"Should they not be acceptable, she is inexcusable to requite them with levity and disdain. Let her reflect how she would like such conduct herself. Besides, she is often making a bitter enemy; perhaps she is exciting fierce and unamiable sentiments in one who otherwise might have been regarded as a mild and worthy individual. Let her be undeceived if she supposes that in thus doing she is carrying herself with dignity, or acquiring any added admiration from others. She ceases, in thus acting, to support the characteristics of a gentlewoman, which are mildness, courtesy, and reserve. If she cherishes, in spite of her pretended disgust, a secret partiality for the individual who distinguishes her, if she is lowering the esteem of a man whom she prefers, she not only incurs the hazard of losing his regard, but she is scattering ridicule on one whom she afterwards avows as her choice. In that case, she is lowering herself, or she is sowing the seeds of distrust in the minds of those who know her—she is, perhaps, frustrating and delaying her own happiness. Let her act with candor, with consideration, with good sense, and all this web which her folly would weave around her will not embarrass her. Let her not madly and obstinately resist the advice of those on whose affection to her, and on whose good judgment, experience has taught her to rely. Let her be a child in nothing except humility; let her listen to counsels; yet her own heart must decide for her—none can know so well as herself its secret throbs, or the impression of dislike or of regard which has been made upon it.
"I am, I confess, an enemy to trying to like a person, as I have rarely seen such a mental process end in happiness to either party. If an advantageous proposal offer itself, it is wiser decidedly to refuse it, than to trust to the slow growth of affection, upon a foundation of original dislike. And the trials of married life are such,—its temptations to irritability and contention are so manifold, its anxieties so unforseen and so complicated, that few can steer their difficult course safely and happily, unless there be a deep and true attachment, to contend with all the storms which may arise in the navigation.
"Deeply impressed with this conviction, should it be the lot of any young lady in whom I were interested to form a real, well-grounded attachment to a man whose circumstances were indifferent, I should counsel her, provided she can depend on the character and exertions of the object so beloved, to risk the event of an engagement—to trust to time and Providence, and to marry whenever means were afforded,—convinced as I am, that patience, and trust, and true affection, raise the character, and are acceptable in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. But in such a case, she must school her mind to meet the anxieties which attend limited means. She must prepare herself, by habits of diligence and economy, to become a poor man's wife. She must learn the difficult art of doing well upon a little. She must not, be she in any rank of life, think to indulge with impunity to herself in every refinement and luxury when she is single; and, upon her marriage, imagine that she can attain the practice of economy by wishing it. Such metamorphoses are out of reason—out of nature. She must endeavor before the bond which ties her to poverty is framed, to understand the duties of housekeeping, the mysteries of needle-work. She must lay down to herself rules of expenditure suitable, in part, to her future condition in life. Many a wife, thus commencing, has laid the foundations of future fortune, at least independence, to her husband, by keeping his mind at peace, during his progress up the steep ascent to professional, or clerical, or literary fame. Many a home has been cheered by domestic forbearance, and placid submission to circumstances, even in the higher classes, during the life-time of a father, or in the course of those long expectancies, in which the fortitude and principle of many of the aristocracy are tried and proved. But the self-denial, the cheerfulness, the good management, the strict principle, are formed at an earlier period than that in which a young lady gives her hand to him whom she has chosen, in spite of the frown of fortune, as her husband.
"Of this let the young be assured; there are few situations in life, in which a man, young, and in health, cannot meliorate his circumstances, if he possess energy and if he be stimulated by a true affection. The clergyman, with humble stipend, often hopeless from want of interest, has leisure—he has had education. He may, if he desires to assist himself, have recourse to literary labor, or to tuition. If he make not such exertion, during the course of an engagement, what hope can there be of him in future life?
