may have whom ſhe is deſtined to marry. Let her only determine, without being too anxious about preſent happineſs, to acquire the qualities that ennoble a rational being, and a rough inelegant huſband may ſhock her taſte without deſtroying her peace of mind. She will not model her ſoul to ſuit the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them: his character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue.
If Dr. Gregory confined his remark to romantic expectations of conſtant love and congenial feelings, he ſhould have recollected that experience will baniſh what advice can never make us ceaſe to wiſh for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expenſe of reaſon.
I own it frequently happens that women who have foſtered a romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling, waſte their[1] lives in imagining how happy they ſhould have been with a huſband who could love them with a fervid increaſing affection every day, and all day. But they might as well pine married as ſingle—and would not be a jot more unhappy with a bad huſband than longing for a good one. That a proper education; or, to ſpeak with more preciſion, a well ſtored mind, would enable a woman to ſupport a ſingle life with dignity, I grant; but that ſhe ſhould avoid cultivating her taſte, leſt her huſband ſhould occaſionally ſhock it, is quitting a ſubſtance for a ſhadow. To ſay the truth, I do not know of what uſe is an improved taſte, if the individual is not rendered more independent of the caſualties of life; if new ſources of enjoyment, only dependent on the ſolitary operations of the mind, are
not
- ↑ For example, the herd of noveliſts.
