habit of being
caressed and complimented, and never forgetting yourself, will have
miserably prepared you to bestow.

It requires much watchfulness to shun the contagion of an earthly
Passion, in forming the marriage tie. We should be perfectly certain
that our impulses are all pure, that it is the moral and intellectual we
prize in our friend. The spirit alone can profit us. An intemperate
woman always shocks us beyond measure. She, who lives for the pleasures
of the table, falls from the rank of her sex. All who would preserve
their integrity, must guard against every gross and low tendency, and
cultivate in their inmost soul a regard for character alone, and a
desire of spiritual acquisitions, in their partner for life.

Some are charmed by personal Bravery. It is often remarked, that the
female sex admire military characters. Being constitutionally timid, the
courage they associate with the soldier, is to them always an attractive
quality. They lean upon it fondly, for protection in their own physical
weakness. In the Island of Borneo, no man is allowed to solicit a damsel
in marriage until he has cut off the head of an enemy. To how many, in
Christian lands, is personal prowess a primary recommendation, in a
candidate for marriage.

Yet are not tenderness, fidelity, and constancy, quite as important in
a husband, as physical courage? She who gives herself for a plume or an
epaulet, or for the bravery they are thought to indicate, will learn, in
after days, that although the oak be admirable for its stoutness, there
are gentler trees one would desire in the garden of domestic love.

Many matches are made solely through the accidental Proximity of the
parties. A young lady visits a friend often, and the brother, by being
daily seen, engages her affections. Perhaps a gentleman boards in the
family of her father. The simple circumstance of her being more in his
society, than in that of others of his age, is the foundation of their
marriage. There seems almost a fatality in these cases, they so often
occur.

Now I am far from recommending a female to put on an unnatural reserve
toward those she sees thus frequently; but let her recollect, that the
mere fact of her interchanging so many thoughts and feelings with
another, predisposes both to a more intimate connection. It is better,
if the connection would be an improper one, to prevent such a
consummation, by decided conduct in the outset, than by encouragements