haracteristics of heroines in romance. Sentimental authors, who paint
with enchanting colours all the graces and all the virtues in happy
union, teach us to expect that this union should be indissoluble.
Afterwards, from the natural influence of association, we expect in
real life to meet with virtue when we see grace, and we are
disappointed, almost disgusted, when we find virtue unadorned. This
false association has a double effect upon the conduct of women; it
prepares them to be pleased, and it excites them to endeavour to
please by adventitious charms, rather than by those qualities which
merit esteem. Women, who have been much addicted to common
novel-reading, are always acting in imitation of some Jemima, or
Almeria, who never existed, and they perpetually mistake plain William
and Thomas for "_My Beverly!_" They have another peculiar misfortune;
they require continual great emotions to keep them in tolerable humour
with themselves; they must have tears in their eyes, or they are
apprehensive that their hearts are growing hard. They have accustomed
themselves to such violent stimulus, that they cannot endure the
languor to which they are subject in the intervals of delirium. Pink
appears pale to the eye that is used to scarlet; and common food is
insipid to the taste which has been vitiated by the high seasonings of
art.

A celebrated French actress, in the wane of her charms, and who, for
that reason, began to feel weary of the world, exclaimed, whilst she
was recounting what she had suffered from a faithless lover, "Ah!
c'etoit le bon temps, j'etois bien malheureuse!"[92]

The happy age in which women can, with any grace or effect, be
romantically wretched, is, even with the beautiful, but a short season
of felicity. The sentimental sorrows of any female mourner, of more
than thirty years standing, command but little sympathy, and less
admiration; and what other consolations are suited to sentimental
sorrows?

Women, who cultivate their reasoning powers, and who acquire tastes
for science and literature, find sufficient variety in life, and do
not require the _stimulus_ of dissipation, or of romance. Their
sympathy and sensibility are engrossed by proper objects, and
connected with habits of useful exertion: they usually feel the
affection which others profess, and actually enjoy the happiness which
others describe.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Adam Smith.

[79] See Smith.

[80] Edward.

[81] V. Rousseau and