It can then depict love with celestial charms, and
dote on the grand ideal object- it can imagine a degree of mutual
affection that shall refine the soul, and not expire when it has
served as a 'scale to heavenly;' and, like devotion, make it absorb
every meaner affection and desire. In each others arms, as in a
temple, with its summit lost in the clouds, the world is to be shut
out, and every thought and wish, that do not nurture pure affection
and permanent virtue.- Permanent virtue! alas! Rousseau, respectable
visionary! thy paradise would soon be violated by the entrance of some
unexpected guest. Like Milton's it would only contain angels, or men
sunk below the dignity of rational creatures. Happiness is not
material, it cannot be seen or felt! Yet the eager pursuit of the good
which every one shapes to his own fancy, proclaims man the lord of
this lower world, and to be an intelligential creature, who is not
to receive, but acquire happiness. They, therefore, who complain of
the delusions of passion, do not recollect that they are exclaiming
against a strong proof of the immortality of the soul.
But leaving superior minds to correct themselves, and pay dearly for
their experience, it is necessary to observe, that it is not against
strong, persevering passions; but romantic wavering feelings that I
wish to guard the female heart by exercising the understanding: for
these paradisiacal reveries are oftener the effect of idleness than of
a lively fancy.
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