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 savors 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
endeavor 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 can be preserved, they think,
only by indifference. And they end in being 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 t