ions of the senses."[110]

Examine the first choice of a young girl. Of all the qualities which
please her in a lover, there is, perhaps, not one which is valuable in a
husband. Is not this the most complete condemnation of all our systems
of education? From the fear of too much agitating the heart, we hide
from women all that is worthy of love, all the depth and dignity of that
passion when felt for a worthy object;--their eye is captivated, the
exterior pleases, the heart and mind are not known, and, after six
months union, they are surprised to find the beau ideal metamorphosed
into a fool or a coxcomb. This is the issue of what are ordinarily
called love-matches, because they are considered as such. "Cupid is
indeed often blamed for deeds in which he has no share." In the opinion
of the wise, the mischief is occasioned by the action of vivid
imaginations upon minds unprepared by previous reflection on the
subject; that is, by the entire banishment of all thoughts of love from
education. We should endeavour, then, to engrave on the soul a model of
virtue and excellence, and teach young women to regulate their
affections by an approximation to this model; the result would not be an
increased facility in giving the affections, but a greater difficulty in
so doing; for women, whose blindness and ignorance now make them the
victims of fancied perfections, would be able to make a clear-sighted
appreciation of all that is excellent, and have an invincible repugnance
to an union not founded upon that basis. Love, in the common acceptation
of the term, is a folly,--love, in its purity, its loftiness, its
unselfishness, is not only a consequence, but a proof of our moral
excellence,--the sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self
in the admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to be a high
moral influence; it is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish
part of our nature.[111]

What is meant by educating young women to love wisely is simply this,
that they be taught to distinguish true love from the false spirit which
usurps its name and garb; that they be taught to abstract from it the
worldliness, vanity, and folly, with which it has been mixed up. They
should be taught that it is not to be the amusement of an idle hour; the
indulgence of a capricious and greedy vanity; the ladder, by the
assistance of which they may climb a few steps higher in the grades of
society; in short, that except it owe it