There is nothing which renders a woman more despicable than her thinking
it essential to happiness to be married. Besides the gross indelicacy of
the sentiment, it is a false one, as thousands of women have
experienced.
But a married state, if entered into from proper motives of esteem and
affection, is the happiest, makes women the most respectable in the eyes
of the world, and the most useful members of society. Care should be
taken not to relinquish the ease, and independence of a single life, to
become the slave of a fool, or a tyrant’s caprice.
Love is very seldom produced at first sight; at least, in that case, it
must have a very unjustifiable foundation. True love is founded on
esteem, in a correspondence of tastes and sentiments, and steals on the
heart imperceptibly. Therefore, before the affections come to be in the
least engaged to any man, women should examine their tempers, their
tastes, and their hearts very severely; and settle in their own minds,
what are the requisites to their happiness in a married state; and, as
it is almost impossible that they should get every thing they wish, they
should come to a steady determination what they are to consider as
essential, and what may be sacrificed.
Should they have hearts disposed by nature for love and friendship, and
possess those feelings which enable them to enter into all the
refinements and delicacies of these attachments, matters should be well
considered before they give them any indulgence.
Should they have the misfortune to have such tempers, and such
sentiments deeply rooted in them; should they have spirit and resolution
to resist the solicitations of vanity, the persecution of friends; and
can they support the prospect of the many inconveniences attending the
state of an old maid, then they may indulge themselves in that kind of
sentimental reading and conversation, which is most correspondent to
their feelings.
But if it is found on a strict self-examination, that marriage is
absolutely essential to their happiness, the secret should be kept
inviolable in their own bosoms; but they should shun, as they would do
the most fatal poison, all that species of reading and conversation,
which warms the imagination, which engages and softens the heart, and
raises the taste above the level of common life. If they do otherwise,
let them consider the terrible conflict of passions this may afterwards
raise in their breasts.
If this refinement once takes deep root in their minds, and they do not
mean to obey its dictates, but marry from vulgar and mercenary views,
they may never be able to eradicate it entirely, and then it will
embitter all their married days. Instead of meeting with
sense,--tenderness--delicacy--a lover--a friend--an equal companion in a
husband, they may be tried with insipidity and dulness;--shocked with
indelicacy;--and mortified by indifference.
To avoid these complicated evils, joined to others which may arise from
the opinion of the infelicity thence arising; women who are determined,
at all events to marry, should have all their reading and amusements of
such a kind, as do not affect the heart nor the imagination, except in
the way of wit and humour.
Whatever are a woman’s views in marrying, she should take every possible
precaution to prevent being disappointed. If fortune, and the pleasure
it brings be her aims, the principal security she can have for this will
depend on her marrying a good-natured, generous man; who despises money,
and who will let her live where she can best enjoy that pleasure, that
pomp, and parade of life for which she married him.
In order to ensure felicity, it is difficult to point out in the married
state the most effectual method, nor can we advise whom a woman should
marry, but we may with great confidence advise whom she should not
marry.
A companion that may entail any hereditary disease on posterity,
particularly madness, should be avoided. Such risque is the height of
imprudence, and highly criminal.
A woman should not marry a fool; he is the most intractable of all
animals; he is led by his passions and caprices, and is incapable of
hearing the voice of reason. Besides it may probably too hurt a woman’s
vanity to have a husband, for whom she has reason to blush and tremble
every time he opens his lips in company.
But she worst circumstance that attends a fool, is his constant jealousy
of his wife’s being thought to govern him. This renders it impossible to
lead him; and he is continually doing absurd and disagreeable things,
for no other reason but to shew he dare do them.
A rake is always a suspicious husband, because he has only known the
most worthless of the sex.
Women, who have a sense of religion, should not think of husbands who
have none. If husbands have tolerable understandings, though not
actuated by religious principles themselves, they will be glad that
their wives have religion, for their own sakes, and for the sake of
their families.
If they are weak men, they will be continually shocking and teasing them
about their principles.
A sudden sally of passion should never be given way to, and dignified
with the name of love.---Genuine love is not founded on caprice; it is
founded in nature, or honourable views;--on virtue--on similarity of
tastes, and sympathy of soul.
In point of fortune, which is necessary to the happiness of both,
a competency is requisite. But what that competency may be, can only be
determined by their own tastes. If they have enough between them, as
will satisfy all demands, it is sufficient.
