husbands and wives often love each other more than they imagine.
Suppose them to believe themselves indifferent; and to seem so; and
even on the verge of mutual hate; should one of them fall sick, we
see the other inspired with sincere alarms. Suppose them on the
eve of separation; when the fatal moment comes, both recoil from
the act. Habit almost causes the pains, to which we have been long
accustomed, to become cause of regret when they cease. When the
two begin mutually to complain of their destiny, I counsel each,
instead of wishing to criminate and correct each other, to give
each other an example of mutual forbearance and indulgence. It may
be, that the cause of their mutual dissatisfaction is unreal;
the supposed wrong not intended, the suspicion false. Candor and
forgiveness will appease all. The husband may have gone astray only
in thought; which is beyond human privilege to fathom. The wife
may have minor defects and an unequal temper, without forfeiting
much excellence and many remaining claims to be loved. The morbid
influence of ill health and irresistible temperament, in their
powerful action upon the temper, may have been the source whence
the faults flowed on either part; and the mutual wrongs may thus
have been, in some sense, independent of the will of the parties.
Bound, as they are, in such intimate and almost indissoluble
relations, before they give that happiness, which they hoped
and promised, to the winds, let them exhaust their efforts of
self-command and mutual indulgence, to bring back deep and true
affection.
The purest happiness of earth is, unquestionably, the portion of
two beings wisely and fitly united in the bonds of indissoluble
confidence and affection. What a touching picture does Madame de
Stael present in these lines: ‘I saw, during my sojourn in England,
a man of the highest merit united to a wife worthy of him. One
day, as we were walking together, we met some of those people that
the English call gipseys, who generally wander about in the woods
in the most deplorable condition. I expressed pity for them thus
enduring the union of all the physical evils of nature. “Had it
been necessary,” said the affectionate husband, pointing to his
wife, “in order to spend my life with her, that I should have
passed thirty years in begging with them, we would still have been
happy.” “Yes,” responded the wife, “the happiest of beings.”’
LETTER XV.
CHILDREN.
One of the happiest days, and, perhaps, the most beautiful of
life, is when the birth of a child opens the heart of the parent
to emotions, as yet, unknown.[31] Yet what torments are prepared
by this epoch! What painful anxiety, what agonies their sufferings
excite! What terror, when we fear for their infant life! These
alarms terminate not with their early age. The inquietude with
which their parents watch over their destiny fills every period of
their life to their last sigh.
The compensating satisfaction which they bring must be very vivid,
since it counterbalances so many sufferings. In order to love them,
we have no need to be convinced that they will respond to our
cares, and one day repay them. If there be in the human heart one
disinterested sentiment, it is parental love. Our tenderness for
our children is independent of reflection. We love them because
they are our children. Their existence makes a part of ours; or,
rather, is more than ours. All that is either useful or pleasant
to them, brings us a pure happiness, springing from their health,
their gayety, their amusements.
The chief end which we ought to propose to ourselves, in rearing
them, is to train and dispose them so that they may wisely enjoy
that existence which is accorded them. Of all the happy influences
which can be brought to bear upon their mind and manners, none
is more beneficial than the example of parental gentleness. The
good Plutarch most eloquently advanced this doctrine in ancient
time. Montaigne, Rousseau, M’Kenzie, and various writers of minor
fame among the moderns, have reproduced his ideas, and, by their
authority, have finally effected a happy revolution in education.
I delight to trace the most important ideas thus reproduced by
enlightened and noble minds in different ages. It is chiefly by
persevering in the system of the influence of gentleness that we
may expect an ultimate melioration in the human character and
condition.
But scarcely has any such salutary change been effected, before
minds, either superficial or soured, see only the inconveniences
which accompany it; and, instead of evading or correcting them,
would return to the point whence they started. We hear people
regretting the decline of the severity of ancient education; and
maintaining the wisdom of those contrarieties and vexations which
children used to experience; ‘a fitting discipline of preparation,’
say they, ‘to prepare them for the sorrows of life.’ Would they,
on the same principle, inflict bruises and contusions, to train
them to the right endurance of those that carelessness or accident
might bring? ‘It is an advantage,’ say they, ‘to put them to an
apprenticeship of pain at the period when the sorrow it inflicts
is light and transient.’ This mode of speaking, with many others
of similar import, presents a combination of much error with some
truth.
