Chapter 26 - Page 2

and that
the meeting passes off without embarrassment. I do believe there is
an elevating principle in love, that, by causing us to wish to be
worthy of the object most prized, produces the desired effects by
stimulating exertion. There, now, are two as perfect beings as one
ordinarily meets with, each oppressed by a sense of his or her
unworthiness to be the choice of the other."

"Does love, then, teach humility; successful love too?"

"Does it not? It would be hardly fair to press this matter on you, a
married woman; for, by the pandects of American society, a man may
philosophize on love, prattle about it, trifle on the subject, and
even analyze the passion with, a miss in her teens, and yet he shall
not allude to it, in a discourse with a matron. Well, _chacun à son
goût_; we are, indeed, a little peculiar in our usages, and have
promoted a good deal of village coquetry, and the flirtations of the
may-pole, to the drawing-room."

"Is it not better that such follies should be confined to youth, than
that they should invade the sanctity of married life, as I understand
is too much the case elsewhere?"

"Perhaps so; though I confess it is easier to dispose of a straight-
forward proposition from a mother, a father, or a commissioned
friend, than to get rid of a young lady, who, _propriâ personâ_,
angles on her own account. While abroad, I had a dozen proposals--"

"Proposals!" exclaimed Mrs. Bloomfield, holding up both hands, and
shaking her head incredulously.

"Proposals! Why not, ma'am?--am I more than fifty? am I not
reasonably youthful for that period of life, and have I not six or
eight thousand a year--"

"Eighteen, or you are much scandalized."

"Well, eighteen, if you will," coolly returned the other, in whose
eyes money was no merit, for he was born to a fortune, and always
treated it as a means, and not as the end of life; "every dollar is a
magnet, after one has turned forty. Do you suppose that a single man,
of tolerable person, well-born, and with a hundred thousand francs of
_rentes_, could entirely escape proposals from the ladies in Europe?"

"This is so revolting to all our American notions, that, though I
have often heard of such things, I have always found it difficult to
believe them!"

"And is it more revolting for the friends of young ladies to look out
for them, on such occasions, than that the young ladies should take
the affair into their own hands, as is practised quite as openly,
here?"

"It is well you are a confirmed bachelor, or declarations like these
would mar your