“I have indeed wished that my girls should be placed, as nearly as possible, in the circumstances which made their mother what she was; but I begin to have my fears. Their minds are, in some respects, too forward for their age; their imaginations are growing too fast.”
“If you think so of your own children,” said Mrs. Fletcher, “what must be your opinion of mine?”
“I judge in no case but that in which I am most nearly concerned,” replied Mr. Byerley. “How your daughters act and feel I pretend not to know; and if I knew, I should not interfere with criticisms or advice. But, as to my own girls, I have seen Mary often lately so absorbed in her book of poetry or in a reverie, that it is difficult to recall her attention to necessary things; and Anna’s red eyes and melancholy countenance have really distressed me the last two days.”
“I am sure their feelings are of a most amiable kind,” said Mrs. Fletcher; “and such as I would not repress for the world.”
“Amiable, I grant, and natural,” replied the father; “but I think they come too early, and that there is too much of them. Nobody values more than I do the lofty and deep emotion which prompts to the most vigorous and benevolent action; but feeling of this kind cannot subsist in the mind in mature years, if an excessive sensibility be allowed early and idly to excite the imagination. If Anna’s compassion for Signor Elvi’s misfortunes could lead her to active exertions on behalf of him and his family, let her pity him as much as she will; but as she can do nothing, and tries to do nothing, I am afraid of the consequences of so many sighs and tears, natural and amiable as they may be in themselves.”
“I believe Mary feels quite as much,” observed Mrs. Fletcher, “and to better purpose, for she tries to amuse him, instead of awakening painful feelings.”
“If that was the case always, I should fear nothing,” replied Mr. Byerley; “but I dread the effects of the reveries over Paradise Lost, and——”
“Paradise Lost will do her no harm,” said Mr. Fletcher, who had joined them unperceived, and was leaning over the back of the sofa: “no imagination was ever the worse for being early nourished on that book. It is the flimsy, lovesick, sentimental poetry of modern times, which makes women so weak and tiresome, as those of them are who pretend to be bookish, or to have fine feelings.”
“I should not have thought,” said Mr. Byerley, smiling, “that you would have admitted poetry under any shape into your daughters’ library.”
“You do not know me then,” replied Mr. Fletcher. “If you and I were to compare our notions of a perfect woman, I believe they would be found pretty much alike. She must have an intellect capable of grasping high thoughts, and a heart expanded by boundless feelings, or religion cannot have done all it may do for her. It is because I value the noble faculty of imagination so highly, that it grieves me to see it weakened and perverted by early indulgence.”