ractice in hardihood, as the hackneyed practitioner
unconsciously deepens the rouge upon her cheek, until, unperceived by
her blunted visual organs, it loses all appearance of truth and beauty.
Some instances of the kind I allude to nave come before even your
inexperienced eyes; and from the shrinking surprise with which you now
contemplate them, I have no doubt that you would wish to shun even the
first step in the same career. Indeed, it is probable that you, under
any circumstances, would never go so far in coquetry as those to whom
your memory readily recurs. Your innate delicacy, your feminine
high-mindedness may, at any future time, as well as at present, preserve
you from the bad taste of challenging those attentions which your very
vanity would reject as worthless if they were not voluntarily offered.

Nevertheless, even in you, habits of dissipation may produce an effect
which to your inmost being may be almost equally injurious. You may
possess an antidote to prevent any external manifestations of the
poisonous effects of an indulged craving for excitement; but general
admiration, however spontaneously offered and modestly received, has
nevertheless a tendency to create a necessity for mental stimulants.
This, among other ill-effects, will, worst of all, incapacitate you from
the appreciative enjoyment of healthy food.

The heart that with its luscious cates
The world has fed so long,
Could never taste the simple food
That gives fresh virtue to the good,
Fresh vigour to the strong.[91]

The pure and innocent pleasures which the hand of Providence diffuses
plentifully around us will, too probably, become tasteless and insipid
to one whose habits of excitement have destroyed the fresh and simple
tastes of her mind. Stronger doses, as in the case of the opium-eater,
will each day be required to produce an exhilarating effect, without
which there is now no enjoyment, without which, in course of time, there
will not be even freedom from suffering.

There is an analogy throughout between the mental and the physical
intoxication; and it continues most strikingly, even when we consider
both in their most favourable points of view, by supposing the victim to
self-indulgence at last willing to retrace her steps. This fearful
advantage is granted to our spiritual enemy by wilful indulgence in sin;
that it is only when trying to adopt or resume a life of sobriety and
self-denial that we become