"The difference between rising at five or seven in the course of 40 years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same time he otherwise would, amounts to 29,000 hours, or three years, 121 days and 16 hours, which will afford 8 hours a day for exactly ten years; so that it is the same as if ten years were added to our lives, in which we command 8 hours a day for our improvement in useful things."
But besides lengthening, industry sweetens life; the habitation of the industrious man is comfortable and clean, and his careful wife is truly his counterpart, always usefully employed. Difficulties in this life, however, must be expected—they should not depress or discourage us,—they were necessary to quicken us to exertion and disappeared before a determined resolution to accomplish our object. Even in Paradise man was not allowed to be idle: "The Lord God put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."—Gen., ch. ii, v. 15. And ever since the fall, as part of the curse entailed by sin and mortality, its consequence, the sentence of God has come forth—"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."—Gen., ch. iii, v. 19. The very angels of Heaven were ministering Spirits who performed the Divine will cheerfully, actively, and diligently. A man's affairs run fast to ruin who allows his powers to lapse into indolence and sloth, and thus according to the wise man: "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich;" and "seest thou a man diligent in business; he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men."
This was the general direction of her thoughts when in graver moments she sought to prepare her children for the career of life. Having represented the means and the value of success in worldly matters lest the imagination might be unduly excited, she would suddenly remind them that there was a purer, brighter, nobler world than this; a world where there is no ignorance to darken, no error to mislead, no infirmities to lament, no enemies to assail, no cares to harass, no sickness to endure, no changes to experience, but where all will be perfect bliss, unclouded light, unspotted purity, immortal tranquility and joy.
It is easy to understand that their childhood was happy, and that all their recollections of it are associated with their mother, who in her capacity as wife and mistress of the family was responsible, by reason of their father's repeated absences, for the general arrangement and combination of the different elements of social and domestic comfort. She was arbiter in all their trivial disputes, the soother of all jarring and discord, the explainer of all misunderstandings, and in short the main-spring of the machinery by which social and domestic happiness was constantly supplied both in her household and within the circle she adorned.
In the wider sphere, beyond the family circle, she was known by acts of benevolence, rather than as one endeavoring to conform to the world. She did not strive at the same time to be a follower of the fashions and maxims of the world and a friend to Him who has declared "The friendship of the world is enmity with God: Whosoever therefore will be a friend to the world is the enemy of God."
Her piety was sincere and unostentatious. Her religion was that of love and good works. Her daily life was her most beautiful teaching and all her children, more particularly the elder ones, carry into their lives the influence of the time spent in daily intercourse with her.
Yet she did not neglect the cultivation of social happiness—only she knew where to draw the line between light and darkness—how to enter into and enjoy the blandishments of society without lapsing into worldliness of spirit. In conversation she was ready, animated and interesting, and impressed all with her superiority.
After her marriage Anne Peyton devoted every hour she could appropriate from other engagements, for several years, to a regular course of reading, and to the end of her life gave much time to books. She was familiar with the classic authors of the Grecian and Roman worlds, and the choicest belonging to our English and American literature. From them she quoted freely both in conversation and letters. She was particularly fond, among the poets, of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Gray, Burns, Wordsworth, Byron, and of those pleasing essayists, Addison, Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson and Washington Irving. Under the advice of her husband she read the histories of Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott and Bancroft, and the novels of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Cooper and Irving.
In public affairs she was well informed and took a lively interest. A supporter of the Old Whig party, few men, not in public life, were more thoroughly acquainted than herself with political affairs. Conservative in her feelings, she strongly disapproved the ultra democratic opinions of "Old Hickory" and his successor in the Presidency, Martin Van Buren. Periodical election for offices; the ostracism of political opponents; the extension of suffrage to non-property holders; the recurrent election at short intervals of Judges by popular vote, she considered one and all fatal innovations on our ancient laws. It was her belief that such measures would lead to degeneracy in our Statesmen, drive from public life the better class of citizens, and let in demagogues, and with them introduce speculation, public plunder, and general corruption and incompetency. And the recent (1874-75) disclosures at Washington of bribery in connection with the War-office under General Belknap, one of the principal Secretary's of State, the trial of General Babcock, the President's private Secretary, for complicity in the Whiskey frauds, the credit mobilier combinations, or "rings," and other instances of official rottenness and corruption go a long way to establish her far seeing sagacity. A true lover of her country, she exercised her power as a Christian mother to inspire in the hearts of her children a profound and thrilling sense of patriotism.
In every respect a remarkable and attractive character, her history may be safely studied as a model and example. There is not a house in Virginia where the story of her domestic virtues, were it properly told, would not be welcomed, and in which it would not do good. Had she not been encumbered with the cares of a large establishment and the rearing of a numerous progeny, to both of which she devoted herself with thorough self-abnegation, she would doubtless have turned her attention to the pursuit of literature and might have rivalled the fame of Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, Caroline Burney, Frederica Bremer, Mrs. Stowe, or any of the distinguished female writers of America, past and present.