Not a few marry from Fancy alone. They are attracted toward a gentleman by his manners and external appearance. They conceive a liking for another, because he has a pleasant voice, or an engaging smile, or is full of gaiety and wit. The influence of these qualities is felt by us all; nor is it wrong to give them some weight, in forming our estimate of one as a companion. But what are they all, if disconnected from a praiseworthy character? She who gives her heart, for this poor price, will sometime awake to a sense of her delusion. The imagination has an influence, perhaps an unavoidable one, on the affections. We invest a favorite with ideal charms, and put out of sight his faults. But in contemplating the solemn relation of marriage, no lady should abandon the exercise of her reason. Love, it is said, often so excites the fancy as to call forth effusions of poetry, where they were hitherto unknown. But woe to her, who cheats herself with the belief that the creature of her imagination is a real being, who will not listen to the counsels of understanding, but rushes blindly down the precipice, which, with one open eye, she might easily have foreseen. A recent writer, in giving advice to young ladies, speaks of "novels and tales," and especially of the "best fictions of our day, as holding up to view the mistakes and faults, which young persons are most likely to commit on the subject of love and matrimony, in such a way as is likely to prevent their repetition." With deference to one so intelligent in her remarks on other topics, I must differ from her on this. I believe that the reading of novels almost uniformly operates unfavorably on the female heart. In the first place, fictitious writings are very seldom read, except for the sake of the story. Let the author append a moral to his book, who thinks of stopping to read that? But again, where is the novel, which is an exact transcript of real life? There may be no one character in a work, that is not somewhat natural. Yet are the relations of each to all the others such as those in which we daily see people placed? Are not the remarks of the speakers often forced and strained? Do such loves occur in this working-day world? Are not the incidents, and the plot in general, indebted largely to the writer's imagination, for the effect they produce on the reader? It is the reading of fiction and impure poetry, more than all things else, I fear, which leads so many females to sacrifice themselves to unprincipled and base-hearted men. Instead of consulting these works, as a guide in marriage, let every one take counsel of her sober judgment. When "the dreams of youth are fled," and the novel ceases to captivate, we shall be left in a pitiable condition, if united to a being whom we could give no good _reason_ for marrying. Fancy alone, much more a mere whim, is a fearful agent, with whom to entrust our entire happiness for life.