“If I am rightly informed, you are at present well circumstanced to profit by my counsels. I am told of a very agreeable and very pretty girl with whom you ride and walk out constantly, and, far from feeling any maternal uneasiness,--for I trust I know my son,--I am rejoiced at the circumstance. Make the most of such an advantage by exercising your own abilities and powers of pleasing, give yourself the habit of talking your very best on every topic, without pedantry or any sign of premeditation. Practise that blending of courteous deference to a woman's opinions with a subdued consciousness of your own powers, which I have spoken to you of in your dear father's character. Seldom venture on an axiom, never tell an anecdote; be most guarded in any indulgence of humor: a laugh is the most dangerous of all triumphs. It is the habit to reproach us with our frigidity,--I believe not without reason; cultivate, then, a certain amount of warmth which may suggest the idea of earnestness, apart from all suspicion of enthusiasm, which I have often told you is low-lived. Watch carefully by what qualities your success is more advanced; examine yourself as to what defects you experience in your own character; make yourself esteemed as a means of being estimable; win regard, and the habit of pleasing will give a charm to your manner, even when you are not desirous to secure affection. Your poor dear father often confessed the inestimable advantages of his first affairs of the heart, and used to say, whenever by any adroit exercise of his captivation he had gained over an adverse Maid of Honor, I owe that to Louisa, for such was the name of the young lady,--I forget now who she was. The mechanism of the heart is alike in all lands; the means of success in Ireland will win victory where the prize is higher. In all this, remember, I by no means advise you to sport with any young lady's feelings, nor to win more of her affection than may assure you that the entire could also become yours: a polite chess-player will rest satisfied to say, 'check,' without pushing the adversary to 'mate.' “It will soon be time you should leave the army, and I hope to find you have acquired some other education by the pursuit than mere knowledge of dress.” This is a short specimen of the maternal Machiavelism by which “the most fascinating woman of her set” hoped to instruct her son, and teach him the road to fortune. Such is the fatal depravity of every human heart that any subtle appeal to selfishness, if it fail to flex the victim to the will, at least shakes the strong sense of conscious rectitude, and makes our very worthiness seem weakness.