Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/182

174 the young, and give them false views on a subject in regard to which every thing depends upon their having the clearest perceptions. The heroine is admired, and her constancy and devotion believed to be virtues of the highest order, and worthy of imitation, when she is but too often the mere false creation of a corrupt mind, and has no counterpart in real life, because she cannot have. From this fault even our best novelists are not wholly free.

True love is not a wild, strong, fiery, impetuous passion. It is, on the contrary, calm, deep, and clear-seeing. It is attracted by qualities alone, and in search of these it looks through all that is merely external, at the same time that it sees in external things the images of things internal. There may be faults of character, there may be external defects, there may be much wanting to give perfection to its object; but if the ruling ends be right, and if there be nothing in external things to mar and destroy the true development of what is within, and if, in addition to all this, there be that mysterious attraction of heart for heart which comes from above, and guides all aright who will wait for and be guided by its heavenly influences, then it finds its blest fruition, but not till then. It is mere passion that loves blindly and irrationally; but true love