Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/70

 which can only lead to mischief. Their principal attractions consist of endowments which imply no real merit, and they are usually under the influence of one single passion, wrought to such a pitch of extravagance, as in real life would he completely ridiculous. Reading of this kind is too apt to inspire an excessive love of admiration, and desire to possess personal beauty; and gives us such false notions of the world in which we are to perform our part, that the most respectable occupations, or duties of domestic life, become irksome and tedious.

We must not expect to realize the scenes with which we are so much delighted. This world is a state of trial, we must therefore expect pain; it is a state of probation and calls for the exercise of virtue; of imperfection, and we must look beyond it for purity and felicity. The knowledge of our own hearts is essential to respectability and happiness; the permitting ourselves to indulge in the visionary scenes of romance is unfavourable to self knowledge, and commmonly perfects us in nothing but giddiness and self conceit. If we have occasional recourse to works of fancy for amusement, let us do it but rarely, and select those works with care. At this season of our lives, there is no time to be lost in the acquirement of knowledge; a future opportunity