id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
41256	Hays, Mary	Memoirs of Emma Courtney			.txt	text/plain	65273	2536	62	But when mind has given dignity to natural affections; when reason, culture, taste, and delicacy, have combined to chasten, to refine, to exalt (shall I say) to sanctity them--Is there, then, no cause to complain of rigor and severity, that such minds must either passively submit to a vile traffic, or be content to relinquish all the endearing sympathies of life? In delineating the character of Emma Courtney, I had not in view these fantastic models: I meant to represent her, as a human being, loving virtue while enslaved by passion, liable to the mistakes and weaknesses of our fragile nature.--Let those readers, who feel inclined to judge with severity the extravagance and eccentricity of her conduct, look into their own hearts; and should they there find no record, traced by an accusing spirit, to soften the asperity of their censures--yet, let them bear in mind, that the errors of my heroine were the offspring of sensibility; and that the result of her hazardous experiment is calculated to operate as a _warning_, rather than as an example.--The philosopher--who is not ignorant, that light and shade are more powerfully contrasted in minds rising above the common level; that, as rank weeks take strong root in a fertile soil, vigorous powers not unfrequently produce fatal mistakes and pernicious exertions; that character is the produce of a lively and constant affection--may, possibly, discover in these Memoirs traces of reflection, and of some attention to the phænomena of the human mind.	cache/41256.txt	txt/41256.txt
