Page images
PDF
EPUB

child—but I had my reasons for this delay. In the first place, I knew your time would be very much engrossed in the arrangements necessary on beginning to keep house. It is an important era in the life of a woman to be taken from the paternal roof, where she was a child, a dependent, an indulged favorite perhaps, and placed at the head of an establishment which she is expected to guide and grace. I think there is generally too much advice and interference from relations and friends at such a time. I believe young married women would oftener take a right course, if left to their own reflections, from principle, than they do when urged to adopt such and such arrangements, because they are fashionable, or necessary to their station, &c. considerations usually named by the people of the world.

:

In the second place, it is no very slight affair for me to write a letter. I want every thing in a particular way; my table and chair must be arranged with due reference to the light, my pen made, my glasses too must be worn. Ah! it is when I begin those employments which used to be so easy, so delightful in my youth, that I feel the infirmities of age, feel the full penalty which immortals must pay, for being permitted to remain long in their earthly tabernacles. And I have no Caroline at hand to watch my inclinations, and prevent my wishes. But do not, my darling, think I regret your marriage; or, indeed, regret that you have left me. I rejoice at both, because I believe your virtues will more fully unfold, and your usefulness and happiness be better promoted in the union you have formed, than though you had remained with me. I feel alone, to be sure; but then I am not lonely, for my heart is with you. And I am studying and thinking how I can assist you in the discharge of your arduous duties.

Experience cannot be transferred. We may give wise advice, but we cannot give wisdom to follow it. It is as often a weakness in the aged to dictate to the young, as it is folly in the young to slight the warnings of the aged. Men and women must commune with their own hearts, and take counsel, each individual, with the spirit within them, if they would possess that strength of character which, depending on principle, is the only stable foundation of excellence.

You request me, dear child, to counsel you concerning your religious deportment,-and in referring you to your own conscience, and entreating you never to adopt a principle of belief or conduct, which, in the silent and secret recesses of your own bosom, you cannot reflect upon without self-reproach, I give you the best rule my experience suggests. You need entertain no fear that this rule will lay you under any restraints, except those conducive to happiness. "The innocent are gay"-and I do think cheerfulness should be inculcated as a virtue. Christianity is not sadness-nor is religion gloom. Never separate your duty to your Father in heaven entirely from your duties and feelings towards his creatures on earth. This idea of religion as an abstract performance, something to be done, or suffered, or believed, as the price of eternal life, is no where inculcated by our Saviour. I wish you, Caroline, to frame your whole conduct and conversation on the christian model. I wish you to live as an immortal being. We forget our immortality when we sin-and we regret our immortality when we continue to sin. I think there can hardly be a more grievous punishment to a mind feeling its capacities for virtuous enjoyment, than to know that the fountain of pure thoughts and pleasures is dried up by the hot breath of passion, or frozen by the cold apathy of worldly selfishness. You are surrounded with the means of happiness, and I wish to see you enjoy it. But thoughtlessness is no part of rational enjoyment. You may be cheerful, you may be gay, but, my child, always be thoughtful. Reflection is to the mind, what exercise is to the body-a strengthener. Of the many follies and vices committed in the world, far the greater part are owing to indiscretion, to a want of thought. I have seldom met with a person who did not praise virtue; indeed, I believe there are few persons but what do admire virtuous conduct -why then do not they practise it? Because they lack strength of mind to resist temptation; which, in other words, is to lack judgment. If a true estimate were made, it would be found, even for this world, that a life of innocence was the best and happiest men lead. And it is this right estimate of things, I would now particularly urge on you. Your season of life, the new scene opened before you, the flatteries that now surround you, all these have

blinding power, a power over the senses, which will certainly deceive you, unless you reason and reflect carefully. There is, in the arrangement of the household routine, so much depending on the discretion and deportment of the mistress of the family, that I sometimes think good sense is hardly so indispenable to men as to women. The faculties of men are exerted less at home than in the world; while, to a woman, home is, as one may say, all. In this narrow circle, every inaccuracy must be apparent, and consistency of conduct, which cannot be expected from an ill governed mind, is the foundation of domestic comfort. How much is included in that one phrase-domestic happiness! How I hope my Caroline will ever enjoy it! But remember that the heart of woman is too finely tuned to the harmony of heaven, ever to be happy without indulging in devotional feelings. I cannot think of a woman as an unbeliever. I cannot think of a wife that does not pray for the husband she loves, or a mother, that does not pray for her children, as I now do for thee, my Caroline.

H.

TO *****.

"One hour with thee."

One hour with thee, in Spring's sweet morn,
While flowerets scent the dewy lawn;
And buds forth-springing,

Around one flinging

Their fragrance from the rosy thorn.

One hour with thee in leafy June,
Amid yon wood, with verdure strewn ;
Where flocks are playing,

And, thither straying,

Sport in the sultry summer noon.

VOL. II.NO. V.

30

One hour with thee, while Autumn's breeze
Is waving o'er the burdened trees,
Whose boughs are bending
With rich fruits, blending

Sweetly with all the rapt eye sees.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

REDWOOD, NEW ENGLAND TALE, HOPE LESLIE, &c.

THERE is hardly one among the crowd of pretenders at the present day, who has not received more newspaper praise than the author of these excellent and highly interesting volumes. Even the reviewers, though they have spoken of her with the deepest respect and admiration, have hardly satisfied our enthusiasm upon the subject. Her claims have, however, sunk deeply into the hearts of her countrymen; and her fame is destined to be far more durable than that of any other female writer among us. In America, she deserves the rank accorded to Miss Edgeworth in England; and an hundred years hence, when other and gifted competitors have erowded into the field, our country will still be as proud of her name. She has been a close observer of all the shadings of human character,—in kind and playful humour she has penetrated into

all the hiding places of the heart; and she has brought them before us in pictures as simply beautiful as nature herself. Her style is unambitious-it has none of the pomp of metaphor, or the trickery of arrangement-it is always pure, graceful, and fascinating. Language with her, is the breath of the soul; and that breath is "articulate melody." But her greatest security for immortality is the bland, religious spirit, which emanates from all her writings, and sheds, as it were, a glory around them. She has seldom written a page from which we do not receive the salubrious influence of elevated christian morality. We may not be able to quote lines, or sentences peculiarly pious-it rests upon them all, like "the baptism of Heaven upon the flowers."

High as public opinion has placed her, she, like Bryant, never disappoints us; whatever she has done is well done. The articles she has written for the Atlantic Souvenir have been the best things published in that well selected annual; the "Catholic Iroquois," in particular, has exceeding beauty. The Travellers" is eagerly read by young people, though it is not perhaps decidedly a favourite with children. She is very doubtful of her power of attracting juvenile readers she playfully says, "I know how to interest their minds and affections when I am talking with them, but that is the preached word,-to write a sermon is a more difficult matter." Yet we think her modesty leads her to under-rate her own efforts; we are at least sure, that some pathetic touches in the "Deformed Boy" drew tears from our own eyes. As for her translations of Sismondi, it is impossible to add one word to the praise bestowed upon them by Madame Sismondi: "Tell Miss Sedgwick they are translated just as a wife would wish to have them!"

The "New England Tale," on which her reputation was first founded, is unquestionably, our most successful portraiture of New England. Some christians have considered the character of Mrs. Wilson, as an unkind and uncandid caricature of their opinions. Had Mrs. Wilson been intended as a representative of the whole body of Calvinists, this would unquestionably be just; but as an individual, Mrs. Wilson is true to the life-most of us have met such in our pilgrimage.

Notwithstanding these objections, Miss Sedgwick's first novel had almost unexampled popularity. Some think she

« PreviousContinue »