A Vision.
“On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,
Weeping thou sat’st, while all around thee smiled;
So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep,
Calm thou may’st smile while all around thee weep.”
The beautiful sentiment in the above stanza, translated from the Persian by Sir William Jones, struck me so much the other day, while I was reading the life of that excellent man, that I laid down the book to meditate upon it. It was a rainy, dull afternoon—the fog hung heavily on the mountains—the smoke rose drowsily from the chimneys—the cat and dog had forgotten their feeds, and were sleeping on the rug at my feet. I caught the sluggish spirit of the day, and leaning my head back in my rocking-chair, the room and its furniture gradually faded from my sight, and the following dream or vision occupied my imagination.
A little girl appeared before me in her freshest childhood, and her mind just opening to the outward world. She held in her hand a pure white blank tablet, which had been given her at her birth, and from which she was never to part, in this world or the world to come.
At first she ran recklessly and gaily forward without heeding the tablet, which, nevertheless, received certain impressions from every circumstance of her life. These impressions were, for the most part, gradually effaced as she proceeded, though a portion of them were deepened, and some became brighter and more precious. Among these last were the marks made by the tender love of brothers and sisters, and the watchings, and gentle rebukes, and prayers of parents. These, at first, were scarcely perceived, and often quite unheeded; but I saw afterwards, when the child had become a woman, and had gone far on in her journey in life, she would gather from them courage to go forward, and strength to resist temptation. As she proceeded on her youthful course, I inferred her diligence from the number and distinctness of the images on her tablet; and their value, from the frequency with which she recurred to them, through her whole progress, as to a well-filled store-house for constant use.
As my eye followed her course, I perceived some figures, scarcely visible, hovering around her. I looked long and intently before they were quite defined to my sight; but, by degrees, they became more and more distinct, till at last I saw every expression—every movement—and even fancied I detected their purposes.
On one side was a female of thoughtful and tranquil aspect, who evidently regulated all her steps in relation to far-distant objects, to which her clear, penetrating glance extended. I at first thought, from her expression of purity, and her simple robe of snowy whiteness, that she must be Innocence; but I looked again, and saw her glossy hair was wreathed with amaranths:
“Immortal amaranth—a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom;”
and which has since ever been, among “the spirits elect,” the emblem of Virtue. While the young maiden (for she who started a child had now become a tall and slender girl) kept her eye fixed on Virtue, and followed her footsteps, her tablet was being inscribed with beautiful and ever-brightening characters; and though her way sometimes lay through entangled paths, and clouds were over her head, and darkness round about her, yet, when it was again light, and I could see her tablet, I perceived that during these dark passages of her course she had ineffaceable images. I wondered that Virtue—since, after all, it was but Virtue in the human form—never faltered, or was bewildered in these difficult passages, and while I wondered, a new keenness was imparted to my vision, and I saw the radiant form of Religion bending from Heaven and communicating her holy energy to Virtue.
But there were other figures in the maiden’s train, and one in particular, whom I knew at once, by the miraculous variety of alluring forms which she assumed, to be Temptation. She was always full of smiles, and promises, and winning ways, and she carried in her hand a magic glass, by which she excluded the distance from the maiden’s eyes, and gave false and beautiful aspects to whatever was present or near; and often did she lure her from the side of Virtue, and plunge her into troubles, from which she could only be extricated by the intervention and struggles of her true friend.
Though sometimes, when the maiden yielded to Temptation, that deceitful spirit led her through the flowery paths, yet she always left her in the hands of Remorse, a withered hag, whose name was written in letters of fire on her breast, and who held an iron pen, with which she engraved black and frightful images on the tablet.
The maiden looked at them with affright and sorrow; and Penitence, a tender and pitiful nymph, tried to wash them out with her tears; but, though they became fainter, it was impossible to efface them; and the maiden, grieving that these records of her wandering with Temptation must forever and forever remain on her tablet, appealed to Virtue for aid; and Virtue pointed her to Religion, who, it seemed, could alone enable her to resist the wiles of Temptation. And now I saw, that, as her communications with Religion became more frequent, and their intercourse more intimate, though often assailed by Temptation, the maiden was always victorious in the contest, and at every step she gave more and more attention to her tablet, and felt a more intense desire that it should be impressed with beautiful and brightening images.
I know not how much farther I might have traced her course, had not my little Helen come bounding in from school—the dog barked, and I was waked. I told my dream to the little girl.
“And what did the tablet mean?” she asked.
“Oh, it was but a dream, Helen.”
“Yes, but all the rest had a meaning, and there ought to be one to the tablet.”
“Well, then, my child, let it mean Memory; and, if you like my dream, let it persuade you to store your memory with beautiful and indelible images.”—Stories for the Young, by Miss Sedgwick.
