Indeed to represent in lively
colors the terrible effects of the passions, and the fatal
consequences that a momentary excitement might entail is not of a
nature to inspire a young lady with horror for vice and love for
virtue. How is it possible that she will guard against the evil
inclinations of the heart, when she is conscious of the danger in
giving them free scope, and that a momentary forgetfulness is
sometimes punished by a life-time of sorrow and bitterness? Such a
culpable negligence might be accounted for, if there existed a
necessary relation between the will and the imagination, by which the
determinations of the former are necessarily dependant upon the
impressions of the latter.
But such is not the case, for the imagination has a sphere of action
very different from that of the intelligence or the will. It is an
interior mirror which reflects back upon the soul images of things
beheld by the senses and conceived by the intelligence, without
regard to time or place. Positively no, would be the answer of a
young lady of self-respect, whom we would ask if she would like to
see with her own eyes all that is spoken of in the novel which she
reads with so little caution! Your answer would be given in the same
terms, should we ask you if she might read without impunity to virtue
those intrigues, those scenes so engaging to curiosity, and which
incite the reader to follow up the details of ineffectual struggles
against passion.
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