The sufferings of childhood seem to us trifling and easy to endure,
because time has interposed distance between them and us; and we
have no fear of ever meeting them again. It does not cease to be
a fact, that the child that passes a year under the discipline
of the ferule of a severe master, is as unhappy as a man deprived
a year of his liberty. The latter, in truth, has less reason to
complain; since he ought to find, in the discipline of his reason,
and his maturity and force of character, more powerful motives for
patient endurance. Parents! Providence has placed the destiny of
your children in your hands. When you thus sacrifice the present
to an uncertain future, you ought to have strong proof that you
will put at their disposal the means of indemnification. If the
sacrifice of the present to the future were indispensable, I would
not dissuade from it. But my conviction is, that the best means
of preparing them for the future may be found in rendering them
as happy as possible for the present. If it should be your severe
trial to be deprived of them in their early days, you will, at
least, have the consolation of being able to say, ‘I have rendered
them happy during the short time they were confided to me.’ Strive
then, by gentleness, guided by wisdom and authority, to cast the
sunshine of enjoyment upon the necessary toils and studies of the
morning of their existence.
It is the stern award of nature to bring them sorrows. Our task is
to soothe them. I feel an interest when I see the child regret the
trinket it has broken, or the bird it has reared. Nature in this
way, gives them the first lessons of pain, and strengthens them to
sustain the more bitter losses of maturer days. Let us prudently
second the efforts of nature; and to console the weeping child,
let us not attempt to change the course of these fugitive ideas,
nor to efface the vexation by a pleasure. In unavoidable suffering
let the dawning courage and reason find strength for endurance.
Let us first share the regrets, and gently bring the sufferer to
feel the inutility of tears. Let us accustom him not to throw away
his strength in useless efforts; and let us form his mind to bear
without a murmur the yoke of necessity. These maxims, I am aware,
are directly against the spirit of modern education, which is
almost entirely directed towards the views of ambition.
But while I earnestly inculcate gentleness in parental discipline,
I would not confound it with weakness. I disapprove that
familiarity between parents and children which is unfavorable to
subordination. Fashion is likely to introduce an injurious equality
into this relation. I see the progress of this dangerous effeminacy
with regret. The dress and expenditures which would formerly have
supplied ten children, scarcely satisfy at present the caprices of
one. This foolish complaisance of parents prepares, for the future
husbands and wives, a task most difficult to fulfil. Let us not,
by anticipating and preventing the wishes of children, teach them
to be indolent in searching for their own pleasures. Their age is
fertile in this species of invention. That they may be successful
in seizing enjoyment, little more is requisite to be performed on
our part than to break their chains.
There are two fruitful sources of torments for children. One is,
what the present day denominates politeness. It is revolting to me
to see children early trained to forego their delightful frankness
and simplicity, and learning artificial manners. We wish them to
become little personages; and we compel them to receive tiresome
compliments, and to repeat insignificant formulas of common-place
flattery. In this way, politeness, destined to impart amenity to
life, becomes a source of vexation and restraint. It would seem
as if we thought it so important a matter to teach the usages of
society, that they could never be known unless the study were
commenced in infancy. Besides, do we flatter ourselves, that we
shall be able to teach children the modes and the vocabulary of
politeness, without initiating them, at the same time, in the
rudiments of falsehood? They are compelled to see that we consider
it a trifle. If we wish them to become flatterers and dishonest, I
ask what more efficient method we could take?
Labor is the second source of their sufferings. I would by no
means be understood to dissuade from the assiduous cultivation of
habits of industry. You may enable children to remove mountains,
if you will contrive to render their tasks a matter of amusement
and interest. The extreme curiosity of children announces an
instinctive desire for instruction. But instead of profiting by it,
we adopt measures which tend to stifle it. We render their studies
tiresome, and then say that the young naturally tire of study.
