ng_. Prostitutes never
_love_, and, for the far greater part, never did. Their passion, which
is more _mere animal_ than any thing else, is easily gratified; they,
like rakes, change not only without pain, but with pleasure; that is to
say, pleasure as great as they can enjoy. Women of _light minds_ have
seldom any _ardent_ passion; love is a mere name, unless confined to one
object; and young women, in whom levity of conduct is observable, will
not be thus restricted. I do not, however, recommend a young man to be
_too severe_ in judging, where the conduct does not go beyond _mere
levity_, and is not bordering on _loose_ conduct; for something depends
here upon constitution and animal spirits, and something also upon the
manners of the country. That levity, which, in a French girl, I should
not have thought a great deal of, would have frightened me away from an
English or an American girl. When I was in France, just after I was
married, there happened to be amongst our acquaintance a gay, sprightly
girl, of about seventeen. I was remonstrating with her, one day, on the
facility with which she seemed to shift her smiles from object to
object; and she, stretching one arm out in an upward direction, the
other in a downward direction, raising herself upon one foot, leaning
her body on one side, and thus throwing herself into _flying_ attitude,
answered my grave lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice
(significantly bowing her head and smiling at the same time), the
following lines from the _vaudeville_, in the play of Figaro:

Si l'amour a des _ailles_;
N'est ce pas pour _voltiger_?

That is, if love has _wings_, is it not _to flutter about_ with? The
wit, argument, and manner, all together, silenced me. She, after I left
France, married a very worthy man, has had a large family, and has been,
and is, a most excellent wife and mother. But that which does sometimes
well in France, does not do here at all. Our manners are more grave:
steadiness is the rule, and levity the exception. Love may _voltige_ in
France; but, in England, it cannot, with safety to the lover: and it is
a truth which, I believe, no man of attentive observation will deny,
that, as, in general, English wives are _more warm_ in their conjugal
attachments than those of France, so, with regard to individuals, that
those English women who are the _most light_ in their manners, and who
are the _least constant_ in their attachments, have the smallest por