Christian literature for children; Women -- Social and moral questions; Young women -- Conduct of life
The enthusiast may subject herself to severe disappointments, and may
find ultimately that the husband she loved and married, under the sway
of the blind god, falls far short of that mysteriously exalted being she
deemed herself connected with for life. But far more to be deplored is
her fate, who entered the matrimonial state with the Stoical faith that
love was all an "illusion." What sympathy can those, thus joined, but
not wedded, feel in the season of sorrow? How little will they share, or
even imagine, those joys which spring up between hearts that have been
pledged, exchanged, and cemented.
There are those, who regard love as of necessity a mere Impulse; a thing
not subject in any wise to human control, but fitful, an outbreaker, a
tyrant. They can govern other emotions and sentiments. Anger, envy,
jealousy, resentment, pride, they believe capable of being moderated, if
not wholly suppressed. But love is lawless. Its mandates must be obeyed,
and that instantly; they may not be opposed, no, not even questioned.
Who has not seen some young woman of talent and virtue sacrifice herself
to this mistaken impression? The plume of the soldier, the gay air of
the debauchee, the flippant beau, the half-insane tippler, could she not
have seen her doom in being affianced to one of these poor pageants of
humanity? Ah, but "she loved; she could not help loving;" she gave
herself a victim at the profane shrine, because she always thought she
must love where and whom, her unbidden, irresponsible, feelings should
direct her to love.
There are others, who deem this sentiment a Weakness. If a lady find
herself inclined to it, she should at once strive to subdue it. Much as
one, whose face is marked by disease or accident, would fain conceal the
blemish, so would she hide, even from a mother or sister, any experience
of affection for a particular individual. Love is, in her view, a thing
to be ashamed of, an infirmity, which, if one have not power wholly to
escape, she should yet lock with eternal secrecy in her own bosom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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