Still, amid all these calls and cares, the "journal" continues, and full sheets of companion-like narration or maternal counsel go to the schoolboy at Framingham, who is having some of the trials of school-life, petty, but serious.
"Dear John, it is time you had another letter, and I am very glad to be able to write you one; it is the next best thing to sitting down by you and having a good chat. I should very much like to look in upon you, and know exactly how you get along. I hope you will continue to bear any provocation you may receive with perfect quietness and forbearance. Such conduct as you describe is not worthy of notice; and if you persevere in doing right, and show no arrogance or pride about it, you will gain their respect in time, that is, of all who are worth gaining. I am very glad you have Mr. Abbot's book (The Young Christian). I thought of you when I was reading it, and felt as if it would be very useful to you. You will find much in it which you never thought of, and much of which you will see a counterpart within yourself, if you examine yourself faithfully. It seemed to me, while reading it, that I was looking into a glass which reflected myself; for I have lived long enough to know more about myself than I used to at your age, and I often wish that I had had such looking-glasses then; I should, I think, have been saved many a feeling of self-reproach, and many a foolish and sinful action. You can hardly imagine now how great a blessing you possess in the watchful care which is extended over you by your dear father; may it never be withdrawn from you until you have learned to guide yourself by the high and holy principles of Christian virtue!"
It shows Mr. Ware's apprehensions in regard to his wife's health as well as his own, that, in a letter to the same son, he writes: "I find that your two parents are in very frail health, and probably destined to a short life. You will perhaps, therefore, be left at an early age to take care of yourself."
We learn still more of their mental and social life at this period from two letters which Mrs. Ware wrote at the end of the years 1832 and 1833; there having been little variety between, except a journey south as far as Alexandria, which they took together, for recreation and health, early in 1833, with a few later incidents referred to in the letters.
"Cambridge, December 31, 1832.
"Dear N——:
"F—— prophesied, ten years ago, that friendship between married women could not be of long continuance. He did not know that there is in woman's nature something which woman only can fully understand; or his knowledge of human nature in general would have shown him that the love of sympathy will triumph over many an obstacle, which would be a perfect barrier to a less powerful motive. Who but a woman, and one too who knows the exact mould in which one's soul is fashioned, would understand what it has been to me to stand on the verge of the grave, in full possession of the whole intellectual being, and prepare myself to leave such an assemblage of blessings as have fallen to my lot,—husband, children, friends, and the delightful duties which accompany these relations,—and then to be restored to them all, with an added gift! And all without one drawback, but my own want of sensibility, to make the blessing as great as it would be with a more sensitive heart. Perhaps no one can fully comprehend it who has not been placed in exactly the same situation. But you can come nearer to it than any one else, and you will not wonder that the past should seem to me one of the most valuable years of my life. I have often wished for just this experience, when I have felt how ineffectual were the monitors of Providence in awakening that deep sense of God's goodness, and that clear conviction of the reality of a future state, which are so important to the Christian life. I have almost envied those who were permitted to approach so nearly to the gates of death as to give up all expectation of a prolonged life. It has seemed as if this appeal must be irresistible; as if there could be no more deadness, or apathy, or indifference, after this. One could not come back to the world and be absorbed as before in its short-lived pursuits. But vain is the hope, I begin to fear, of our being raised by any thing so much above the world, as not to be subject to the power of the tempter while we live in it. The physical weakness which enables us to realize the uncertain tenure by which we are connected with this world is gradually changed into strength, and the power to act brings with it the desire;—and who shall easily set bounds to this desire? It is the all-consuming monster that cries, 'Give! give!' until we do give it every day, every hour, every thought,—until the present alone occupies us, and, alas! satisfies us too. Is this exaggeration, merely a dark picture drawn from my own sad experience? I hope it is.
"But I am going too far, filling all my paper with croaking, when I have so pleasant a picture of my 'outer man' to present to you. We are all well; that is, well enough to be free from anxiety on the subject;—neither Henry nor I good for much beyond a very narrow sphere, but free from disease. I keep very quietly at home. Indeed, I cannot do otherwise; a ride into Boston tires me so much, that I am not fit for any thing for a day after; a walk does the same. So I am fain to content myself with my home comforts; and to this end I have converted my chamber into a study, where Henry writes, I work, and Nanny plays all the livelong day. It is more like Sheafe Street comfort than any thing we have had since. My husband's social habits, and the fact of our having lived so much together for the last three years, make it particularly pleasant to him to be saved the trouble of going in search of me whenever he wants to read a sentence or say a word; and for the same reasons, it is very pleasant to me to have so much of his presence without feeling that he is taken off from his rightful pursuits by it. January 1, 1833! A happy new year to you all!
"Yours truly.
"M. L. W."
"Cambridge, December 31, 1833.
"My Dear N——:
"I am inclined to think that it is our inordinate estimate of the happiness of this life, and our vague, half-sceptical notions of a future state, that make us grieve so much when such spirits as Elizabeth B—— are withdrawn from us. I don't know, but I sometimes greatly fear that we do not bring home the reality of the future as we should do; we are so occupied with our theories of right principles of action and correct ideas of moral conduct in this life (all very good in their place), and so afraid of falling into the extravagant exercise of the imagination, which has betrayed so many of our opponents in doctrine into enthusiasm and folly, that we lose sight of the good influences which such contemplations might have upon our hearts. This year has been to me one of less variety than any of the last six. My husband's long sickness in the spring, and the efforts consequent upon it, were the source of much anxiety, and in some points a new experience. But I have had for so long a time only to bear and submit, that my mind has settled itself into that attitude, and it is no longer an effort. It is quite another thing, when it becomes my duty to exercise my energies in positive acts,—when others are looking to me for guidance, when my habitual influence is to form the character of this child and check the waywardness of that, with all the train of active duties which devolve upon a married woman,—then I am overpowered and powerless.
