LETTER XXI.
Mrs. Douglas to Mrs. E. Sandford.
My dearest Elizabeth will believe that Glenalta has charms which even Killarney cannot boast for me. Yes; though the word home never meets my eye or ear without producing a gulp, which tells of other days, when that little monosyllable of four letters contained the world for me, yet repose is so necessary to my existence, that I sighed for return to my peaceful glen, and the pain of concealing every feeling that warred against the happiness of my beloved children, from their acute observation, increased my restraint, and has converted the enjoyment of my cell into more positive pleasure than I have felt for years. How gracious are the mercies shed upon our daily path, and how tender the dispensation which so often renders what we conceive to be inflictions, conducive to our comfort! Elizabeth, my spirits are unusually depressed, but you are expecting an answer to your letter, and I will not suffer my pen to forget its duty, nor wander from the subject of your inquiry, till I have given you what little aid, my longer experience of your present cares, may contribute. You think that my advice would be, that you should resign yourself exclusively to the charm of such society as you find amongst the Stanleys, No, dear friend; I would only allow you to prefer them; but there is a net of kind, expansive benevolence which it would seem as if Nature loved to throw more widely in scenes of rural life than in any other. "Man made cities, God formed the country." It is very true, every heart must acknowledge the distinction, and yours my friend would desire to emulate, as far as the imperfect creature is enabled to do, the bounty of that Being who has placed you where all the sweet charities of fellowship may be called into exercise. I do not mean that you should mingle indiscriminately, nor over-much in society: I would only say avoid unkindness; exclusion should be reserved for the unworthy, but not visited on those who have only the misfortune to be less pleasing than their neighbours. A judicious assortment will always prevent the disagreeable effects which sometimes spring from neglect of selecting such people only as harmonize with each other in manners and modes of thinking. I should be more diffuse upon this subject, were there the slightest danger of your supposing for a moment that I could be the advocate of an electioneering system. You know how I abhor the arts of popularity, and revere independence; but human virtues and vices are often separated from each other by such imperceptible shades, that in giving ourselves credit for the performance of the one, it is too often our lot to glide into the other. Selfishness is an arch fiend, and ever at hand to whisper temptation. I know that it is a prevailing opinion amongst a large number of respectable and worthy people, that we are bound to make profession of our creeds in the highways, and in the corners of our streets, that every sentence which we utter should tell of the sect to which we belong, every article of dress which we wear be a symbol of distinction; and every person with whom we converse, every book that we open, be submitted to an ordeal, and pronounced upon, by a few self-elected judges, before we venture to pursue acquaintance with the one, or advance in perusal of the other.
I cannot enter into this system of parcelling out mankind by quite so restrictive a rule; I see nothing of all this in the inspired precepts of the great Founder of our faith, whose beautiful simplicity of doctrine and extensive charity of example, are too little dwelt upon as matter of imitation, while His name is mingled with disgusting familiarity in every trifling discourse.
Oh, my friend, human nature is so frail that we should not tempt our pride, or our vanity, by putting on external marks that may deceive even our own hearts, and persuade us that we are better than others. Let our consistency be seen in our lives; our religion shine through our actions; our tastes be proclaimed by our preferences; and let us not profess at all, let us not belong exclusively to one party, or one preacher. Let us catch illumnination from those who possess more than we do, contributing our own light to such as have less. Do not suffer your dear girls to assume names or badges. Do not permit them to be tied down by observances. Let their books, their society, their opinions, and their tastes, spring from their habits and their principles. It is an inverted method, to begin with the mere trappings, and argue to the indwelling of the spirit, from the rigidity of the letter. Set up no sign-posts; use no cabalistic phraseology; make no premature vows, and adopt no rule but that of your Bible in matters of religion. In matters of inferior concern, I would advise equally against precipitancy either in proscribing or adopting. Parade is of all things to be avoided; be natural, be kind. You will find that some, of whom you may at first have formed high expectation, are over-rated, whilst others may rise in your estimation as you know them better. A little time settles our modes of life, and regulates our conduct without any eclat much more consistently than any pre-arrangement of our own, and with a little patience we may gradually sift people and things, till we find ourselves placed as nearly as circumstances permit, in the situation most suited to our characters. My little experience leads me to certain conclusions which had they been earlier impressed upon my mind I should have been spared much anxiety. One of them is, that in the beginning of our career we all plan too much. We take as it were a survey of all the territory that lies spread before us, and sitting down in the pride of full possession, we scan the map of futurity, dazzle our imaginations with mines that are to be dug, and riches that are to be realized, amuse our fancies with palaces to be built, and forests to be planted, worshipping within our breasts the idol of self-complacency, while we contemplate ourselves as the great engineers whose skill is to operate these mighty improvements. We assume too much, we trust too little; we know nothing but the present, and the present we despise. Our limited vision cannot extend beyond a point, and we strain our eyes over all created space. Little things and proximate purposes, make up the real sum of happiness and virtue: but we pass by these in contemptuous disdain, to aim at the great and the distant; the undefined and generally unattainable. True wisdom is surely to watch with our best attention, and cultivate with assiduity, the daily, the hourly circumstances which arise in our path, leaving the widely spreading consequences of unseen result, to Him who alone is acquainted with the final issues.
I have never known a failure in any wish of my own respecting the good of my family, which I could not resolve into over solicitude in looking too far, and doing too much in my own strength. Examine your heart; be sure that it is single, that no divided empire there is likely to split its councils, and lead to compromise or dissimulation. Simplicity of design is a panoply of power. Clad in its protective guardianship, put up your prayers with confidence for that aid, without which all your efforts will be abortive, and rising from your knees refreshed by the blessed assurance that the sincere suppliant is never disregarded, go forth to your daily task; as you are taught to ask for your daily bread. Endeavour to perform the little duties which are allotted to a given hour. Neither perplex your thoughts, nor weaken your sight by scrutinizing the hidden things, and pouring through the darksome mists of future time, but leave it to become the present. At its appointed period your duty is declared, and its boundary is traced: be that your practical object. What mind indeed of "lofty pitch" would be contented with the prison that I prescribe, were I not confining the consideration to that part which we are individually called upon to act in life; but you do not mistake my meaning. Ah! who would wish to walk over "the field of Marathon, or wander amid the ruins of Iona," without desiring to possess the power of abstracting thought from the fleeting moment that eludes our grasp, to expatiate in the mighty vast of years gone by? Or who that has ever loved and lost, would clip the spirit's wing, and stay its airy flight from stretching beyond this narrow strait of time and space into the boundless regions of eternal blessedness, where it is not forbidden to seek amongst the dazzling host, the happy myriads of the sky, for one bright seraph, dearer than the rest, towards whom the newly emancipated stranger flies to meet its fondest though unearthly welcome? Can there be danger—is there impiety—in this vision which steals with heavenly influence on my solitary musings? Oh, if there be, speak, my Elizabeth, and I will try to curb my waking thoughts, and turn imploringly to sleep for the precious imagery which perhaps my day-light dreams ought not to mingle.
Sleep! balmy Sleep! thy poppies shed
A pitying respite on my woes;