These last, I repeat, were
bound in the cause of love not less than the former; and they all owed
their endeavors--their success, if they gained it--to the feelings
and emotions of their natures.
But the trouble is, girls, you do lack judgment in the management of
your feelings. It has been suggested by an able philosopher that persons
differ from one another principally in the amount of judgment they
possess. Really, you do not always bestow your friendship worthily,
but too often let your emotions master instead of guide you; then your
eyes become blind to every thing that is best for yourselves and your
friends: you get selfish, passionate, and demoralized.
Hold the reins of feeling in obedience to what is good and right, no
matter what the suffering is which follows. Do you remember how Irma
loved the king in that grand struggle for character which Auerbach
paints "On the Heights," where the full, rich nature of Irma, so capable
of loving, so prone to err, yearns for the fulfilment of her longing,
yet will not yield an inch of conscience when once she knows it is
wrong for her to love? You know she dies struggling, but it is on the
heights, where, Goethe tells us, "lies repose." There are many and
many women martyrs who go to their graves unknown, suffering no pangs
of the Inquisition, the gallows, or the guillotine, but tortured by
unrequited affections,--by a love which it was not possible to gratify
without a loss of principle or a sacrifice of conscience.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140