Marriage will at once dispel the enchantment raised by external beauty;
but the virtues and graces that first warmed the heart, that reserve,
and delicacy which always left the lover something further to wish, and
often made him doubtful of his mistress’s sensibility and attachment,
may and ought ever to remain.
The tumult of passion will naturally subside; but it will be succeeded
by an endearment that affects the heart in a more equal, more sensible,
and more tender manner.
* * * * *
THE VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION;
_OR, INTERESTING MEMOIRS OF MIGUEL, DUKE DE CA*I*A._
Unfolding Many Curious Unknown Historical Facts.
_Translated from the German of Tschink._
(Continued from page 291.)
The fifth of August, in the night of which the plot was to be carried
into execution, the King sent orders to all the troops that were
quartered in the neighbourhood of Lis*on, to march instantly to the
capital under the pretext of a review. On the morning of the same day,
he delivered himself sealed instructions to his most faithful officers,
ordering them not to be opened before noon, when they were to execute
the contents with the greatest dispatch.
These precautions being taken, the king ordered the Great Council of
State to assemble at one o’clock. The Bishop of Br*ga and the Marquis of
Villa Re*l were arrested as soon as they entered the council chamber,
and a captain of the life guard seized the Duke of Ca*ina at the same
time in the public street. This was the time when all the officers
opened their sealed orders, which contained the names of those whom they
were to arrest, and of the prison to which they were to conduct them.
Every one of the conspirators was confined in a different prison, and
some were arrested by more than one officer. All those that had been
ordered to execute the king’s command, arrived at the same time at the
places of their destination, and performed their mission almost in one
moment. The number of the prisoners amounted to forty-seven.
A committee of Grandees was now appointed to try the conspirators. The
letters through which the plot had been discovered were not produced of
the beginning of the trial, in order not to betray the Marquis of
Aja*onti. Baeza being threatened to be put to the rack confessed first,
and the rest confirmed his confession after having been put to the
torture. The Marquis of Villa Re*l and the Duke of Ca*ina, and the two
prelates confessed voluntarily.
Alumbrado endured the first degree of the torture without confessing any
thing; however, at the second he began to be more tractable.
Imagining that my readers will be desirous to learn the particulars of
the life of this extraordinary man, I will give a short sketch of what I
could learn.
He was born at *a*. If the virtues of parents were as inheritable as
their rank and fortune, he would not have been a disgrace to a family as
noble as it was respectable. Already in his juvenile age he exhibited
marks of a penetrating understanding, of an extraordinary docility and
acuteness, but nature had thrown away her gifts upon a villain. The
great rigour with which his father watched his conduct, had no other
effect but that of making him a hypocrite, for he would commit any crime
if he could do it unobserved, although he was generally believed to be a
pattern of every virtue. In his ninth year he killed a girl by a stone
thrown from a sling, and was capable not only of fathering the crime
upon one of his play-fellows, but, at the same time of rendering his
accusation more plausible by his solemn protestations, and the tears he
shed over the corpse. Progress of time changed his conduct not in the
least, he rather improved in wickedness, and in the art of concealing
his crimes.
Inheriting from his father an immense fortune, he determined to
indemnify himself for his former constraint, by the most licentious
manner of life, and abandoned himself to all sorts of debauchery, with a
fury that ruined both his health and his fortune. The grief at this
conduct broke the heart of his mother, at which he was not very sorry,
expecting to improve his fortune by a new inheritance. He was, however,
disappointed, for his mother, thinking it sinful to support him in his
debaucheries, left her wealth to a cloister. Glowing with thirst for
revenge, he set it on fire and ran away.
The vengeance of Heaven pursued him, and want soon completed the measure
of his wretchedness. Whithersoever he went he was haunted by the
unrelenting punishments of the Omnipresent Judge on high, and the
greatest distress. At length he obtained leave of a captain, who was
just going to sea, to embark on board of his vessel.
Thus he did, indeed, get out of the reach of public justice, but not of
the vengeance of Heaven. The ship was captured by Algerine pirates, and
he was dragged to captivity.
He abjured his religion and turned Mahometan, in order to ease the yoke
of slavery that lay heavy on his shoulders. His great capacities enabled
him soon to improve his situation, and during some successful cruizes
against his own countrymen, he acquired a considerable fortune, which he
increased rapidly through his speculations on land and sea, which he
carried on for more than twenty years with astonishing success.
