“There is Frederic, my ‘summer child,’ our bright-eyed, open-browed boy, almost all we could desire in a son. I resign him into your hands with much joy, pride and hope. Even were my life to be spared, my work in his education were now nearly done. I have had much happiness in remarking his talent, his enthusiasm, his fine physical organization, his vigorous health, his gay, elastic spirits,—and far more in being able to believe him perfectly honest and truthful in character. Oh, my husband, can we not see in him the germ of a noble life, the possible of a glorious destiny?
“Yet, Frederic has some faults, clear even to my sight. I think him too ambitious of mere greatness, of distinction as an end, rather than as the means of attaining some higher good. Teach him, dear husband, that such ambition is but a cold intellectual selfishness, or a fever thirst of the soul; a blind and headlong passion that miserably defeats itself in the end. Teach him that the immortal spirit should here seek honor and wealth only as means and aids in fulfilling the purest and holiest, and, therefore, the highest purposes of our being;—to do good—simple good—to leave beneficent ‘foot-prints on the sands of time’—to plant the heaven-flower, happiness, in some of life’s desolate places—to speak true words, which shall be hallowed in human hearts—strong words, which shall be translated into action, in human lives. And oh! teach him what I have ever earnestly sought to inspire—a hearty devotion to the right—a fervent love of liberty—a humble reverence for humanity. Teach him to yield his ready worship to God’s truth, wherever he may meet it—followed by the multitude strewing palm-branches, or forsaken, denied and crucified. Teach him to honor his own nature, by a brave and upright life, and to stand for justice and freedom against the world.
“I have seen with joy that Frederic has an utter aversion to the society of fops, spendthrifts and skeptics. I believe that his moral principles are assured, his religious faith clear. Yet I fear that he is sometimes too impressible, too passive and yielding. His will needs strengthening, not subduing. Teach him to be watchful of his independence, to guard jealously his manliness. I know that I need not charge you to infuse into his mind a true patriotic spirit, free from cant and bravado—to counsel him against poor party feuds and narrow political prejudices. God grant that you may live to see our son if not one of the world’s great men, one whose pure life shall radiate good and happiness—whose strong and symmetrical character shall be a lesson of moral greatness, a type of true manhood.
“Our daughter Pauline is a happy and healthful girl, with a good, though by no means a great intellect. She has a dangerous dower in her rare beauty, and I pray you, dear Frederic, teach her not to glory in that perishing gift. She is not, I fear, utterly free from vanity, and she is sometimes arrogant and willful. I have even seen her show a consciousness of her personal advantages toward her less favored sister. You will seek to check this imperiousness, to subdue this will—but not with severity, for with all, Pauline is warm-hearted and generous. You know that she is tall for her age, and is fast putting away childish things. It will not be long now before as a young lady she will enter society. I surely need not charge you to be ever near her—to watch well lest a poor passion for dress and a love of admiration invade and take possession of her mind, lowering her to the heartless level of fashionable life; to teach her to despise flatterers and fops—to shrink from the ostentatious, the sensual, the profane, the scoffing and unbelieving. I feel assured that you will imbue her spirit with your own reverence for honest worth, and your own noble enthusiasm for truth and the right—an enthusiasm never lovelier than when it lights the eye and glows on the lips of a lovely woman.
“For my daughter Louise, our youngest, I have most anxiety, for she seems to have inherited my own physical delicacy, and has moreover an intense affectionateness and a morbid sensibility, which together are a misfortune. Dear husband, deal gently with this poor little girl of mine, for to you I will confess that at this hour she lies nearest my heart. Her whole nature seems to overflow with love for all about her, but the sweet waters are ever being embittered by the feeling that she is not herself an object of pride, scarcely of affection to us. She is very plain, you know—yet, look at her, she is not ugly—her plainness is that of languor and ill health. Poor Louise is seldom well, though she never complains, except mutely, through her pallor and weakness. She also inherits from me an absorbing passion for reading and study, and perhaps you will think it strange in me when I call upon you—earnestly entreat you to thwart and overcome this, if possible—not forcibly, nor suddenly, but by substituting other pleasures and pursuits, thus turning the current of her thoughts.
“Though I do not remember to have ever been very strong, yet I do not think that I had at the first any disease in my constitution. Yet what was the course pursued in my training? It was unfortunately discovered that I was a genius, and so I was early put to study—my young brain stimulated into unhealthy action, the warm blood driven from my cheek and lip, the childish light quenched in my eye, by a thoughtful and sedentary life. I wasted long bright mornings over books, when I should have been riding over the hills, or frolicking with the waves—rambling through the healthful pine-woods, or fishing from the rocks, inhaling the invigorating ocean breezes. And sweet evenings, instead of strolling abroad in the summer moonlight, I sat within doors, alone, wrapt in deep, vague reveries; and on winter nights, I read and wrote, or pored over Euclid, or Virgil, in my close, dull chamber, instead of joining the laughing, chatting circle below, mingling in the dance and merry game.
“Yet, it was not alone my passion for study which prevented me from taking that vigorous exercise, and indulging in those out-door amusements so absolutely necessary for both physical and mental health, but ideas of propriety and feminine delicacy carefully inculcated and wrought into my character. I have since seen their folly, but too late. Habit and old associations were too strong for the new principles.
“Ah, had my early training been different—had I been suffered to remain a child, a simple, natural child, through the appointed season of childhood—had my girlhood been more free and careless—less proper, and studious, and poetic, I might now have been in my happiest season, the prime of a rich and useful life. But as it is, now, when my husband is at last returning home for his life-rest—when my son is soon to take his first step into the world—when my daughters need me most, at thirty-five, my course is already run! Oh, Frederic, see that our little pale-faced Louise does not pursue her mother’s mistaken course—does not re-live her mother’s imperfect existence. Take her out into the fields, on to the beach—teach her to ride, to row, to clamber—to fear neither sunshine nor rain—let fresh air in upon her life, get her young heart in love with nature, and all will be well with the child, I doubt not.
“Your own dear mother has promised to take home our children when I am gone, and have charge of them, with your consent, for some years to come. The education of our daughters you should direct, for you alone know my plans and wishes. As to their marriage, that seems so far in the future that you will scarcely expect me to speak on the subject. I can only say, dearest, teach our children in the coming years, never to be content with a union which promises less of love, harmony and trust, than have made the blessedness of ours.”