advantage to be derived from the practice I recommend. Few
accomplishments are more rare, though few more desirable, than that of
reading aloud with ease and grace. Great are the sufferings inflicted on
a sensitive ear by listening to one's favourite passages, touching in
pathos, or glorious in sublimity, travestied into twaddle by the false
taste or the want of practice of the reader. For it is not always from
false taste that the species of reading above complained of proceeds; on
the contrary, there may be a very correct perception of the writer's
meaning and object, while from want of practice, from mere mechanical
inexpertness, there may be an incapability of giving effect to that
meaning: hence arises false emphasis, and a thousand other
disagreeables.
In this art, this important art of reading aloud, simplicity ought to be
the grand object of attainment, at the same time that it is the last
that can be attained. It is a point to reach after long efforts; not to
start from, as those of uncultivated or artificial taste would imagine.
I must repeat, that it cannot be acquired without persevering practice.
The best time to set vigorously about such practice would be when you
have but just listened with dismay to the injuries inflicted on some
favourite poet by the laboured or tasteless reading of an unpractised
performer.
From reading aloud, I pass on to a still more important subject,--that
of writing: both are intimately connected branches of the main
one--cultivation of the mind. When this latter is attained in the first
place, a slight individual direction of previously acquired powers will
enable you to succeed in both the former. In your own case, however, as
in that of all those who have not the active organisation which involves
great facilities for mechanical efforts, it will be quite necessary to
give a special direction to your studies for the attainment of any
degree of excellence in both those arts. Those, on the contrary, whose
organization is more lively and vigorous, and whose nature and habits
fit them more for action than thought, will find little difficulty in
making any degree of cultivation of mind an immediate stepping-stone to
the other attainments: such persons can read at once with force and
truth as soon as education has given them accurate perceptions; they
will also write with ease, rapidity, and energy, as soon as the mind is
furnished with suitable materials. This is a kind of superiority which
you may often be inclined to envy, at least until experience has taught
you, in the first place, that the law of compensation is universal, and
in the second, that every thing is doubly valuable which is acquired
through hard labour and many struggles. For the first, you may observe
that such persons as possess naturally the mechanical facilities of
which I have spoken will never attain to an equal degree of excellence
with those whose naturally soft and inactive organization obliges them
to labour over every step of their onward way. They can, I repeat, never
attain to the same degree of excellence, either in feeling or
expression, because they do not possess the same refined delicacy of
perceptions, the same deep thoughtfulness and intuitive wisdom, as those
who owe these advantages to the very organization from which they
otherwise suffer. This is another illustration of the universal
law--that action is always in inverse proportion to power. For the
second, you will find that there is a pleasure in overcoming
difficulties, compared with which all easily attained or naturally
possessed advantages appear tame and vapid:[83] and besides the
difference in the pleasurable excitement of the contest, you are to
consider the advantage to the character that is derived from a battle
and a victory.
When I speak to you of writing, and of your attaining to excellence in
this art, I have nothing in view but the improvement of your private
letters. It can seldom be desirable for a woman to challenge public
criticism by appearing before the world as an author. "My wife does not
write poetry, she lives it," was the reply of Richter, when his
highly-gifted Caroline was applied to for literary contributions to her
sister's publications. He described in these words the real nature of a
woman's duties. Any degree of avoidable publicity must lessen her peace
and happiness; and few circumstances can make it prudent for a woman to
give up retirement and retired duties, and subject herself to public
criticism, and probably public blame.
The writing, then, in which I have advised you to accomplish yourself,
is the epistolary style alone, at once a means of communicating pleasure
to your friends, and of conferring extensive and permanent benefits upon
them. How useful has the kind, judicious, well-timed letter of a
Christian friend often proved, even when the spoken word of the same
friend might, during circumstances of excitement, have only increased
imprudence or irritation!
Few printed books have effected more good than the private
correspondence of pious, well-educated, and strong-minded persons.
Indeed, the influence exercised by letters and conversation is so much
the peculiar and appropriate sphere of a woman's usefulness, that all
her studies should be pursued with an especial view to the attainment of
these accomplishments. The same qualities are to be desired in both. The
utmost simplicity--for nothing can be worse than speaking as if you were
repeating a sentence out of a book, except writing a friendly letter as
if you were writing out of a book,--a great abundance and readiness of
information for the purpose of supplying a variety of illustrations, an
intelligent perception of, and a cautious attention to, that which you
are called upon to answer, a conciseness of expression, that is
perfectly consistent with those minute details, which, gracefully
managed, as women only can, form the chief charm of their conversation
and writing,--with all these you should be careful to give free play to
the peculiarities of your own individual mind: this will always, even
where there is little or no talent, produce a pleasing degree of
originality.
