“Elated by this, she gave free scope to her ruling passions, the love of pleasure and dissipation. Her best days were spent in the chase of vanity; and she culled the flowers of life, without considering, that substantial fruit would be required at a more advanced period, as a substitute for the fading blossoms of youth. Her mind was barren of improvement, and consequently destitute of resources.
“She vainly imagined the triumphs of beauty to be permanent, till its declared enemy, the small-pox, convinced her of the egregious mistake. By this she found her empire suddenly overturned. The merciless disorder had reduced her to a level with the generality of her sex, in appearance, and, in enjoyment far below them. Her glass faithfully represented this insupportable reduction. Regret and chagrin heightened the apparent calamity. She was remembered only as the contrast of what she once had been. Her lovers were disgusted with the change, and sought more pleasing objects of attention; while men of sentiment could not find a similarity of disposition, in her, to induce a connexion.
“Her female acquaintance, who had envied her as a rival, or feared her as a superior, now insulted her with their pity, or mortified her by remarks on the surprising alteration in her appearance.
“Finding no alleviation from society, she retired from the world to nurse, in solitude, the vexation and disappointment she experienced.
“View her now, peevish, discontented, and gloomy! Her ideas of pleasure were centered in that person, which is now neglected; in those endowments which have now forsaken her forever!
“Thought she studiously shuns; for she has nothing pleasing to occupy her reflections, but what is irretrievably lost!
“Miserable Flirtilla! thou trustedst in vanity, and vanity is thy recompense! How happy mightest thou have been, even in this change, if thy heart had been rectified, thy understanding improved, and thy mind liberally stored with useful sentiments, knowledge, and information!
“Cultivate, then, my young friends, those dispositions and attainments, which will yield permanent and real satisfaction, when sickness, adversity, or age shall have robbed your eyes of their lustre, and diminished the bloom and sprightliness of your forms.
“You are doubtless sensible that your happiness, in life, does not depend so much on your external, as your internal graces.
“The constitutional temper of your minds was given you by nature; but reason is added for its regulation.