The Works of Mrs. Chapone: Now First Collected: Containing I. Letters on the Improvement of the Mind. II. Miscellanies. III. Correspondence with Mr. Richardson. IV. Letters to Miss Carter. V. Fugitive Pieces. To which is Prefixed, an Account of Her Life and Character, Drawn Up by Her Own Family ...

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Page 149 - Shall not the dew assuage the heat? so is a word better than a gift. Lo, is not a word better than a gift? but both are with a gracious man.
Page 93 - Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him : a new friend is as new wine ; when it is old thou shall drink it with pleasure.
Page 93 - If thou wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him: for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach.
Page 136 - ... own vanity and ambition. Perhaps it may be said, that the settling the general scheme of expenses is seldom the wife's province, and that many men do not choose even to acquaint her with the real state of their affairs. Where this is the case, a woman can be answerable for no more than is entrusted to her. But I think it a very ill sign, for one or both of the parties, where there is such a want of openness, in what equally concerns them.
Page 144 - ... retired station. It is with a family, as with a commonwealth ; the more numerous and luxurious it becomes, the more difficult it is to govern it properly. Though the great are placed above the little attentions and employments to which a private gentlewoman must dedicate much of her time, they have a larger and more important sphere of action, in which if they are indolent and neglectful, the whole government of their house and fortune must fall into irregularity. Whatever number of deputies...
Page 55 - The Epistle of St. JAMES is entirely practical, and exceedingly fine: you cannot study it too much. It seems particularly designed to guard Christians against misunderstanding some things in St. Paul's writings, which have been fatally perverted to the encouragement of a dependance on faith alone, without good works.
Page 23 - Moses, many peculiar institutions wisely adapted to different ends; either to fix the memory of those past deliverances, which were figurative of a future and far greater salvation, — to place inviolable barriers between the Jews and the...
Page 32 - ... man should comprehend the ways of the Almighty, and, therefore, condemns the unjust and cruel inference the three friends had drawn from the sufferings of Job. He also blames Job for the presumption of acquitting himself of all iniquity, since the best of men are not pure in the sight of God — but all have something to repent of; and he advises him to make this use of his afflictions. At last, by a bold figure of poetry, the Supreme Being himself is introduced, speaking from the whirlwind,...
Page 42 - Yes, my dear ; — remember that he has bequeathed to you his heavenly wisdom, as far as concerns your own good. He has left you such declarations of his will, and of the consequences of your actions, as you are, even now, fully able to understand, if you will but attend to them. If then you will imitate his zeal for knowledge, if you will delight in gaining information and improvement ; you may even now become
Page 36 - ... of the prophecies ; and they are very frequently quoted, and referred to, in the New Testament : besides, the sublimity of the language and sentiments, through all the disadvantages of antiquity and translation, must, in very many passages, strike every person of taste ; and the excellent moral and religious precepts found in them must be useful to all.

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