Before every thing else, however, let unstudied ease, I could almost add
carelessness, be the marked characteristics of both your conversation
and your writing. Refined taste will indeed insensibly produce the
former, without any effort of your own, far better than the strictest
rules could do.
The praises of nonsense have been often written and often spoken; nor
can it ever be praised more than it deserves. However "within its magic
circle none dare walk"[84] but those who have naturally quick and
refined perceptions, assisted by careful cultivation. Narrow indeed is
the boundary which divides unfeminine flippancy from the graceful
nonsense which good authority and our own feelings pronounce to be
"exquisite."[85] The unsuccessful attempt at its imitation always
reminds me of Pilpay's fable of the Donkey and the Lapdog:--The poor
donkey, who had been going on very usefully in its own drudging way,
began to envy the lap-dog the caresses it received, and fancied that it
would receive the same if it jumped upon its master as the lap-dog did:
how awkwardly and unnaturally its attempts at playfulness were executed,
how unwelcome they proved, I need not tell you. Nothing is more
difficult than playfulness or even vivacity of manner--nothing is so
sure a test of good breeding and high cultivation of mind; either may
carry you safely through, but their union alone can render playfulness
and vivacity entirely fascinating.
After all that I have written, I must again repeat what I began
with,--that you are to try each different mode of study for yourself,
and that the advice of others will be of use to you only when you have
assimilated it with your own mind, testing it by your own practice, and
giving it the fair trial of _patient_ perseverance.
I ought perhaps, before I close this letter, to make some apology for
recommending, as a part of your course of study, either Rollin or Hume,
one because he is "_trop bon homme_,"[86] the other because he is not
"_bon_" in any sense of the word. My apology, or rather my reason, will,
however, be only a repetition of that which I have said before, viz.
that I should wish you to read history strictly, and merely, as a story,
and to form your _own_ philosophic and religious opinions previously,
and from other sources.
So many valuable and important histories, so many necessary books on
every subject, have been written by the professed infidel, as well as by
the practical forgetter of God, that you must prepare yourself for a
constant state of intellectual watchfulness, as to all the various
opinions suggested by the different authors you study. It is not their
opinions you want, but their facts. Most standard histories, even Hume
and Voltaire, tell truth as to all leading facts: after half-a-century
or so of filtration, truth becomes purified from contemporary passions
and prejudices, and can be easily got at without any importantly
injurious mixture.
It was to mark my often-repeated wish that you should _philosophize_ for
yourself, that I have omitted the names of Guizot and Hallam in the list
of authors recommended for your perusal. With the tastes which I suppose
you to possess and to acquire, you will not be likely to leave them out
of your own list. The histories of Arnold and Niebuhr also belong to a
distinct class of writings. I should prefer your being intimately
acquainted with the so-called poetical histories which have been so
long received and loved, before you interest yourself in these modern
discoveries.
The lectures of Dr. Arnold upon Modern History contain, however, such a
treasure of brilliant philosophy, of deep thought and forcible writing,
that the sooner you begin them, and the more intimately you study them,
the better pleased I should be. With respect to his singular views on
religion and politics, you must always keep carefully in mind that his
peculiar mental organization incapacitated him from forming correct
opinions on any subject connected with imagination or metaphysics. You
will soon be able to trace the manner in which the absence of these two
powers affected all his reasonings, and closed up his mind against the
most important species of evidence. I carry on the supposition that you
have formed, or will form, all your views on religion and politics from
your own judgment, assisted by the experience of those whose mind you
know to be qualified by their many-sidedness to judge clearly and
impartially--upon universal, not _partial_ data. Remember, at the same
time, however, that you belong to a church which professedly protests
against popes of every description, against the unscriptural practice of
calling any man "Father upon earth." May you attend diligently, and in a
child-like spirit of submission, to the teaching of that Holy and
Apostolic Church, and there will then be no danger of your being led
astray either by the infidel Hume or the sainted Arnold.
Finally, I would again refer to that subject which ought to be the
beginning and end, the foundation and crowning-point of all our studies.
Let "whatever you do be done to the glory of God."[87] Earthly motives,
if pure and amiable ones, may hold a subordinate place; but unless the
mainspring of your actions be the desire "to glorify your Father which
is in heaven," you will find no real peace in life, no blessedness in
death. As one likely means of keeping this primary object of your life
constantly before you, I should strongly recommend your making the
cultivation and improvement of your mental powers the subject of special
prayer at all the appointed seasons of prayer; at the same time, your
studies themselves should never be entered upon without prayer,--prayer,
that the evil mingled with all earthly things may fall powerless on your
sanctified heart,--prayer, that any improvement you obtain may make you
a more useful servant of the Lord your God--more persuasive and
influential in that great work which in different ways is appropriated
to all in their several spheres of action, viz. the high and holy office
of winning souls to Christ.[88]
FOOTNOTES:
[77] Coleridge.
