Christian fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Mate selection -- Fiction
As to her dress, it reminds me of what Dr. Johnson once said to an
acquaintance of mine, of a lady who was celebrated for dressing well.
"The best evidence that I can give you of her perfection in this respect
is, that one can never remember what she had on." The dress of Lucilla
is not neglected, and it is not studied. She is as neat as the strictest
delicacy _demands_, and as fashionable as the strictest delicacy
_permits_; and her nymph-like form does not appear to less advantage for
being vailed with scrupulous modesty.
Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they could
guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty invests its
possessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from
principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice, the coquet
would adopt it as an allurement, the pure as her appropriate attraction,
and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.
What I admire in Miss Stanley, and what I have sometime regretted the
want of in some other women, is, that I am told she is so lively, so
playful, so desirous of amusing her father and mother when alone, that
they are seldom so gay as in their family party. It is then that her
talents are all unfolded, and that her liveliness is without restraint.
She was rather silent the two or three first days after my arrival, yet
it was evidently not the silence of reserve or inattention, but of
delicate propriety. Her gentle frankness and undesigning temper
gradually got the better of this little shyness, and she soon began to
treat me as the son of her father's friend. I very early found, that
though a stranger might behold her without admiration, it was impossible
to converse with her with indifference. Before I had been a week at the
Grove, my precautions vanished, my panoply was gone, and yet I had not
consulted Mr. Stanley.
In contemplating the captivating figure, and the delicate mind of this
charming girl, I felt that imagination, which misleads so many youthful
hearts, had preserved mine. The image my fancy had framed, and which had
been suggested by Milton's heroine, had been refined indeed, but it had
not been romantic. I had early formed an ideal standard in my mind; too
high, perhaps; but its very elevation had rescued me from the common
dangers attending the society of the sex. I was continually comparing
the women with whom I conversed, with the fair conception which filled
my mind. The comparison might be unfair to them; I am sure it was not
unfavorable to myself, for it preserved me from the fascination of mere
personal beauty, the allurements of fictitious character, and the
attractions of ordinary merit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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