arents, brethren, and sisters?

In the progress of an intimate acquaintance, should it be discovered
that there are certain traits of character in one of the parties, which
both are fully convinced will be a source of unhappiness, through life,
there _may_ be no special impropriety in separating. And yet even then
I would say, avoid haste. Better consider for an hour than repent for a
year, or for life. But let it be remembered, that before measures of
this kind are even hinted at, there must be a full conviction of their
necessity, and the mutual and hearty concurrence of both parties. Any
steps of this kind, the reasons for which are not fully understood on
both sides, and mutually satisfactory, as well as easily explicable to
those friends who have a right to inquire on the subject, are
criminal;--nay more; they are brutal.

I have alluded to _indirect_ promises of marriage, because I conceive
that the frequent opinion among young men that nothing is binding but a
direct promise, in so many words, is not only erroneous, but highly
dishonorable to those who hold it. The strongest pledges are frequently
given without the interchange of words. Actions speak louder than
words; and there is an attachment sometimes formed, and a confidence
reposed, which would be, in effect, weakened by formalities. The man
who would break a silent engagement, merely because it is a silent one,
especially when he has taken a course of conduct which he knew would be
likely to result in such engagement, and which perhaps he even
designed, is deserving of the public contempt. He is even a monster
unfit to live in decent society.

But there are such monsters on the earth's surface. There are
individuals to be found, who boast of their inhuman depredations on
those whom it ought to be their highest happiness to protect and aid,
rather than injure. They can witness, almost without emotion, the
heavings of a bosom rent with pangs which themselves have inflicted.
They can behold their unoffending victim, as unmoved as one who views a
philosophical experiment;--not expiring, it is true, but despoiled of
what is vastly dearer to her than life--her reputation. They can
witness all this, I say, without emotion, and without a single
compunction of conscience. And yet they go on, sometimes with apparent
prosperity and inward peace. At any rate, they _live_. No lightning
blasts them; no volcano pours over them its floods of lava; no
earthquake engulfs