When the parent is sufficiently enlightened to rear his child
himself, instead of plying him with rudimental books, dictionaries
and restraint, let him impart the first instructions by familiar
conversation. Ideas advanced in this way are accommodated to
the comprehension of the pupil, by mutual good feeling rendered
attractive, and brought directly within the embrace of his mind.
This instruction leads him to observe, and accustoms him to
compare, reflect and discriminate, offers the sciences under
interesting associations, and inspires a natural thirst for
instruction. Of all results which education can produce, this is
the most useful. A youth of fifteen, trained in this way, will come
into possession of more truths, mixed with fewer errors, than much
older persons reared in the common way. He will be distinguished by
the early maturity of his reason, and by his eagerness to cultivate
the sciences, which, instead of producing fatigue or disgust,
will every day give birth to new ideas and new pleasures. I am
nevertheless little surprised, that the scrupulous advocates of the
existing routine should insist that such a method tends to form
superficial thinkers. I can only say to these profound panegyrists
of the present order of instruction, that the method which I
recommend, was that of the Greeks.--Their philosophers taught while
walking in the shade of the portico or of trees, and were ignorant
of the art of rendering study tiresome, and not disposed to throw
over it the benefits of constraint. Modern instructers ought,
therefore, to find that they were shallow reasoners, and that their
poets and artists could have produced only crude and unfinished
efforts.[33]
Besides, this part of education is of trifling importance, compared
with the paramount obligation to give the pupil robust health, pure
morals, and an energetic mind. I deeply regret that the despotic
empire of opinion is more powerful than paternal love. Instead of
gravely teaching to your son the little arts of shining in the
world, have the courage to say to him, ‘oblige those of thy kind
whose sufferings thou canst lighten, and exhibit a constant and
universal example of good morals. Form, every evening, projects
necessary for enjoying a happy and useful succeeding day.’ Thus you
will see him useful, good and happy, if not great in the world’s
estimation. You will behold him peacefully descending the current
of time. In striking the balance with life, he will be able to say,
I have known only those sufferings which no wisdom could evade, and
no efforts repel. But such are the prejudices of the age, to give
such counsels to a son requires rare and heroic courage.
Is not that filial ingratitude, of which parents so generally
complain, the bitter fruit of their own training?--You fill their
hearts with mercenary passions, and with measureless ambition.
You break the tenderest ties, and send them to distant public
schools. Your children, in turn, put your lessons to account,
and abandon your importunate and declining age, if you depend on
them, to mercenary hands. When they were young, you ridiculed
them out of their innocent recklessness, and frankness, and want
of worldly wisdom. You vaunted to them that ambition and those
arts of rising, which, put in practice, have steeled their hearts
against filial piety, as well as the other affections that belong
not to calculation. Since the paramount object of your training
was to teach them to shine, and make the most out of every body,
you have at least a right to expect from their vanity, pompous
funeral solemnities. I revere that indication of infinite wisdom,
that has rendered the love of the parent more anxious and tender
than that of the child. The intensity of the affections ought to
be proportionate to the wants of the beings that excite them. But
ingratitude is not in nature. Better training would have produced
other manners. In rearing our children with more enlightened
care, in inspiring them with moderate desires, in reducing their
eagerness for brilliancy and distinction, we shall render them
happy, without stifling their natural filial sentiments; and we
shall thus use the best means of training them to sustain and
soothe our last moments, as we embellished their first days.[34]
LETTER XVI.
OF FRIENDSHIP.
Let us bring within the family circle a few persons of amiable
manners and simple tastes. Our domestic retreat may then become our
universe. But we must search for real friends, with capabilities
for continuing such. If interest and pleasure break the accidental
ties of a day, shall friendship, which was always a stranger to the
connexion, be accused of the infraction?
