Pagina 482 di 817

"Indeed, you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It

is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now

complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world,

must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and

disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse

me,--for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not

take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of

teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business

of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her

character will be fixed; and she will, at sixteen, be the most

determined flirt that ever made herself and her family

ridiculous;--a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of

flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable

person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly

unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which

her rage for admiration will excite.