13.  Beauty, therefore, depends principally upon the mind, and, consequently, may be influenced by education.  It has been remarked, that the predominant passion may generally be discovered in the countenance; because the muscles by which it is expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally relax; so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended; thus an angry, a disdainful, a subtle and a suspicious temper, is displayed in characters that are almost universally understood.

14.  It is equally true of the pleasing and the softer passions, that they leave their signatures upon the countenance when they cease to act:  the prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features which makes a more favorable and forcible impression upon the mind of others, than any charm produced by mere external causes.

15.  Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment, equally endanger the possessor:  “It is,” to use an eastern metaphor, “like the towers of a city, not only an ornament, but a defence;” if it excites desire, it at once controls and refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation.  The love of reason and virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence, which is not an object of corporeal appetite.

16.  As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly engages to fidelity:  every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach of the first irregular wish:  and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenious and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspected simplicity abased, and the peace even of virtue endangered by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the strongest obligations.

17.  But the hope of the hypocrite must perish.  When the fictitious beauty has laid by her smiles, when the lustre of her eyes and the bloom of her cheeks have lost their influence with their novelty; what remains but a tyrant divested of power, who will never be seen without a mixture of indignation and disdain?  The only desire which this object could gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without reluctance, but with triumph.

18.  As resentment will succeed to disappointment, a desire to mortify will succeed to a desire to please; and the husband may be urged to solicit a mistress, merely by a remembrance of the beauty of his wife, which lasted only till she was known.

Let it therefore be remembered, that none can be disciples of the Graces, but in the school of Virtue; and that those who wish to be lovely, must learn early to be good.