which is really opposed to the true interests of mankind, render it the more necessary for those who think differently, to speak what they believe to be the truth, and speak it without palliation or reserve.
If, in the performance of this somewhat stern duty, I may at times have appeared unjust or unsisterly to the class of readers whose attention I have been anxious to engage, they will surely have been able to perceive that it was from no want of sympathy with the weakness, the trials, and the temptations to which woman is peculiarly liable, but rather, since we can least bear a fault, in that which we most admire, from an extreme solicitude that woman should fill, with advantage to others and enjoyment to herself, that high place in the creation for which I believe her character to have been designed.
It was originally my intention to have added to the present work, a chapter of hints for step-mothers, and another on the consolations of old maids, which I am far from believing to be few; but the subject more immediately under consideration grew, from its importance, to the usual extent of a book, almost before I was aware of it; and it grew also upon my own mind, as the duties and responsibilities of a mother were gradually unfolded, to an aspect of such solemn, profound, and unanswerable interest, that I feel the more forcibly bow inadequate are my feeble representations to do justice to the claims of society upon the self-devoted, conscientious, and persevering exertions of the Mothers of England.
