Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/193

Rh frame, inpiring warm affections and great reolves.

For every thing, aith the wie man, there is a eaon;—and who would look for the fruits of autumn during the genial months of pring? But this is mere declamation, and I mean to reaon with thoe worldly-wie intructors, who, intead of cultivating the judgment intil prejudices, and render hard the heart that gradual experience would only have cooled. An early acquaintance with human infirmities; or, what is termed knowledge of the world, is the uret way, in my opinion, to contract the heart and damp the natural youthful ardour which produces not only great talents, but great virtues. For the vain attempt to bring forth the fruit of experience, before the apling has thrown out its leaves, only exhauts its trength, and prevents its auming a natural form, jut as the form and trength of ubiding metals are injured when the attraction of coheion is diturbed.

Tell me, ye who have tudied the human mind, is it not a trange way to fix principles by howing young people that they are eldom table? And how can they be fortified by habits when they are proved to be fallacious by example? Why is the ardour of youth thus to be damped, and the luxuriancy of fancy cut to the quick? This dry caution may, it is true, guard a ter&ensp;