Poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a young virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers other virginsnamely, all the other sciencesmake it their business to enrich, polish, and adorn.
Let the words of a virgin, though in a good cause and to a good purpose, be neither violent, many, nor first, nor last; it is less shame for a virgin to be lost in a blushing silence than to be found in a bold eloquence.
A womans whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure, she embarks her soul in the traffic of affection; and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.