THERE is fomething ftill more alarming to be dreaded for a young woman who is thoughtless enough to form indifcriminate friendships. There is a lightness of mind and manners in many women, who, though free from actual vice, have loft that delicate fenfibility which Heaven has placed in female minds as the out-guard of modefty. The rofy blush that gives the intuitive alarm to decency, even before the perceptions of the mind are awake to danger, glows not upon their cheek; the fnowy purity of innocence beams not upon their daunt lefs lefs forehead, though it may ftill retain its whitenefs. Their minds may be coarfe, however delicate their form; and their manners unfeminine, even without being masculine. AN intimacy with such persons is, of all others, the moft dangerous. The franknefs and livelinefs of their converfation render them too generally agreeable, and they frequently undermine the principles of virtue, before we find it neceffary to ftand upon our guard. 1 As As the Platonic fyftem has been long exploded, it is almoft unneceffary to warn my fair Readers against particular intimacies with the other fex, when not clofely connected with them by the ties of blood or affinity. The whole fyftem of Nature muft change, and the tyger and the lamb live peaceably together, before a fincere and difinterested friendship can fubfist between an amiable young woman and a man not nearly related to her, who has not paffed his grand climacteric. A man of fuch an age, poffeffed of fenfe and virtue, may perhaps perhaps be a kind and useful Mentor; but if a married woman is happy enough to meet with a proper and affectionate return from the first object I have recommended to her choice, the cannot ftand in need of any other Friend. PAREN PARENTAL and FILIAL AFFECTION. ARENTAL Affection feems PARE to be so perfectly instinctive, that when any unhappy object appears to be deficient in this natural fentiment, I confider fuch a perfon as one who has been unfortunately born deaf or blind; that is, in a ftate of deprivation of fome of thofe faculties which Providence has been graciously pleased to render inherent in our nature, in its perfect formation. IF |