This friend was acquainted with my custom of looking on my body as an outward object: he knew also that I pretty well understood my constitution, my disorder, and the medicines of use for it; nay, that, by continual sufferings of my own or other people's, I had really grown a kind of half-doctor: he now carried forward my attention from the human body, and the drugs which act upon it, to the kindred objects of creation; he led me up and down as in the paradise of the first man; only, if I may continue my comparison, allowing me to trace, in dim remoteness, the Creator walking in the garden in the cool of the evening.
How gladly did I now see God in nature, when I bore him with such certainty within my heart! How interesting to me was his handiwork! how thankful did I feel that he had pleased to quicken me with the breath of his mouth!
We again had hopes that my sister would present us with a boy: her husband waited anxiously for that event, but did not live to see it. He died in consequence of an unlucky fall from horseback; and my sister followed him, soon after she had brought into the world a lovely boy. The four orphans they had left I could not look at but with sadness. So many healthy people had been called away before poor, sickly me; might I not also have blights to witness among these fair and hopeful blossoms? I knew the world sufficiently to understand what dangers threaten the precarious breeding of a child, especially a child of quality; and it seemed as if, since the period of my youth, these dangers had increased. I felt that, weakly as I was, I could not be of much, perhaps of any, service to the little ones; and I rejoiced the more on finding that my uncle, as indeed might have been looked for, had determined to devote his whole attention to the education of these amiable creatures. And this they doubtless merited in every sense: they were handsome; and, with great diversities, all promised to be well-conditioned, reasonable persons.
Since my worthy doctor had suggested it, I loved to trace out family likenesses among our relatives and children. My father had carefully preserved the portraits of his ancestors, and got his own and those of his descendants drawn by tolerable masters; nor had my mother and her people been forgotten. We accurately knew the characters of all the family; and, as we had frequently compared them with each other, we now endeavored to discover in the children the same peculiarities outward or inward. My sister's eldest son, we thought, resembled his paternal grandfather, of whom there was a fine youthful picture in my uncle's collection: he had been a brave soldier; and in this point, too, the boy took after him, liking arms above all things, and busying himself with them whenever he paid me a visit. For my father had left a very pretty armory; and the boy got no rest till I had given him a pair of pistols and a fowling-piece, and he had learned the proper way of using them. At the same time, in his conduct or bearing, there was nothing like rudeness: far from that, he was always meek and sensible.
The eldest daughter had attracted my especial love; of which, perhaps, the reason was, that she resembled me, and of all the four seemed to like me best. But I may well admit, that, the more closely I observed her as she grew, the more she shamed me: I could not look on her without a sentiment of admiration, nay, I may almost say, of reverence. You would scarcely have seen a nobler form, a more peaceful spirit, an activity so equable and universal. No moment of her life was she unoccupied, and every occupation in her hands became dignified. All seemed indifferent to her, so that she could but accomplish what was proper in the place and time; and, in the same manner, she could patiently continue unemployed, when there was nothing to be done. This activity without need of occupation I have never elsewhere met with. In particular, her conduct to the suffering and destitute was, from her earliest youth, inimitable. For my part, I freely confess I never had the gift to make a business of beneficence: I was not niggardly to the poor; nay, I often gave too largely for my means; yet this was little more than buying myself off: and a person needed to be made for me, if I was to bestow attention on him. Directly the reverse was the conduct of my niece. I never saw her give a poor man money: whatever she obtained from me for this purpose, she failed not in the first place to change for some necessary article. Never did she seem more lovely in my eyes, than when rummaging my clothes-presses: she was always sure to light on something which I did not wear and did not need; to sew these old cast-off articles together, and put them on some ragged child, she thought her highest happiness.
Her sister's turn of mind appeared already different: she had much of her mother; she promised to become very elegant and beautiful, and she now bids fair to keep her promise. She is greatly taken up with her exterior: from her earliest years she could decorate and carry herself in a way that struck you. I still remember with what ecstasy, when quite a little creature, she saw herself in a mirror, decked in certain precious pearls, once my mother's, which she had by chance discovered, and made me try upon her.
Reflecting on these diverse inclinations, it was pleasant for me to consider how my property would, after my decease, be shared among them, and again called into use. I saw the fowling-pieces of my father once more travelling round the fields on my nephew's shoulder, and birds once more falling from his hunting-pouch: I saw my whole wardrobe issuing from the church, at Easter Confirmation, on the persons of tidy little girls; while the best pieces of it were employed to decorate some virtuous burgher maiden on her marriage-day. In furnishing such children and poor little girls, Natalia had a singular delight; though, as I must here remark, she showed not the smallest love, or, if I may say it, smallest need, of a dependence upon any visible or invisible Being, such as I had in my youth so strongly manifested.
When I also thought that the younger sister, on that same day, would wear my jewels and pearls at court, I could see with peace my possessions, like my body, given back to the elements.
The children waxed apace: to my comfort, they are healthy, handsome, clever creatures. That my uncle keeps them from me, I endure without repining: when staying in the neighborhood, or even in town, they seldom see me.
A singular personage, regarded as a French clergyman, though no one rightly knows his history, has been intrusted with the oversight of all these children. He has them taught in various places: they are put to board now here, now there.