Most women are inclined to be romantic. This tendency is not confined to
the young or to the beautiful, to the intellectual or to the refined.
Every woman, capable of strong feeling, is susceptible of romance; and,
though its degree may depend on external circumstances, or education, or
station, or excitement, it generally exists, and requires only a
stimulus for its development.
Romance indeed contributes much to the charm of the female character.
Without some degree of it, no woman can be interesting; and, though its
excess is a weakness, and one which receives but little indulgence,
there is nothing truly generous and disinterested which does not imply
its existence. It is that poetry of sentiment which imparts to character
or incident something of the beautiful or the sublime; which elevates us
to a higher sphere; which gives an ardor to affection, a life to
thought, a glow to imagination; and which lends so warm and sunny a hue
to the portraiture of life, that it ceases to appear the vulgar, and
cold, and dull, and monotonous reality, which common sense alone would
make it.
But it is this opposition, between romance and sobriety, that excites
so strong a prejudice against the former: it is associated, in the minds
of many, with folly alone. A romantic, silly girl, is the object of
their contempt; and they so recoil from this personification of
sentiment, that their chief object seems to be to divest themselves
altogether of its delusion. Life is to them a mere calculation;
expediency is their maxim; propriety their rule; profit, ease, or
comfort their aim; and they have at least this advantage, that while
minds of higher tone and hearts of superior sensibility are often
harassed and wounded, and even withered, in their passage through life,
they proceed in their less adventurous career, neither chilled by the
coldness, nor sickened by the meanness, nor disappointed by the
selfishness of the world. They virtually admit, though they often
theoretically deny, the baseness of human nature; and, strangers to
disinterestedness themselves, they do not expect to meet with it in
others. They are content with a low degree of enjoyment, and are thus
exempted from much poignant suffering; and it is only when the
casualties of life interfere with their individual ease, that we can
perceive that they are not altogether insensible.
A good deal of this phlegmatic disposition exists in many who are
capable of higher feeling. Such persons are so afraid of sensibility,
that they repress in themselves every thing that savors of it; and,
though we may occasionally detect it in the mounting flush, or in the
glistening tear, or in the half-stifled sigh, it is in vain that we
endeavor to elicit any more explicit avowal. They are ashamed even of
what they do betray; and one would imagine that the imputation of
sensibility were almost a reflection on their character. They must not
feel, or, at least, they must not allow that they feel; for feeling has
led so many persons wrong, that decorum can be preserved, they think,
only by indifference. And they end in being really as callous as they
wish to appear, and stifle emotion so successfully, that at length it
ceases to give them uneasiness.
Such is often the case with many who pass through life with great
decorum; and though women have naturally more sensibility than the other
sex, they, too, sometimes consider its indulgence altogether wrong. Yet,
if its excess is foolish, it is surely a mistake to attempt to suppress
it altogether; for such attempt will either produce a dangerous
revulsion, or, if successful, will spoil the character. One would rather
almost that a woman were ever so romantic, than that she always thought,
and felt, and spoke by rule; and should deem it preferable that her
sensibility brought upon her occasional distress, than that she always
calculated the degree of her feeling.
Life has its romance, and to this it owes much of its charm. It is not
that every woman is a heroine and every individual history a novel; but
there are scenes and incidents in real life so peculiar, and so poetic,
that we need not be indebted to fiction for the development of romance.
Christians will trace such scenes and incidents immediately to
Providence, and they do so with affectionate and confiding hearts; and
the more affecting or remarkable these may be, the more clearly do they
recognize the Divine interference. They regard them as remembrances of
Heaven, to recall to them their connection with it, and remind them that
whatever there may be to interest or excite their feelings here, there
is infinitely more to affect and warm their hearts in the glorious
prospects beyond.
It is natural that women should be very susceptible to such impressions;
that they should view life with almost a poetic eye; and that they
should be peculiarly sensitive to its vicissitudes. And though a
Quixotic quest after adventures is as silly as it is vain, and to invest
every trifle with importance, or to see something marvelous in every
incident, is equally absurd; there is no reason why the imagination
should not grasp whatever is picturesque, and the mind dwell upon
whatever is impressive, and the heart warm with whatever is affecting,
in the changes and the chances of our pilgrimage. There is indeed a
great deal of what is mean and low in all that is connected with this
world; quite enough to sully the most glowing picture; but let us
sometimes view life with its golden tints; let us sometimes taste its
ambrosial dews; let us sometimes breathe its more ethereal atmosphere;
and let us do so, not as satisfied with any thing it can afford--not as
entranced by any of its illusions--but as those who catch, even in this
dull mirror, a shadowy delineation of a brighter world, and who pant
for what is pure, celestial, and eternal. This is surely better than
clipping the wings of imagination, or restraining the impulses of
feeling, or reducing all our joys and sorrows to mere matters of
calculation or of sense.
They are indeed to be pitied who are in the opposite extreme--whose
happiness or misery is entirely ideal; but we have within us such a
capacity for both, independent of all outward circumstances, and such a
power of extracting either from every circumstance, that it is surely
more wise to discipline such a faculty, than to disallow its influence.
Youth is of course the season for romance. Its buoyant spirit must soar
till weighed down by earthly care. It is in youth that the feelings are
warm and the fancy fresh, and that there has been no blight to chill the
one or to wither the other. And it is in youth that hope lends its
cheering ray, and love its genial influence; that our friends smile upon
us, our companions do not cross us, and our parents are still at hand to
cherish us in their bosoms, and sympathize in all our young and ardent
feelings. It is then that the world seems so fair, and our fellow-beings
so kind, that we charge with spleen any who would prepare us for
disappointment, and accuse those of misanthropy who would warn our
too-confiding hearts. And though, in maturer life, we may smile at the
romance of youth, and lament, perhaps, its aberrations, yet we shall not
regret the depth of our young emotions, the disinterestedness of our
young affections, and that enthusiasm of purpose, which, alas! we soon
grow too wise to cherish.