[78] Assembly's Catechism.
[79] Plebeii videntur appellandi omnes philosophi qui à Platone et
Socrate et ab ea familia dissiderent.--CICERO, _Tuscul._ 1, 2, 3.
[80] L'Abbé Barthélemi.
[81] Quarterly Review.
[82] The critic who suffers his philosophy to reason away his pleasure
is not much wiser than a child who cuts open his drum to see what is
within it that causes the music.--_Edinburgh Review_.
[83] Ce n'est pas la victoire, c'est le combat qui fait le bonheur des
nobles coeurs.--_Montalembert_.
Si le Tout-puissant tenait dans une main la vérité, et dans l'autre la
recherche de la vérité, c'est la recherche que je lui demanderais.
--_Lessing_.
[84] Dryden, of Shakspeare.
[85] Miss Ferrier. Mrs. H.E.
[86] Napoleon's remark on Rollin's History.
[87] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[88] 1 Pet. iii. 1.
LETTER X.
AMUSEMENTS.
In addressing the following observations to you, I keep in mind the
peculiarity of your position,--a position which has made you, while
scarcely more than a child, independent of external control, and forced
you into the responsibilities of deciding thus early on a course of
conduct that may seriously affect your temporal and eternal interests.
More happy are those placed under the authority of strict parents, who
have already chosen and marked out for themselves a path to which they
expect their children strictly to adhere. The difficulties that may
still perplex the children of such parents are comparatively few: even
if the strictness of the authority over them be inexpedient and over
strained, it affords them a safeguard and a support for which they
cannot be too grateful; it preserves them from the responsibility of
acting for themselves at a time when their age and inexperience alike
unfit them for a decision on any important practical point; it keeps
them disengaged, as it were, from being pledged to any peculiar course
of conduct until they have formed and matured their opinion as to the
habits of social intercourse most expedient for them to adopt. Thus,
when the time for independent action comes, they are quite free to
pursue any new course of life without being shackled by former
professions, or exposing themselves to the reproach (and consequent
probable loss of influence) of having altered their former opinions and
views.
Those, then, who are early guarded from any intercourse with the world
ought, instead of murmuring at the unnecessary strictness of their
seclusion, to reflect with gratitude on the advantages it affords them.
Faith ought, even now, to teach them the lesson that experience is sure
to impress on every thoughtful mind, that it is a special mercy to be
preserved from the duties of responsibility until we are, comparatively
speaking, fitted to enter upon them.
This is not, however, the case with you. Ignorant and inexperienced as
you are, you must now select, from among all the modes of life placed
within your reach, those which you consider the best suited to secure
your welfare for time and for eternity. Your decision now, even in very
trifling particulars, must have some effect upon your state in both
existences. The most unimportant event of this life carries forward a
pulsation into eternity, and acquires a solemn importance from the
reaction. Every feeling which we indulge or act upon becomes a part of
ourselves, and is a preparation, by our own hand, of a scourge or a
blessing for us throughout countless ages.
It may seem a matter of comparative unimportance, of trifling influence
over your future fate, whether you attend Lady A.'s ball to-night, or
Lady H.'s to-morrow. You may argue to yourself that even those who now
think balls entirely sinful have attended hundreds of them in their
time, and have nevertheless become afterwards more religious and more
useful than others who have never entered a ball-room. You might add,
that there could be more positive sin in passing two or three hours with
two or three people in Lady A's house in the morning than in passing the
same number of hours with two or three hundred people in the same house
in the evening. This is indeed true; but are you not deceiving yourself
by referring to the mere overt act? That is, as you imply, past and over
when the evening is past; but it is not so with the feelings which _may_
make the ball either delightful or disagreeable to you; feelings, which
may be then for the first time excited, never to be stilled
again,--feelings which, when they once exist, will remain with you
throughout eternity; for even if by the grace of God they are finally
subdued, they will still remain with you in the memory of the painful
conflicts, the severe discipline of inward and outward trials, required
for their subjugation. Do not, however, suppose that I mean to attribute
exclusive or universally injurious effects to the atmosphere of a
ball-room. In the innocent smiles and unclouded brow of many a fair
girl, the experienced eye truly reads their freedom from any taint of
envy, malice, or coquetry; while, on the other hand, unmistakeable and
unconcealed exhibitions of all these evil feelings may often be
witnessed at a so-called "religious party."