A real friend must not be expected from the common ties of vulgar
interest; but must be, in the circle to which he belongs, as
a brother of adoption. So simple should be our confidence in
the entireness of his affection, and the disinterestedness and
wisdom of his advice, as to incline us to consult him without
afflicting our wife or children by a useless communication of our
perplexities. To him we should be able to confide our fears; and
while we struggle, by his advice and aid to escape the pressing
evil which menaces to overwhelm us, our family may still repose in
tranquil security.[35]
If he suffer in turn, we share his pains. If he have pleasures,
we reciprocally enjoy them. If either party experience reverses,
instead of finding himself alone in misery, he receives
consolations so touching and tender, that he ceases to complain of
a lot which has enabled him to become acquainted with the depth of
the resources of friendship.
How pure is the sentiment, how simple the pleasures, which flow
from the intercourse of two men united by similar opinions and
like desires, who have both cultivated letters, the arts, and
true wisdom! With what rapidity the moments of these charming
conversations fly! Even the hours consecrated to study are less
pleasant, perhaps less instructive. Such a friend, so to speak, is
of a different nature from that of the rest of men. They either
conceal our defects, or cause us to see them from motives of ill
feeling. A friend so discusses them, in our presence, as not to
wound us. He kindly reproaches us with faults, to our face, which
he extenuates, or excuses before others in our absence. We can
never fully comprehend to what extent a friend may be useful and
dear until after having been a long time the faithful companion of
his good and evil fortune. What emotions we experience in giving
ourselves up to the remembrance of the common perils, storms and
trials we have experienced together! It is never without tenderness
of heart that we say, ‘we have had the same thoughts, affections
and hopes. Such an event penetrated us with common joy; such
another filled us with grief. Uniting our efforts, we rescued a
victim of poverty and misfortune. We mutually shared his tears of
gratitude. The hard necessity of circumstances separated us; and
our paths so diverged that seas and mountains divided us. But we
still remained present to each other, in communion of thought.
He had fears for me, and I for him, as we foresaw each other’s
dangers. I learned his condition, interpreted his thoughts and
feelings, and said, ‘such a fear agitates him; he forms such a
project, conceives such a hope.’ Finally, we met again. What
charms, what effusion of heart in the union!’
It is a puerile absurdity to be proud of the reputation of one to
whom we are united by the ties of blood--a distinction which nature
gave us. But we may be justly proud of the rare qualities of our
friend. The ties of this relation are not the work of nature or
contingency. We prove that, in meriting his esteem, we, at least,
resemble him in the qualities of his heart.
I immediately form a high opinion of the man whom I hear earnest in
the applause of the talents or virtues of his friend. He possesses
the qualities which he applauds; since he has need to affirm their
existence in the person he loves.
This noble and pure sentiment has had its peaceable heroes. What
names, what examples could I not cite, in ancient and in modern
times! What splendid and affecting proofs of identity of fortune,
joys and sorrows, and even danger and death! I knew two friends,
of whom every one spoke with respect. One of them was asked the
extent of his fortune? ‘Mine is small,’ he replied, ‘but my friend
is rich.’ The other, a few days before he died of a contagious
disease, asked, ‘why so many persons were allowed to enter his
chamber? No one,’ he added, ‘ought to be admitted but my friend.’
Thus were they one in fortune, in life and in death.[36]
I deem, that even moralists have sought to render this peaceable
sentiment, this gentle affection, and the only one exempt from
storms, too exclusive. I am aware, how much our affections become
enfeebled, in proportion as their objects multiply. There is force
in the quaint expression of an old author. ‘Love is like a large
stream which bears heavy laden boats. Divide it into many channels,
and they run aground.’ Still, we may give the honored name of
friend to several, without profaning it, if there exist between us
mutual sympathy, high esteem and tender interest; if our pleasures
and pains are, in some sense, common stock, and we are reciprocally
capable of a sincere devotion to each other’s welfare. As much,
however, as I revere the real sentiment, I am disgusted by the
sickly or exaggerated affectation of it.
