e
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle, or restrain.

"'The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

"'And _vital feelings of delight_
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell.
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,
While she and I together live,
Here in this happy dell.'" [4]

"_Vital_ feelings of delight," observe. There are deadly feelings of
delight; but the natural ones are vital, necessary to very life.

And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. Do not
think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make her happy. There
is not one restraint you put on a good girl's nature--there is not one
check you give to her instincts of affection or of effort--which will
not be indelibly written on her features, with a hardness which is all
the more painful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of
innocence, and the charm from the brow of virtue.

71. This for the means: now note the end. Take from the same poet, in
two lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty--

"A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet."

The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in
that majestic peace, which is founded in the memory of happy and useful
years,--full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that
yet more majestic childishness, which is still full of change and
promise;--opening always--modest at once, and bright, with hope of
better things to be won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where
there is still that promise.

72. Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then,
as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind
with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural
instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love.

All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to understand,
and even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be given, not as
knowledge,--not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know;
but only to feel, and to judge. It is of no moment, as a matter of
pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or
on