"The young lawyer, however tedious his advancement, however few his opportunities, may also distinguish himself in a literary career. Innumerable are the subjects open to one of such a profession. How few avail themselves of the chance! Upon this rely, the man truly in love will make the effort. To the military man, though perhaps he may be less qualified, the same course is open, in a degree. Some of our best travels, some of our most amusing literary productions, have been the compositions of military men. And the advantage of this mode of aiding a small fortune is, that a man not only does not lower, but he raises his position by it, if his works are moral, written in a gentlemanly spirit, and affording information. However deep the attachment, however agreeable the object, if a man be indisposed to help himself to independence and competence, I should counsel no woman to continue an engagement formed in the expectation of 'times mending.' When I advocate the indulgence of attachment, it is to worthy, not to unworthy, objects.
"I now come to speak of moral character. Hard is the contest between affection and expediency, when it is raised by the question of circumstances. But harder still is it, when its result is to be decided upon an inquiry into moral conduct. I know not a more cruel situation than that when the heart is bestowed on one whom the judgment could not approve. I know not one which should be more strictly guarded against, not only by parents and friends, but (for I would impress on every young lady how much she may prove the best guardian of her own happiness) by the female heart itself.
"With every vigilance, with little to blame, little to repent, such cases will occur in this world. The feelings are interested, but the judgment distrusts. Happy is it for those who know the combat between affection and principle only in single life, and have not the misery of encountering so severe a destiny when it can no longer be remedied—who know not how to fulfill the vow to honor what is proved to be unworthy—and yet still must love,—for the affections once given, are little in our own power.
"In such a case occurring to the young, in, perhaps, a first attachment, I think they must be guided by friends. I am not an advocate for the interference of friends: where it is much a question of a long and contingent engagement—a question of being married at once, or of waiting, in some uncertainty—a question of ease or discomfort, of limited means or luxury—in such instances, if the moral character be unexceptionable, it is the duty of parents to point out all the risk, all the disadvantages, but to leave the heart to form its own decisions. Let them not seek to wrench the affections from the channel in which they flowed, when fresh from their source. They cannot know how deep the channel is—they cannot know if ever those pure and beautiful waters will flow in peace again when once hastily turned aside. But in cases of moral character, of right or wrong, the affair is wholly different, and the strictest parental authority ought, upon due inquiry, to be exercised.
"Submission and self-control are then the duty of the young sufferer—for a sufferer she truly is;—no page of her after-history could unfold a bitterer pang. But peace and hope come at last—the struggle, though violent, leaves behind it none of that corroding sorrow, which would have accompanied the acquiescence of parents in a union unblessed by a Providence, whose will is that all should be pure, even as He above is pure. Had your fond wishes been granted, young and trusting being, how fearful would have been your condition! For there is no suspicion so revolting to an innocent mind as that which unseats love from his throne in our affections, and places another in his stead. Be assured of this—little can you know of the moral conduct of the other sex; little is it desirable that you should know. But whenever improprieties are so flagrant as to be matters of conversation; when the good shun, and the pitying forbear to excuse; be assured some deeper cause than you can divine exists for the opprobrium. Think not that your empire over affections thus wasted can be a real one. It is transient, it will not last—it will not bring reformation—it will never be adequately requited. Throw yourself on the judgment of those whose interest in you has been life-long, or of such as you know truly regard your happiness; conquer the unhallowed preference; pray for support and guidance; trust in Him who 'catereth for the sparrow.'
"But, when the commencement of life is chilled by so cruel a sorrow—when the blight has fallen on the bud—we must not only look up to heavenly aid, we must take every means of care for an unfortunate, and, when once the judgment is convinced of the unworthiness of the object, a blameable attachment. How often, in the Psalms, in the Gospels, the word 'Help' is reiterated! We are to help ourselves—we must work for our heavenly peace on earth—the mental discipline, to prosper, must be aided by divine grace, but its springs must be from our own hearts. And, to fulfill the will of God in this, as in the other events of life, let us take such means as may aid us in the work of self-government.