To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life?
Total extinction of th’ enlighten’d soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wilder’d and tossing through distemper’d dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain,
Longer than nature craves; when every muse,
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?”
Another laudable practice of Mrs. Williams, was perfect regularity in the government of her pupils, and in the arrangement of their daily exercises. “When,” said she, “we observe the order of the natural world, and admire the consistency and harmony of every part, we may hence derive a lesson, for the regulation of our conduct, in the sphere assigned to us.”