The sentiment is still more delightful when inspired by a woman. I
shall be asked, if it can exist in its purity between persons of
the different sexes? I answer in the affirmative, when the impulses
of youth no longer agitate the heart. We then experience the whole
charm of the sentiment, as the difference of sex, which is never
entirely forgotten, imparts to it a vague and touching tenderness
and an ideal delight for which language is too poor to furnish
terms.
Why can love and friendship, the sunshine of existence, decay
in the heart? Why are they not eternal? But since it is not so,
if we are cruelly deceived in our affections, the surest means
of medicating our pain is, instead of cherishing misanthropic
distrust, to look round and form the same generous ties anew. Has
your friend abandoned you? or, worse, has your wife become unworthy
of your love? It is better to be deceived a thousand times than
to add, to the grief of wounded affection, the insupportable
burden of general distrust, misanthropy and hatred. Let these
baneful feelings never usurp the place of those sentiments which
must constitute human happiness. Pardon to those by whom you have
been loved, the sorrows which their abandonment has caused you, in
consideration of those days of the past which was embellished by
their friendship.
But these treasons and perfidies are only frequent in the
intercourse of those who are driven about by the whirlwinds of
life; in which so many opposing interests, so many deceitful
pleasures confuse and separate men. The simple minded and good,
whose days flow pleasantly in retreat, every day value more the
price of those ties that unite them. Their happiness is veiled and
guarantied by a guardian obscurity.
I give place to none of the illusions of inexperience in regard
to men.[37] The errors, contradictions and vices with which they
are charged, exist. I admit that the greater part of satires are
faithful paintings. But there are still to be found, everywhere,
persons whose manners are frank, whose heart is good, and whose
temper amiable. These persons exist in sufficient numbers to
compose this new world of which I have spoken. Writers are disposed
to declaim against men. I have never ceased to feel good will
towards my kind. I have chosen only to withdraw from the multitude,
in order to select my position in the centre of a small society.
For me there are no longer stupid or wicked people on the earth.
I have examined the essential things of life, tranquillity and
independence of mind, health, competence and the affection of some
of our kind. I wish now to give my observations something more
of detail and diversity. But I wish it still to be borne in mind,
that I give only the materials and outlines of an essay, and make
no pretensions to fill out a complete treatise. I wish that a
temple may be raised to happiness. Hands, more skilful than mine,
will rear it. It is sufficient to my purpose to indicate those
delightful sites, in the midst of which it may be erected.
LETTER XVII.
THE PLEASURES OF THE SENSES.
Nature has decreed, that each one of our senses should be a source
of pleasure. But if we seek our enjoyment, only in physical
sensations, the same stern arbiter has enacted, that our capability
of pleasure should soon be exhausted, and that, palled and
disgusted, we should die without having known true happiness.[38]
Exactly in proportion as pleasures are less associated with
the mind, their power to give us any permanent satisfaction is
diminished. On the contrary, they become vivid and durable,
precisely in the degree in which they awaken and call forth moral
ideas. They become celestial, when they connect the past with the
present, the present with the future, and the whole with heaven.
In proportion as we scrutinize the pleasures of the senses, we
shall always find their charm increasing in the same degree, as
losing, if I may so say, their physical stain, they rise in the
scale of purification, and become transformed, in some sense, to
the dignity of moral enjoyments.
I look at a painting: it represents an old man, a child, a woman
giving alms, and a soldier, whose attitude expresses astonishment.
I admire the fidelity, the truth and coloring of the picture;
and my eye is intensely gratified. But remaining ignorant of
the subject, I go away, and the whole shortly vanishes from my
memory. I see it again; and am now struck with the inscription at
the bottom, ‘_Date obolum Belisario_.’ I remember an interesting
passage of history. A crowd of moral images throng upon my spirit:
I soften to tenderness; and I comprehend the affecting lesson,
which the artist is giving me. I review the painting, again and
again; and thrill at the view of the blind warrior, and of the
child holding out his helmet to receive alms.