CHOOSE INTELLECTUALLY—LOVE AFTERWARD.
1. LOVE.—Let it ever be remembered that love is one of the most
sacred elements of our nature, and the most dangerous with which
to tamper. It is a very beautiful and delicately contrived faculty, producing the most delightful results, but easily thrown out of repair—like a tender plant, the delicate fibers of which incline gradually to entwine themselves around its beloved one, uniting two willing hearts by a thousand endearing ties, and making of "twain one flesh": but they are easily torn asunder, and then adieu to the joys of connubial bliss!
2. COURTING BY THE QUARTER.—This courting by the quarter, "here a
little and there a little," is one of the greatest evils of the day. This getting a little in love with Julia, and then a little with Eliza, and a little more with Mary,—this fashionable flirtation and coquetry of both sexes—is ruinous to the domestic affections; besides, effectually preventing the formation of true connubial love. I consider this dissipation of the affections one of the greatest sins against Heaven, ourselves, and the one trifled with, that can be committed.
3. FRITTERING AWAY AFFECTIONS.—Young men commence courting long
before they think of marrying, and where they entertain no thoughts of
marriage. They fritter away their own affections, and pride themselves
on their conquests over the female heart; triumphing in having so
nicely fooled them. They pursue this sinful course so far as to drive
their pitiable victims, one after another, from respectable society, who, becoming disgraced, retaliate by heaping upon them all the indignities and impositions which the fertile imagination of woman can invent or execute.
4. COURTING WITHOUT INTENDING TO MARRY.—Nearly all this wide-spread
crime and suffering connected with public and private licentiousness
and prostitution, has its origin in these unmeaning courtships—this
premature love—this blighting of the affections, and every young
man who courts without intending to marry, is throwing himself or his
sweet-heart into this hell upon earth. And most of the blame rests
on young men, because they take the liberty of paying their addresses
to the ladies and discontinuing them, at pleasure, and thereby mainly
cause this vice.
5. SETTING THEIR CAPS.—True, young ladies sometimes "set their caps," sometimes court very hard by their bewitching smiles and affectionate manners; by the natural language of love, or that backward reclining and affectionate roll of the head which expresses it; by their soft and persuasive accents; by their low dresses, artificial forms, and many other unnatural and affected ways and means of attracting attention and exciting love; but women never court till they have been in love and experienced its interruption, till their first and most tender fibres of love have been frost-bitten by disappointment. It is surely a sad condition of society.
6. TRAMPLING THE AFFECTIONS OF WOMEN.—But man is a self-privileged
character. He may not only violate the laws of his own social nature
with impunity, but he may even trample upon the affections of woman. He may even carry this sinful indulgence to almost any length, and yet be caressed and smiled tenderly upon by woman; aye, even by virtuous woman. He may call out, only to blast the glowing affections of one young lady after another, and yet his addresses be cordially welcomed by others. Surely a gentleman is at perfect liberty to pay his addresses, not only to a lady, but even to the ladies, although he does not once entertain the thought of marrying his sweet-heart, or, rather his victim. O, man, how depraved! O, woman, how strangely blind to your own rights and interests!
7. AN INFALLIBLE SIGN.—An infallible sign that a young man's
intentions are improper, is his trying to excite your passions. If he
loves you, he will never appeal to that feeling, because he respects
you too much for that. And the woman who allows a man to take
advantage of her just to compel him to marry her, is lost and
heartless in the last degree, and utterly destitute of moral principle
as well as virtue. A woman's riches is her virtue, that gone she has
lost all.