A letter from Capel Lofft to Henry Crabb Robinson, Oct. 3 1811:

Perhaps one man ought never to advise another, unasked ; especially when that other is probably better able to advise himself. I do, however, advise you, if ever you marry, never (as a man of feeling, and who loves literature, and liberty, and science) to marry a woman of what is called a strong mind. The love of dominion and the whirlwind of instability are, I fear, inseparable from a female mind of that character. All women and all beings love power ; but a woman of a mild and compliant mind seeks and maintains power by correspondent means. These are not called strong minds. ... Hence every woman should be a lover of music — and of feminine music; and particularly of the vocal. And in that she should cultivate the soft, the low, and the sweet. “Her voice was ever low, gentle, and sweet ; an excellent thing in woman,” says that great depictor of character, and particularly of women, who has so exquisitely imagined and dileanated Miranda, Viola, Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, Helena.