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CHAP. X.

ON FEMALE ROMANCE.

Most women are inclined to be romantic. This tendency is not confined to the young or to the beautiful; to the intellectual or to the refined. Every woman capable of strong feeling is susceptible of romance; and though its degree may depend on external circumstances, or education, or station, or excitement, it generally exists, and requires only a stimulus for its developement.

Romance*, indeed, contributes much to the charm of female character. Without some degree of it, no woman can be interesting; and though its excess is a weakness, and one which receives but little indulgence, there is nothing truly generous or disinterested which does not imply its existence.

It is that poetry of senti

* This term has been objected to by an authority to which the writer would respectfully defer; but she trusts that the context will sufficiently explain her meaning.

ment which imparts to character or incident, something of the beautiful or the sublime: which elevates us to a higher sphere: which gives an ardour to affection, a life to thought, a glow to imagination: and which lends so warm and sunny a hue to the portraiture of life, that it ceases to appear the vulgar, and cold, and dull, and monotonous reality, which common sense alone would make it.

But it is this opposition between romance and sobriety that excites so strong a prejudice against the former. It is associated in the minds of many, with folly alone. A romantic, silly girl, is the object of their contempt; and they so recoil from this personification of sentiment, that their chief object seems to be, to divest themselves altogether of its delusion. Life is, to them, a mere calculation: expediency is their maxim,— propriety their rule,-profit, ease, or comfort, their aim: and they have at least this advantage, - that while minds of higher tone, and hearts of superior sensibility, are often harassed and wounded, and even withered, in their passage through life; they proceed in their less adventurous career, neither chilled by the coldness, nor

sickened by the meanness, nor disappointed by the selfishness of the world. They virtually admit, though they often theoretically deny, the baseness of human nature; and, strangers to disinterestedness themselves, they do not expect to meet with it in others. They are content

with a low degree of enjoyment, and are thus exempted from much poignant suffering; and it is only when the casualties of life interfere with their individual ease, that we can perceive that they are not altogether insensible.

A good deal of this phlegmatic disposition exists in many who are capable of higher feeling. Such persons are so afraid of sensibility, that they repress in themselves every thing that savours of it; and though we may occasionally detect it in the mounting flush, or in the glistening tear, or in the half-stifled sigh, it is in vain that we endeavour to elicit any more explicit avowal. They are ashamed even of what they do betray; and one would imagine, that the imputation of sensibility were almost a reflection on their character. They must not feel, or, at least, they must not allow that they feel; for feeling has led so many persons wrong, that decorum

ence.

can be preserved, they think, only by indifferAnd they end in becoming really as callous as they wish to appear; and stifle emotion so successfully, that at length it ceases to give them uneasiness.

Such is often the case with many who pass through life with great decorum; and though women have naturally more sensibility than the other sex, they too, sometimes, consider its indulgence altogether wrong. Yet, if its excess is foolish, it is surely a mistake to attempt to suppress it altogether; for such attempt will either produce a dangerous revulsion, or, if successful, will spoil the character. One would rather, almost, that a woman were ever so romantic, than that she always thought, and felt, and spoke by rule; and should deem it preferable that her sensibility brought upon her occasional distress, than that she always calculated the degree of her feeling.

Life has its romance, and to this it owes much of its charm. It is not that

a

every woman is heroine, and every individual history a novel; but there are scenes and incidents in real life so

peculiar, and often so poetic, that we need not

romance.

be indebted to fiction for the developement of Christians will trace such scenes and incidents immediately to Providence, and they do so with affectionate and confiding hearts; and the more affecting or remarkable these may be, the more clearly do they recognise the Divine interference. They regard them as remembrances of Heaven, to recall to them their connection with it; and remind them, that whatever there may be to interest or excite their feelings here, there is infinitely more to affect and warm their hearts in the glorious prospects beyond.

It is natural that women should be very susceptible to such impressions; that they should view life with almost a poetic eye; and that they should be peculiarly alive to its vicissitudes. And though a Quixotic quest after adventures is as silly as it is vain; and to invest every trifle with importance, or to see something marvellous in every incident, is equally absurd; there is no reason why the imagination should not grasp whatever is picturesque, and the mind dwell upon whatever is impressive, and the heart warm with whatever is affecting in the changes

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