"But I observe," said Mrs. Towers, "whenever you censure any indiscretion, you seldom fail to give cautions how to avoid it; and pray let us know what is to be done in this case? That is to say, how a young lady ought to guard against and overcome the first favourable impressions?"
"What I imagine," replied I, "a young lady ought to do, on any the least favourable impressions of the kind, is immediately to withdraw into herself, as one may say; to reflect upon what she owes to her parents, to her family, to her character, and to her sex; and to resolve to check such a random prepossession, which may much more probably, as I hinted, make her a prey to the undeserving than otherwise, as there are so many of that character to one man of real merit.
"The most that I apprehend a first-sight approbation can do, is to inspire a liking; and a liking is conquerable, if the person will not brood over it, till she hatches it into love. Then every man and woman has a black and a white side; and it is easy to set the imperfections of the person against the supposed perfections, while it is only a liking. But if the busy fancy be permitted to work as it pleases, uncontrolled, then 'tis very likely, were the lady but to keep herself in countenance for receiving first impressions, she will see perfections in the object, which no other living soul can. And it may be expected, that as a consequence of her first indiscretion, she will confirm, as an act of her judgment, what her wild and ungoverned fancy had misled her to think of with so much partial favour. And too late, as it probably may happen, she will see and lament her fatal, and, perhaps, undutiful error.
"We are talking of the ladies only," added I (for I saw Miss Stapylton was become very grave): "but I believe first-sight love often operates too powerfully in both sexes: and where it does so, it will be very lucky, if either gentleman or lady find reason, on cool reflection, to approve a choice which they were so ready to make without thought."
"'Tis allowed," said Mrs. Towers, "that rash and precipitate love may operate pretty much alike in the rash and precipitate of both sexes: and which soever loves, generally exalts the person beloved above his or her merits: but I am desirous, for the sake of us maiden ladies, since it is a science in which you are so great an adept, to have your advice, how we should watch and guard its first incroachments and that you will tell us what you apprehend gives the men most advantage over us."
"Nay, now, Mrs. Towers, you rally my presumption, indeed!"
"I admire you, Madam," replied she, "and every thing you say and do; and I won't forgive you to call what I so seriously say and think, raillery. For my own part," continued she, "I never was in love yet, nor, I believe, were any of these young ladies." (Miss Cope looked a little silly upon this.) "And who can better instruct us to guard our hearts, than a lady who has so well defended her own?"
"Why then, Madam, if I must speak, I think, what gives the other sex the greatest advantage over even many of the most deserving ones, is that dangerous foible, the love of praise, and the desire to be flattered and admired, a passion I have observed to predominate, more or less, from sixteen to sixty, in most of our sex. We are too generally delighted with the company of those who extol our graces of person or mind: for, will not a grateful lady study hard to return a_ few_ compliments to a gentleman who makes her so many! She is concerned to prove him a man of distinguished sense, or a polite man, at least, in regard to what she thinks of herself; and so the flatterer shall be preferred to such of the sincere and worthy, as cannot say what they do not think. And by this means many an excellent lady has fallen a prey to some sordid designer.
"Then, I think, nothing can give gentlemen so much advantage over our sex, as to see how readily a virtuous lady can forgive the capital faults of the most abandoned of the other; and that sad, sad notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband; a notion that has done more hurt, and discredit too, to our sex (as it has given more encouragement to the profligate, and more discouragement to the sober gentlemen), than can be easily imagined. A fine thing, indeed I as if the wretch, who had run through a course of iniquity, to the endangering of soul and body, was to be deemed the best companion for life, to an innocent and virtuous young lady, who is to owe the kindness of his treatment to her, to his having never before accompanied with a modest woman; nor, till his interest on one hand (to which his extravagance, perhaps, compels him to attend), and his impaired constitution on the other, oblige him to it, so much as wished to accompany with one; and who always made a jest of the marriage state, and perhaps, of every thing either serious or sacred!"
"You observe, very well," said Mrs. Towers: "but people will be apt to think, that you have less reason than any of our sex, to be severe against such a notion: for who was a greater rake than a certain gentleman, and who is a better husband?"