His ridiculous stories, which tend to prove that girls are
naturally attentive to their persons, without laying any
stress on daily example, are below contempt. -- And that a little
miss should have such a correct taste as to neglect the pleasing
amusement of making O's, merely because she perceived that it was
an ungraceful attitude, should be selected with the anecdotes of
the learned pig.*
* 'I once knew a young person who learned to write before she
learned to read, and began to write with her needle before she
could use a pen. At first, indeed, she took it into her head to
make no other letter than the O: this letter she was constantly
making of all sizes, and always the wrong way. Unluckily, one
day, as she was intent on this employment, she happened to see
herself in the looking-glass; when, taking a dislike to the
constrained attitude in which she sat while writing, she threw
away her pen, like another Pallas, and determined against making
the O any more. Her brother was also equally adverse to writing:
it was the confinement, however, and not the constrained
attitude, that most disgusted him.' -- Rousseau's
Emilius.
