LADIES' BOOK OF ETIQUETTE.
246
under various circumstances, some marks of preference,
more or
less
decided.
Beauty and plainness arc
arbi-
Unless there be any actual deformity, any great infirmity, in which case I think it were cruel to pre-suppose the likelihood of such'indica*
trary, not positive, terms.
tions, there is no one, that I hardly ever met with, who has not had, on some grounds, her partizans and ad-
mirers.
The
tastes vary
:
sensible, cold
however
plain are often particularized as elegant; even a sour look I have heard admired as
manners eulogized
as correct.
Opinion,,
generally verge to the correct, springs
may from so many sources, it of ideas, such trifles may it
is
so governed
guide
it,
that I
by
association
am
never sur-
encomium nor at the endless variety and incongruity of human judgment.
prised at the latitude given to personal
It
is
well that all have a chance of being approved, ad-
mired, beloved, and it remains for them to avail themselves of those possibilities which contribute so much to happiness. For we are sympathizing beings, and a law of our nature makes us look for a return of sympathy.
We
are sent here to form
ties,
and
to love,
and
to be loved,
whether the term applies to parental, or filial, or frateror whether it respects the less sure and more nal love experiences of love, in its ordinary sense. " I do not blame the parents who instil into their I think children of both sexes a desire to be married. fitful
who
teach the young a different lesson deceive Marriage, with all its chances, its infelicities, its sacrifices, is seldom so infelicitous, so uncertain, so full
those
them.
of sacrifice, as the single state. Life must have and those must be objects, objects progressive.
some
The