eath. The laws of nature, she will see, extend over the spirit, no
less than the body.

There are not a few who cherish Romantic ideas concerning the
affections. They regard "marriage," in the words of another, "as an
occasion to be preceded by fears, and hopes, and love's stratagems, by
love-letters, passionate vows, sudden crosses, and intense joys." It is
to transform the individual subject to its power, to fill her with
sensations, which she cannot now even imagine. With this transcendental
view of that passion, a young woman is likely to conclude that, for
herself, she shall never see the person whom she can love. No angelic
being, in human form, will ever cross her path, and therefore she shall
always remain single. Anon she dreams of going into a nunnery,--"to pine
away and die."

Now we cannot too early set about correcting these false imaginings and
vain expectations. Poets may sing of love as convulsing the frame, and
rending the heart, and transmuting a human sentiment into divine
extasies. But in the sober experience of life, such rapturous emotions
are exceedingly rare. Indeed all the deep feelings of our nature are
tranquil. It is the shallow stream only, which dashes, and sparkles, and
deafens us by its noise. If you ever know the power of genuine love, you
will find it as calm as it is intense. It will be in harmony with your
other pure sentiments. Never will it subjugate, and tyrannize over, and
do violence to, your whole nature.

We have seen those,--and we suspect they belong to a numerous
class,--who conceive that true love is attended by a Fatalism. It is
first assumed, that every one must love some individual of the opposite
sex. A necessity is laid on us all, it is thought, to bestow the
affections in marriage. The question may not so much as be raised, "Is
it certain that I shall ever meet with one to whom I can give my heart?"
No, woman was made to love and to be married, that is her unalterable
destiny. All that is to occupy her thoughts in this respect, is, "Who
shall the individual be, on whom I must place my affections?"

This opinion is surely erroneous. For Providence has so arranged the
circumstances of human life and of society, that some females are
absolutely precluded from forming the matrimonial connection.
Ill-health,--to name no other cause,--sometimes positively debars one
from this relation. There are abundant reasons, indeed, for which every
one, ordinarily situated, should