Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/157

young men for the purpose of making a selection of a husband: she has to remain at home and wait until some one chooses her out from all the rest, and asks her to become his partner through life. This is a matter in which, although she must remain passive, she is deeply and vitally interested; and she cannot but desire that her hand may be sought by one who has every virtue written upon his heart. To accept or reject an offer of marriage is always in her power, and this right she should exercise with deliberation, wisdom, and firmness. It will almost always follow, that he who seeks her hand will be of those who have been for a time her visiting friends, and with whom she has been on terms of more unrestrained intercourse than with any others. Viewed in this light, the importance of not admitting any but men of known excellence of character as visiting friends will be clearly seen; for it may happen, that, if this rule be not followed, the most unsuitable, because the most unprincipled of all, may be the one who makes the offer of marriage; and the young woman thus addressed may be led, from being flattered by the preference and dazzled by a specious exterior, to forget or disbelieve the common estimation in which he is every where