will not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend
to an unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband's
passions. In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the
women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most
beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.

Nature, or to speak with strict propriety God, has made all things
right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work.
I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's treatise, where he
advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her
sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution; and as
ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must be
transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant,
would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone, or the
grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally useless, or
rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is
friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that
rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer."

This is an obvious truth, and the cause not lying deep, will not
elude a slight glance of inquiry.

Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place
of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of
mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the
emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion,
naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind
out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the
security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a
healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not