“His sorrow for his friend Mr. Vincent’s departure does not seem to affect his spirits much,” said Lady Anne. “People who expect sentiment from children of six years old will be disappointed, and will probably teach them affectation. Surely it is much better to let their natural affections have time to expand. If we tear the rosebud open we spoil the flower.” Belinda smiled at this parable of the rosebud, which, she said, might be applied to men and women, as well as to children.
“And yet, upon reflection,” said Lady Anne, “the heart has nothing in common with a rosebud. Nonsensical allusions pass off very prettily in conversation. I mean, when we converse with partial friends: but we should reason ill, and conduct ourselves worse, if we were to trust implicitly to poetical analogies. Our affections,” continued Lady Anne, “arise from circumstances totally independent of our will.”
“That is the very thing I meant to say,” interrupted Belinda, eagerly.
“They are excited by the agreeable or useful qualities that we discover in things or in persons.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Belinda.
“Or by those which our fancies discover,” said Lady Anne.
Belinda was silent; but, after a pause, she said, “That it was certainly very dangerous, especially for women, to trust to fancy in bestowing their affections.” “And yet,” said Lady Anne, “it is a danger to which they are much exposed in society. Men have it in their power to assume the appearance of every thing that is amiable and estimable, and women have scarcely any opportunities of detecting the counterfeit.”
“Without Ithuriel’s spear, how can they distinguish the good from the evil?” said Belinda. “This is a common-place complaint, I know; the ready excuse that we silly young women plead, when we make mistakes for which our friends reproach us, and for which we too often reproach ourselves.”
“The complaint is common-place precisely because it is general and just,” replied Lady Anne. “In the slight and frivolous intercourse, which fashionable belles usually have with those fashionable beaux who call themselves their lovers, it is surprising that they can discover any thing of each other’s real character. Indeed they seldom do; and this probably is the cause why there are so many unsuitable and unhappy marriages. A woman who has an opportunity of seeing her lover in private society, in domestic life, has infinite advantages; for if she has any sense, and he has any sincerity, the real character of both may perhaps be developed.”
“True,” said Belinda (who now suspected that Lady Anne alluded to Mr. Vincent); “and in such a situation a woman would readily be able to decide whether the man who addressed her would suit her taste or not; so she would be inexcusable if, either from vanity or coquetry, she disguised her real sentiments.”