Meanwhile he took every opportunity of injuring the Christians, and
Portugal lost through his infernal intrigues her most valuable
possessions in Africa.
Yet his good fortune became at last the source of new misfortunes,
puffing him up with pride in such a manner, that he aspired to a dignity
in the state which a renegado rarely or never obtains. The Dey of
Algiers died, and he spared neither expences nor artifices to be
constituted his successor; his ambitious views were however frustrated.
His pride was wounded, and he endeavoured to gain his aim by additional
bribes, but in vain! Enraged with new disappointment, he conspired
against the new Dey; a Dervise, whom he wanted to implicate in his plot,
betrayed him, and he had scarcely time to save himself by a sudden
flight, leaving all his ill-gotten wealth behind.
On his return to Europe he disguised himself in the garb of a pilgrim,
and affected to be a peregrinating penitentiary. Wherever he passed
through he pretended to have visited the holy sepulchre, where the
infidels had detained him a long while, in captivity, from which he had
been delivered, at length, in a miraculous manner. He distributed small
pieces of wood, stone and earth, as valuable relics, for which the poor
superstitious multitude paid him great sums of money.
Thus he roamed from place to place, and met every where with credulous
people, with hospitality and alms. At Aran*uez he got acquainted with
the Bishop of P--*, who, at that time, exercised the office of a papal
legate at the court of Spa*n. His pharisaical hypocrisy enabled him to
ingratiate himself with that worthy prelate, who was so much deceived by
him, that he received him into his service.
Alumbrado dispatched the private secretary of his deluded master by a
dose of poison, and succeeded him in his place. The unsuspecting prelate
was so much pleased with Alumbrado’s abilities and services, that he
recommended him to Oliva*ez when he returned to Rome.
The character of the Prime Minister of Spa*n differed materially from
that of the Bishop; Alumbrado, however, knew how to accommodate himself
to every one. He soon prejudiced his new patron so much in his favour,
that he entrusted him with the execution of a political charge of the
greatest importance, and Alumbrado acquitted himself so well of his
commission, that the Minister promised to reward his services on the
first opportunity. Alumbrado improved every opportunity of securing the
favour of his master, and endeavoured anxiously to explore his ruling
passions.
The keen-sighted dissembler soon found out that the Minister was a great
admirer of the occult sciences, and instantly hinted that he had
acquired a great knowledge of those sciences on his travels. From that
moment the Minister was rather in Alumbrado’s service than the latter in
his.
Thus they had lived together in mutual good understanding five years,
when the commotions in Portu*al began to alarm the Court of Mad**d.
Alumbrado was sent to Lisbon, in order to counteract the machinations of
the Duke of Braga*za, but having not been able to effect his purpose,
attempted to carry his point by forming a conspiracy, which, if it had
succeeded, would have proved fatal to the life of the new King, and
plunged the empire into the greatest misery.
Unfortunate young man! who hast been implicated in the most enormous
artifices of a monster in that infernal plot; have not all the torments
of Hell raged in thy bosom, when the veil which that arch deceiver had
thrown over that horrid undertaking was removed, when thy seducer was
unmasked before his judges, and thou sawest in whose hands thou hast
been, and how the miracles by which thou hadst been ensnared, had been
wrought? A fragment which I have copied from the records of the trial,
will enable the reader to form an idea of the state of my unhappy
friend.
Duke. It is impossible, I say.
Alumbrado. And yet it is exactly as I have told you. It was you who
prompted me by your relation of your adventures with the Irishman, to
gain you for my purpose by delusive miracles. These were the only means
left me by the Marquis of F------, for I could not expect to ensnare you
by apparitions of ghosts, after the sensible arguments which he had
opposed to your belief in their existence. Your friend’s philosophical
caution not to trust a man whom you should have caught once in the act
of committing a fraud, obliged me to be on my guard, and I endeavoured
to persuade you that I was a saint.
I pronounced the Irishman a sorcerer in order to prejudice you against
him, and to exclude him from all further connection with you. Thus I
gained more than I ever should have done, if I had pronounced him an
impostor, because I had it very much at my heart to inspire you with a
blind belief in supernatural events of every kind, and a blind
confidence in my miracles.
(To be continued.)
* * * * *
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