Thus
may the young innocent heart be gradually led on to depend for its
enjoyment on the factitious passing admiration of a light and
thoughtless hour; and still worse, if possessed of keen susceptibilities
and powers of quick adaptation, the lesson is often too easily learned
of practising the arts likely to attract notice, thus losing for ever
the simplicity and modest freshness of a woman's nature. That may be a
fatal evening to you on which you will first attract sufficient notice
to have it said of you that you were more admired than Lucy D. or Ellen
M.; this may be a moment for a poisonous plant to spring up in your
heart, which will spread around its baleful influence until your dying
day. It is a disputed point among ethical metaphysicians, whether the
seeds of every vice are equally planted in each human bosom, and only
prevented from germinating by opposing circumstances, and by the grace
of God assisting self-control. If this be true, how carefully ought we
to avoid every circumstance that may favour the commencing existence of
before unknown sins and temptations. The grain that has been destitute
of vitality for a score of centuries is wakened into unceasing, because
continually renewed existence, by the fostering influences of light and
air and a suitable soil.
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