Although nature spurns all formal rules and directions in affairs
of love, it might at all events be possible to implant in young
minds such views of Character as should enable them to
discriminate between the true and the false, and to accustom them
to hold in esteem those qualities of moral purity and integrity,
without which life is but a scene of folly and misery. It may not
be possible to teach young people to love wisely, but they may at
least be guarded by parental advice against the frivolous and
despicable passions which so often usurp its name. "Love," it has
been said, "in the common acceptation of the term, is folly; but
love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness, is not only
a consequence, but a proof, of our moral excellence. The
sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the
admiration engendered by it, all prove its claim to a high moral
influence. It is the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish
part of our nature."
It is by means of this divine passion that the world is kept ever
fresh and young. It is the perpetual melody of humanity. It
sheds an effulgence upon youth, and throws a halo round age. It
glorifies the present by the light it casts backward, and it
lightens the future by the beams it casts forward. The love which
is the outcome of esteem and admiration, has an elevating and
purifying effect on the character.
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