This remark, however, is not to my purpose; it is only made _par
parenthèse_, to obviate any pretence for mistaking my meaning, and for
supposing that I attribute positive sin to that which I only object to
as the possible, or rather the probable occasion of sin. I always think
this latter distinction a very important one to attend to in discussing,
in a more general point of view, the subject of amusements of every
kind: it is, however, enough merely to notice it here, while we pass on
to the question which I urge upon you to apply personally to yourself,
namely, whether the ball-room be not a more favourable atmosphere for
the first excitement and after-cultivation of many feminine failings
than the quieter and more confined scenes of other social intercourse.
It is by tracing the effect produced on our own mind that we can alone
form a safe estimate of the expediency of doubtful occupations. This is
the primary point of view in which to consider the subject, though by no
means the only one; for every Christian ought to exhibit a readiness in
his own small sphere to emulate the unselfishness of the great apostle:
"If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world
standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."[89] The fear of the awful
threatenings against those who "offend," _i.e._ lead into sin, any of
"God's little ones,"[90] should combine with love for those for whom the
Saviour died, to induce us freely to sacrifice things which would be
personally harmless, on the ground of their being injurious to others.
This part of the subject is, however, of less importance for our present
consideration, as from your youth and inexperience your example cannot
yet exercise much influence on those around you.
Let us therefore return to the more personal part of the subject,
namely, the effect produced on your own mind. I have spoken of feminine
"failings:" I should, however, be inclined to apply a stronger term to
the first that I am about to notice--the love of admiration, considering
how closely it must ever be connected with the fatal vice of envy. She
who has an earnest craving for general admiration for herself, is
exposed to a strong temptation to regret the bestowal of any admiration
on another. She has an instinctive exactness in her account of receipt
and expenditure; she calculates almost unconsciously that the time and
attention and interest excited by the attractive powers of others is so
much homage subtracted from her own. That beautiful aphorism, "The human
heart is like heaven--the more angels the more room for them," is to
such persons as unintelligible in its loving spirit as in its wonderful
philosophic truth. Their craving is insatiable, once it has become
habitual, and their appetite is increased and stimulated, instead of
being appeased, by the anxiously-sought-for nourishment.
These observations can only strictly apply to the fatal desire for
general admiration. As long as the approbation only of the wise and good
is our object, it is not so much that there are fewer opportunities of
exciting the feeling of envy at this approbation being granted to
others; there is, further, an instinctive feeling of its incompatibility
with the very object we are aiming at. The case is altogether different
when we seek to attract those whose admiration may be won by qualities
quite different from any connected with moral excellence. There is here
no restraint on our evil feelings: and when we cannot equal the
accomplishments, the beauty, and the graces of another, we may possibly
be tempted to envy, and, still further, to depreciate, those of the
hated rival--perhaps, worse than all, may be tempted to seek to attract
attention by means less simple and less obvious. If the receiving of
admiration be injurious to the mind, what must the seeking for it be!
"The flirt of many seasons" loses all mental perceptions of refinement
by long practice in hardihood, as the hackneyed practitioner
unconsciously deepens the rouge upon her cheek, until, unperceived by
her blunted visual organs, it loses all appearance of truth and beauty.
Some instances of the kind I allude to nave come before even your
inexperienced eyes; and from the shrinking surprise with which you now
contemplate them, I have no doubt that you would wish to shun even the
first step in the same career. Indeed, it is probable that you, under
any circumstances, would never go so far in coquetry as those to whom
your memory readily recurs. Your innate delicacy, your feminine
high-mindedness may, at any future time, as well as at present, preserve
you from the bad taste of challenging those attentions which your very
vanity would reject as worthless if they were not voluntarily offered.
Nevertheless, even in you, habits of dissipation may produce an effect
which to your inmost being may be almost equally injurious. You may
possess an antidote to prevent any external manifestations of the
poisonous effects of an indulged craving for excitement; but general
admiration, however spontaneously offered and modestly received, has
nevertheless a tendency to create a necessity for mental stimulants.
This, among other ill-effects, will, worst of all, incapacitate you from
the appreciative enjoyment of healthy food.
The heart that with its luscious cates
The world has fed so long,
Could never taste the simple food
That gives fresh virtue to the good,
Fresh vigour to the strong.[91]
The pure and innocent pleasures which the hand of Providence diffuses
plentifully around us will, too probably, become tasteless and insipid
to one whose habits of excitement have destroyed the fresh and simple
tastes of her mind. Stronger doses, as in the case of the opium-eater,
will each day be required to produce an exhilarating effect, without
which there is now no enjoyment, without which, in course of time, there
will not be even freedom from suffering.