in characters
that are almost universally understood.

14. It is equally true of the pleasing and the softer passions, that
they leave their signatures upon the countenance when they cease to act:
the prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical
effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features which
makes a more favorable and forcible impression upon the mind of others,
than any charm produced by mere external causes.

15. Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment,
equally endanger the possessor: "It is," to use an eastern metaphor,
"like the towers of a city, not only an ornament, but a defence;" if it
excites desire, it at once controls and refines it; it represses with
awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation. The love of
reason and virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this
beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence,
which is not an object of corporeal appetite.

16. As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly engages to
fidelity: every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from giving
pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in
which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness,
is a silent reproach of the first irregular wish: and the purpose
immediately appears to be disingenious and cruel, by which the tender
hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence
of unsuspected simplicity abased, and the peace even of virtue
endangered by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the
strongest obligations.

17. But the hope of the hypocrite must perish. When the fictitious
beauty has laid by her smiles, when the lustre of her eyes and the bloom
of her cheeks have lost their influence with their novelty; what remains
but a tyrant divested of power, who will never be seen without a mixture
of indignation and disdain? The only desire which this object could
gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without reluctance,
but with triumph.

18. As resentment will succeed to disappointment, a desire to mortify
will succeed to a desire to please; and the husband may be urged to
solicit a mistress, merely by a remembrance of the beauty of his wife,
which lasted only till she was known.

Let it therefore be remembered, that none can be disciples of the
Graces, but in the school of Virtue; and that those who wish to be
l