The Etiquette of Love, Courtship and Marriage III

"THE PURITY AND STRENGTH OF FIRST AFFECTIONS"

It is generally admitted that the first affections are the strongest and purest, and if they meet with corresponding feelings and impressions, they are indelible, for neither time nor circumstances can efface them from the mind. How guarded therefore we should be in the bestowment of them. How carefully should we keep them under proper control. The happiest marriage are the result of first affections, if the parties are only guided by prudence and discretion. Nothing on earth is so pure and holy as "first love." When the youthful heart first yields to the tender impressions of unsophisticated love, it as nearly resembles the innocent 'condition of our first parents in paradise as any thing in this life can possibly approach to. 'What would not the loving object suffer for the object beloved?' Would persecution, or imprisonment, or death itself be regarded? No! Such are the first feelings of love in a  noble mind. How far removed from all low views and selfish calculations is a first attachment. It has an ideal existence of its own, free from the grosser parts of our nature - a fortuitous heaven. A first lvoe is the poetry of heaven, and radiates the mind with the atmosphere of light and beauty. Sometimes a passing cloud will darken for awhile the brightness of its azure, but it is swept away by the next balmy breeze, and instead of tarnishing the glory or diminishing the beauty of the picture, it leaves it more lovely than before.


Such are the effects of a first attachment upon the heart. How necessary to use care and caution lest they should be unworthily bestowed. The happiness of after life in a great measure depends upon a first love.

Source: T.E.G., The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. ; Easingwold: Thomas Gill, 1847), 20-22.

Previous Sections: 

• The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage I - LOVE, - GENERAL REMARKS
• The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage II - FALLING IN LOVE

The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage II

"FALLING IN LOVE"

"Falling in Love" is a very common expression, though at the same time an expression which we do not altogether admire. It conveys the idea of a certain degree of fatalism - an irresistible fatality, which sways its sceptre over the heart and affections of the sexes, and must be yielded to either with or without reason. It is as common to hear people talk of a person "falling in love." as to hear of a person falling into a pit, or falling from a precipice, and the idea has been conveyed to youthful hearts that "falling in love" is a natural consequence that cannot be resisted.

Such notions have vulgarized and degraded the nature of true love. They have not unfrequently led to a yielding up of the heart to the first fits of excitement or passion. They have detracted from true love that high and holy character which it ought to maintain. They have destroyed that one existence in which lives all the finest feelings of which humanity is capable, and have poured into the Eden of life, a flood of degradation and death.

There are a variety of causes which may lead to a person's "falling in love." The heart of woman is generally so soft and tender when unadulterated with the specious flattery and deceitfulness of men that there is in them a precocious tendency to submit at once to this soft emotion. In many instances this may be considered an amiable weakness, but its amiability has been questioned; - not, however, without its mitigating circumstances. The heart of woman must cleave to some object. If a young girl has been so unfortunate as to lose her parents, and is without brother or sister, or any affectionate relative in the world, unto whom can she cling for friendship and solace? The bestowment of friendship, or the little attentions of kindness which etiquette demands from any gentleman, will seize with giant strength upon the affections of such an one.

Some woman are naturally so grateful, - so plentifully endowed with the "milk of human kindness," that this feeling carries away their hearts, and ere they are aware of the fact, they have actually "fallen in love." Love steals upon them like sleep stealing upon the senses, or like the rising sunbeams dispersing the shades of night: - it is warm, placid, and imperceptible.

The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage I

LOVE, - GENERAL REMARKS

Love is a subject which has interestingly occupied the attention of both sexes ever since Adam and Eve were first created. Men of various minds and diversified character, and ladies of every distinction have all paid their court at the shrine of love. It has been justly styled the "ruling passion," and is no less predominant than universal. A celebrated writer on this subject has said, "that love forms part and parcel of a woman's existence - that in other words, from the moment of her emergency into womanhood until she has attained her fiftieth year, her affections are constantly occupied with one or other of the opposite sex. Equally true is it, that young ladies are constantly thinking of and earnestly panting after the matrimonial state. Men have various objects of ambition: - women have only one, and that one is marriage. All their thoughts, all their intrigues, all their scheming, all their actions - have the promotion of the one grand object - getting comfortably married - in view. It seems to them the end, as it constantly is the aim of their existence."


How far these remarks are true we leave it to our fair readers to judge; but we are of opinion that much that goes by the specious character of love has little or no effect upon the heart.


We have always looked upon love in a very different light from that species of flirtation and merriment which characterizes the joyous hours of youth. True love is sober, serious, and sedate. It is one of the most serious and important acts which can characterize the life of either man or woman. Some of the deepest realities in our experience are the effects of love.


There are many false impressions as to the real nature of genuine love. Many form their estimate of love from that unnatural system of philosophy found in novels and light reading. Other look upon it as a system of flirtation and coquetry. True love is founded upon esteem, and requires something more than external beauty to make it perennial.

Source: T.E.G., The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. ; Easingwold: Thomas Gill, 1847), 13-15.


N.B.: This is only the first section of the small book, The Etiquette of Love, Courtship, and Marriage. Further sections will be used for future posts.