But grief cleaves to names, and persons, and the partial interests of to-day and yesterday. The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of society. Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance.
All mankind love a lover.
The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature's most winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and grace in the coarse and rustic. In the village they are on a perfect equality, which love delights in, and without any coquetry the happy, affectionate nature of woman flows out in this pretty gossip. By and by that boy wants a wife, and very truly and heartily will he know where to find a sincere and sweet mate, without any risk such as Milton deplores as incident to scholars and great men. I have been told, that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations.