The new female instructor; or, Young woman's guide to domestic happiness : being an epitome of all the acquirements necessary to form the female character, in every class of life: with examples of illustrious women. To which are added, advice to servants; a complete art of cookery, and plain directions for carving: also, a great variety of medicinal and other useful receipts in domestic economy; and numerous interesting articles, forming a complete storehouse of valuable knowledge.

Date:
[1824]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The new female instructor; or, Young woman's guide to domestic happiness : being an epitome of all the acquirements necessary to form the female character, in every class of life: with examples of illustrious women. To which are added, advice to servants; a complete art of cookery, and plain directions for carving: also, a great variety of medicinal and other useful receipts in domestic economy; and numerous interesting articles, forming a complete storehouse of valuable knowledge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    their own side more than the truth will admit; how shall we m advanced life look for correct habits, for unprejudiced repre- sentations, for fidelity, accuracy, and unbiassed justice ? Yet how often in society, otherwise respectable, we are pained with narrations, in which prejudice warps and self-love blinds! How often do we see, that withholding a part of the truth answers the worst ends of a falsehood ! How often regret the unfair turn given to a cause, by placing a sentiment in one point of view, which the speaker had used in another! the letter of truth preserved, where its spirit is violated! a super- stitious exactness, scrupulously maintained in the under parts of a detail, in order to impress such an idea of integrity as shall gain credit for the misrepresenter, while he is designedly mistaking the leading principle! Hovv often may we observe a new character given to a fact, by a different look, tone, or em- phasis, which alters it as much as words could have done ! the false impression of a sermon conveyed, when we do not like the preacher; or when, through him, we wish to make religion itself ridiculous! the care to avoid literal untruths, while the mischief is better eflfected by the unfair quotation of a passage divested of its context; the bringing together detached por- tions of a subject, and making those parts ludicrous, when connected, which were serious in their distq^ct position! the insidious use made of a sentiment by representing it as the opinion of him who had only brought it forward in order to expose it! that subtle falsehood which is so made to incor- porate with a certain quantity of truth, that the most skilful moral chemist cannot analyze or separate them! for a good misinterpreter knows that a successful lie must have a certain infusion of truth, or it will not go down. And this amalgama- tion is the test of his skill; as too much truth would defeat the end of his mischief; and too little would destroy the belief of the hearer. All that undefinable ambiguity and equivocation ;• all that prudent deceit, which is rather implied than expressed ; those more delicate artifices of the school of Loyola and of Chesterfield, which allow us, when we dare not deny a truth, yet so to disguise and discolour it, that the truth we relate shall not resemble the truth we heard ! These, and all the thousand shades of simulation and dissimulation, will be carefully guarded against in the conversation of vigilant Christians. Again, it is surprising to mark the common deviations from strict veracity, which spring not from enmity to truth, not hoin intentional deceit, not from malevolence or envy, not from the leas.t design to injure ; but from mere levity, habitual inattention, and a current notion that it is not worth while to be correct in little things. But here the doctrine of habits E 2