"I wished you had been by my side on Sunday, while I sat in my old corner in Federal Street meeting-house, listening to that voice which is to us both associated with some of our best religious impressions. I went to hear Dr. Channing, for the second time only since I returned home, as much for the sake of recalling old associations as from any expectation of new influences; for it does me good now and then to go back to what I was, the better to understand what I am. If he had known just what I was suffering, he could not have adapted himself more entirely to my case. He was upon some of the obstacles which may prevent our use of the present moment for improvement; and he enlarged upon the tendency to rest satisfied with past attainments. Because we had at one period of our lives been deeply moved and strongly influenced by religious motives,—had performed some great acts of benevolence, or sustained ourselves under great trial with fortitude and submission,—we deluded ourselves with the idea, that we had attained a height from which we could not fall. But no mistake could be more ruinous. The past was nothing, except as it influenced the present. We trust too much to future improvement, to a vague notion of gradual progress,—we know not exactly how, or by what means. But as we are not conscious of becoming worse, we think we must be growing better, and shall by and by be all that we ought to be. Or we hope for more favorable circumstances to influence us, and expect to be, we know not why, in a more fit state at some other time for our religious duties.
"Had I room, I could give you a long story about this, for my mind is full of it. But I have another word to say upon the fact of our giving so much time to the mere outside of life, to the employment of our fingers, the mere mechanical employments pertaining to the body. It is a question with me, whether it is not a duty to be satisfied with a less elegant, and even a less comfortable style of life, rather than take so much from the cultivation of the intellectual and spiritual, when, as is so often the case now-a-days, we must either do the drudgery ourselves or leave it undone. I don't know,—I am puzzled. I know that if we are doing our duty, however mean may be our employment, we are fulfilling our destiny, and doing God the best service. But the question is, What is our duty? And are we not in danger of mistaking the real nature of duty, from too great a love of this world and the things of it? This is one of the difficult questions, which my husband and I try to settle. I wish you would tell me what you think. And here comes my Willie, with an imploring look to be taken up,—a reproving one, too, that in all this long letter neither he nor his family are so much as noticed. All are well.
"Yours ever.
"M. L. Ware."
Unusual freedom from sickness and apprehension was for a time enjoyed. Mrs. Ware was full of happiness and thankfulness. "It seems to me that never had people so much reason for gratitude as we; and I think I never felt this more than at this time, for I too am beginning to have the first feelings of health which I have known for a year and a half." But a change came. And with the letter which explains it we close this portion of the Cambridge life.
"Cambridge, May 4, 1834.
"My dear N——:
"... We have had our usual variety of sickness and health since I wrote to you in January. Soon after that, I had a visit from my old, and I thought conquered, enemy, the cramp; not a very severe attack, but sufficient to make me very good for nothing for a week, in the course of which Nanny had a very severe fall, which for twenty-four hours made us apprehensive that we should have to part with her. But this trial was spared us, in much mercy; for two days after this, Elizabeth was very sick, though not dangerously. All this had its effect upon Mr. Ware and myself, and we have been the greater part of the time in the most disagreeable state of betwixity, neither sick enough to be excused from labor, nor well enough to do any thing profitable,—just good for nothing. In the vacation in April, Mr. Ware went to Portsmouth to collect materials for his Memoir of Dr. Parker, intending by the way to go to Exeter.
"The day after he went, my Willie, who had been the very perfection of health and happiness all winter, began to droop, and, notwithstanding pretty efficient measures, in a few days became the subject of decided lung fever; not very sick, but requiring constant watching and careful attention. A week from the day he was taken, he had a severe spasmodic attack, from which we thought he would never revive; and when, after various measures, he began to breathe again, we sat for four hours expecting that every moment would be his last. It was a season of severe trial, not a little increased by his father's absence, and the impossibility of his reaching home until this sweet child must be for ever removed from his sight. Yet it was not for me to learn then, for the first time, that He who sends trial always gives strength to bear it. I knew it would be so, and in that faith I rested in peace and tranquillity. But this blow, too, was averted. After a long struggle he revived, and I realized, what I had never known before, that this second birth, as it were, of a child is a far more affecting cause for gratitude and joy than the first gift ever can be. It was a great experience in many ways. It helped me to understand the feeling of those who were witnesses of miracles more than any thing I ever met with. For all human means were at an end; nothing could be done but to pray that the Almighty Power, to whom all things were possible, might yet interpose to save. And the fact of having been carried through such a trial with entire submission and calmness,—what confidence does it not give in the all-sufficient power of that religion which can alone succor one in such an hour of need! The kindness, too, which such an occasion calls forth from those around us, is not the least of its blessings. It makes us view human kind more justly than we are sometimes inclined to do, and sinks for ever some of those petty and contemptuous feelings which will sometimes rise towards those with whom we have but little sympathy.
"My husband returned after all this was over, quite sick; but he did return without the necessity of my going to him, and returned to be the better for being at home, gaining every moment after he entered his house. All this was during that bright, warm interval in April, when nature seemed buoyant with joy. We had just completed our summer arrangements, and altogether it seemed to me as if I had begun existence anew. Although somewhat exhausted by the struggle, I really am better than for months past.
"Yours ever.
"M. L. Ware."