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table, and to receive, with blushing modesty,

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his lavish thanks. But when the effort is really

to be made, when she finds that charity involves self-denial and exertion,—that she must rise from ner uxurious couch, and soil her silken sandals, and encounter perhaps rudeness and ingratitude from the objects of her relief, -and that all this is to be done without observation or applause, that there is no one to overhear her gentle voice, or to watch her gliding footsteps, or to trace her fairy form as she passes down the village street, then her philanthropic ardour cools, she shrinks from the painful duty, and discovers that what is very pleasing and poetic in description, is very dull and irksome in practice. The very morbidness of her sensibility is a bar to the real exercise of benevolence; she cannot bear to look upon pain :—there is so much that is offensive in human misery, and unromantic in its detail,— there is so much that is appalling in scenes of misery, and sickness, and death, that she recoils from the mere observation of such calamities; and she shuts her eyes and closes her ears to genuine distress, from the same feelings that

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cause her to scream at the approach of a spider, or faint at the sight of blood.

Yet she delights to nurse imaginary griefs; to live in an ideal world; and so to pamper her fancy, and excite her sensibility, that they alone become to her prolific sources of unhappiness.

There is a romance in grief which is highly poetic. There is something sublime in the extremity of human woe. Who does not feel its pathos when he reads of Antigone or of Hecuba, — of the daughter of Aiah, or of the widow of Nain? Who does not feel it when he witnesses or experiences the too frequent tragedies of ordinary life?

Yet there is here also danger in the indulgence of sentiment. There may be a pride in the excess of sorrow. There may be a luxury in the exuberance of tears. There may be a dreamy trance, in which the sufferers find almost pleasure, and from which they will not descend. And thus they may shroud themselves in their grief, and discard every thing which would divert them from its contemplation, and indulge

in a fond and sentimental reverie, which they may almost imagine it a desecration to disturb.

This is not unfrequently the case with women whose minds are sensitive, but weak, and who seem to make a merit of giving way to sorrow. But this is a perversion of feeling, not its consequence. For that sentiment is in reality most intense, that does not indulge itself in expression; that grief most affecting, that is not selfish; that emotion most noble and sublime, that elevates, not to ecstacy, but to exertion, that does not spend itself in weeping over a tomb, or in wailing a coronach ; but sends the mourner forth in modest, quiet, unobtrusive sorrow, to encounter again the trials of life, and to fulfil its obligations.

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CHAP. XI.

ON FEMALE ROMANCE.

THE sensitive mind discovers poetry every where. As it is touched with whatever is affecting in the chances of life, so does it taste whatever is picturesque in the objects of nature. All that is majestic and lovely here is to it a source of delight, and helps it to form a more just conception of him who is the Author of so much beauty. It is thus that in the images of earth may be recognised the tokens of eternity,- in the canopy of heaven, and the expanse of the ocean,-in the setting glories of the sun, and the melting colours of the rainbow,—visions and emblems of a brighter world.

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And the emotions thus excited are very good for us. They are the dews that refreshen the heart, and prepare it for spiritual culture. They are the voice of God speaking to us in his

works, and demanding our affection and our service.

The mere affecters of sentiment have, however, no capacity for deep feeling. They may travel over the world to support their pretensions; may scale the Alpine range, and tread the Hesperian shore, and stand upon the ruins of the Capitol; but they feel no kindling of spirit, no soft and sad associations,—they have no object but to compose a journal or to embellish an album.

Thus it is sometimes with young women to whom the common-places of sentiment are familiar; who are fluent in expression, and ready with their pencil; who affect pathos, and study the picturesque. They have, perhaps, made a pilgrimage to St. Peter's, or a tour to the lakes ; they have sailed on the bay of Naples, or have sketched Windermere: they talk of nothing but the "eternal city," or of autumnal tints'; and we are alternately wearied by their bad drawings and their worse taste.

Not, however, that their sentimentality is altogether affected. On the contrary, they often feel at the moment all that they express; and

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