But to judge by the books they devoured with such eagerness, and the heroes they thought so captivating, the ideals, thirty years ago, of the Virginia young women—I may not speak for others—were very different from any of those above depicted. At that period the influence of Byron’s powerful genius was still plainly discernible in many works of fiction, especially those by female authors. Now, just ascertain cordials lose all their piquancy by being diluted, so the morbid creations of Byron’s unhealthy muse emerged, after passing through the alembic of female fancy, very pale heroes indeed; pale, in truth, in a double sense. For, at one time, I remember, a bloodless countenance was about all that was required to constitute a hero over whom all our girls went mad. The fellow was invariably dismally cold and impassive “in outward seeming;” but the authoress would contrive to suggest to the reader, by a hint here and there, that this coldness was in outward seeming only,—that this stern, haughty possessor of the broad, pallid brow (against which he ever and anon pressed his hand as though in pain) was the clandestine owner of feelings fit to be compared only to a stream of lava,—a cold crust above, concealing a fiery flood beneath; an iceberg, in a word, with a volcano in its bosom. There are no such icebergs, I believe, and it is equally certain that there are no such men; and I used to think, in those days, that if there were such, and one of this type were found hanging around a girl, the circumstance would afford her big brother’s boot legitimate occasion for an honorable activity. And I still think that this heroic treatment, as the faculty would term it, would find its justification, at least from a sanitary point of view. For it is to be remarked that in romances infested with this form of hero, there was, among the heroines, a veritable epidemic of brain-fever; whatever that may be. But the young ladies of my acquaintance, assigning jealousy as the source of these ferocious sentiments, could not be brought to my way of thinking; and of all of a certain bevy of girls with whom I associated, I believe that Mary Rolfe was furthest gone in her adoration of these august animals that dwelt apart. Now, although a romantic temperament has its compensations,—compensations so varied and so valuable that, on the whole, it must be regarded as a blessing,—yet its dangers are as obvious. For of what avail is an Ideal without its Counterpart? Now, it is in searching for and finding this Counterpart that lies the danger to a girl of imaginative turn,—the danger, in plain English, of falling in love without a just and reasonable regard for the loaves and fishes of this prosaic world.