: --there are some passages in your review of my last little work on "Female Writers," on which I wish to offer a few explanatory observations; and if to those observations you think proper to append a dissentient note, I can only say in the fearless spirit of one of old, that I will incur the punishment of being struck, in return for the privilege of being heard. The enquiry too is an interesting one, and the consideration of the cultivation of the powers of the female mind with a view to usefulness, cannot surely be discussed any where with greater propriety than in the " Christian Lady's Magazine." Irrespective therefore of my own desire to explain my meaning to the many individuals who may read your re'view, without perusing the work that was reviewed; there is the earnest wish to consider a question of very wide interest and great importance, with a view to the eliciting of truth, and the direction of conduct. The first point on which I would offer a remark, is your dissent from the opinion which I ventured to give on the importance to such women as are likely to de'vote themselves to literary pursuits, of a more comprehensive education, and a mo...