Though it was only as a poet that Anne Bradstreet was known to her own time, her real strength was in prose, and the "Meditations, Divine and Morall," written at the request of her second son, the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, to whom she dedicated them, March 20, 1664, show that life had taught her much, and in the ripened thought and shrewd observation of men and manners are the best testimony to her real ability. For the reader of to-day they are of incomparably more interest than anything to be found in the poems. There is often the most condensed and telling expression; a swift turn that shows what power of description lay under all the fantastic turns of the style Du Bartas had created for her. That he underrated them was natural. The poems had brought her honor in the old home and the new. The meditations involved no anxious laboring after a rhyme, no straining a metaphor till it cracked. They were natural thought naturally expressed and therefore worthless for any literary purpose, and as she wrote, the wail of the Preacher repeated itself, and she smiled faintly as the words grew under her pen: "There is no new thing under the sun, there is nothing that can be sayd or done, but either that or something like it hath been done and sayd before."
Many of the paragraphs written in pain and weakness show how keenly she had watched the course of events, and what power of characterization she had to use, three of them especially holding the quiet sarcasm in which she occasionally indulged, though always with a tacit apology for the possession of such a quality. "Dimne eyes are the concomitants of old age; and short-sightednes in those that are eyes of a Republique, foretells a declineing state."
"Authority without wisdome, is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish."
"Ambitious men are like hops that never rest climbing so long as they have anything to stay upon; but take away their props, and they are of all, the most dejected."
The perpetual dissensions, religious and political, which threatened at times the absolute destruction of the Colony, were all familiar to her, and she draws upon them for illustrations of many points, others being afforded by her own experience with the eight children to whom she proved so devoted and tender a mother. Like other mothers, before and since, their differences in temperament and conduct, seem to have been a perpetual surprise, but that she had tact enough to meet each on his or her own ground, or gently draw them toward hers, seems evident at every point. That they loved her tenderly is equally evident, the diary of her second son mentioning her always as "my dear and honored mother," and all of them, though separated by early marriages for most of them, returning as often as practicable to the old roof, under which Thanksgiving Day had taken on the character it has held from that clay to this. The small blank-book which held these "Meditations" was copied carefully by Simon Bradstreet, and there is little doubt that each of the children did the same, considering it as much theirs as the brother's for whom it was originally intended. Whatever Anne Bradstreet did, she had her children always in view, and still another blank-book partially filled with religious reflections, and found among her papers after death, was dedicated, "To my dear children." The father probably kept the originals, but her words were too highly valued, not to have been eagerly desired by all. A special word to her son opens the series of "Meditations."
FOR MY DEARE SONNE SIMON BRADSTREET.
Parents perpetuate their lines in their posterity, and their maners in their imitation. Children do naturally rather follow the failings than the virtues of their predecessors, but I am persuaded better things of you. You once desired me to leave something for you in writing that you might look upon when you should see me no more. I could think of nothing more fit for you, nor of more ease to my selfe, than these short meditations following. Such as they are I bequeath to you: small legacys are accepted by true friends, much more by dutiful children. I have avoyded incroaching upon others conceptions, because I would leave you nothing but myne owne, though in value they fall short of all in this kinde, yet I presume they will be better priz'd by you for the Author's sake. The Lord blesse you with grace heer, and crown you with glory heerafter, that I may meet you with rejoyceing at that great day of appearing, which is the continuall prayer of
Your affectionate mother,
A. B.
March 20, 1664.