The legendary consisting of original pieces, principally illustrative of American history, scenery, and manners |
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UNWRITTEN PHILOSOPHY. |
 | UNWRITTEN PHILOSOPHY. The legendary |  |
UNWRITTEN PHILOSOPHY.
BY N. P. WILLIS.
Was with thee; she who loved us both, she still
Was with thee; and even so didst thou become
A silent poet; from the solitude
Of the vast sea didst bring a watchful heart
Still couchant, an inevitable ear,
And an eye practised like a blind man's touch.
Wordsworth.
A summer or two since, I was wasting a college
vacation among the beautiful creeks and falls in the
neighbourhood of New York. In the course of my
wanderings, up stream and down stream, sometimes on
foot, sometimes on horseback, and never without a book
for an excuse to loiter on the moss banks and beside the
edges of running water, I met frequently a young man
of a peculiarly still and collected eye, and a forehead
more like a broad slab of marble than a human brow.
His mouth was small and thinly cut, his chin had no
superfluous flesh upon it, and his whole appearance was
that of a man whose intellectual nature prevailed over
the animal. He was evidently a scholar. We had met
so frequently at last, that, on passing each other one delicious
morning, we bowed and smiled simultaneously, and,
without further introduction, entered into conversation.
It was a temperate day in August, with a clear but
not oppressive sun, and we wandered down a long
creek together, mineralizing here, botanizing there, and
instinctive certainty of each other's attainments which
scholars always feel, and thrusting in many a little wayside
parenthesis, explanatory of each other's history and
circumstances. I found that he was one of those pure
and unambitious men, who, by close application and
moderate living while in college, become in love with
their books; and, caring little for anything more than
the subsistence, which philosophy tells them is enough
to have of this world, settle down for life into a wicker
bottomed chair, more contentedly than if it were the
cushion of a throne.
We were together three or four days, and when I left
him, he gave me his direction and promised to write to
me. I shall give below an extract from one of his
letters. I had asked him for a history of his daily
habits, and any incidents which he might choose to
throw in—hinting to him that I was the editor of a
periodical, and would be obliged to him if he would do
it minutely, and in a form of which I might avail myself
in the way of my profession.
After some particulars unimportant to the reader, he
proceeds;—
`I keep a room at a country tavern. It is a quiet,
out of the way place, with a whole generation of elms
about it, and the greenest grass up to the very door,
and the pleasantest view in the whole country round
from my chamber window. Though it is a public house,
and the word “Hotel” swings in golden capitals under
a landscape of two hills and a river, painted for a sign
by some wandering Tinto, it is so orderly a town that
not a lounger is ever seen about the door, and the
noisiest traveller is changed to a quiet man, as it were
by the very hush of the atmosphere.
`Here, in my pleasant room, upon the second floor,
with my round table covered with choice books, my
shutters closed just so much as to admit light enough
for a painter, and my walls hung with the pictures
which adorned my college chambers, and are therefore
linked with a thousand delightful associations, I can
study my twelve hours a day, in a state of mind beautifully
even and philosophical. I do not want for excitement.
The animal spirits, thanks to the Creator, are
sufficient at all times, with employment and temperate
living, to raise us above the common shadows of life;
and after a day of studious confinement, when my mind
is unbound and I go out and give it up to reckless
association, and lay myself open unreservedly to the
influences of nature—at such a time, there comes mysteriously
upon me a degree of pure joy, unmingled and
unaccountable, which is worth years of artificial excitement.
The common air seems to have grown rarer;
my step is strangely elastic; the sense of motion full of
unwonted dignity; my thoughts elevated; my perceptions
of beauty acuter and more pleasurable, and my
better nature predominant and sublime. There is nothing
in the future which looks difficult, nothing in my
ambition unattainable, nothing in the past which cannot
be reconciled with good; I am a purer and a better
man; and, though I am elevated in my own thoughts,
it will not lead to vanity, for my ideas of God and of my
fellow men have been enlarged also. This excitement
ceases soon; but it ceases like the bubbling of a fountain
which leaves the waters purer for the influence
which has passed through them—not like the mirth of
the world, which ebbs like an unnatural tide and leaves
loathsomeness and disgust.
`Let no one say that such a mode of life is adapted to
peculiar constitutions, and can be relished by these only
happiest of fashionable ephemera, and if he has material
for a thought, and can take pride in the improvement
of his nature, I will so order his daily round, that, with
temperance and exercise, he shall be happier in one
hour spent within himself, than in ten wasted on folly.
`Few know the treasures in their own bosoms—very
few the elasticity and capacity of a well regulated mind
for enjoyment. The whole world of philosophers, and
historians, and poets, seem, to the secluded student, to
have labored but for his pleasure, and as he comes to
one new truth and beautiful thought after another, there
answers a chord of joy, richer than music, in his heart,
which spoils him for the coarser pleasures of the world.
I have seen my college chum—a man, who, from a life
of mingled business and pleasure, became suddenly a
student—lean back in his chair at the triumph of an
argument or the discovery of a philosophical truth, and
give himself up for a few moments to the enjoyment of
sensations, which, he assured me, surpassed exceedingly
the most vivid pleasures of his life. The mind is like
the appetite; when healthy and well toned, receiving
pleasure from the commonest food, but becoming a disease
when pampered and neglected. Give it time to
turn in upon itself, satisfy its restless thirst for knowledge,
and it will give motion to health, animal spirits,
everything which invigorates the body, while it is advancing,
by every step, the capacities of the soul. Oh!
if the runners after pleasure would stoop down by the
wayside, they might drink waters, better even than
those which they see only in their dreams. They will
not be told that they have in their possession the golden
key which they covet; they will not know that the
music they look to enchant them is sleeping in their
own untouched instruments; that the lamp which they
bosoms!
`When I first came here, my host's eldest daughter
was about twelve years of age. She was, without being
beautiful, an engaging child, rather disposed to be contemplative,
and, like all children at that age, very inquisitive
and curious. She was shy at first, but soon
became acquainted with me, and would come into my
room in her idle hours, and look at my pictures and
read. She never disturbed me, because her natural
politeness forbade it, and I pursued my thoughts or
my studies just as if she was not there, till, by and by,
I grew fond of her quiet company, and was happier
when she was moving stealthily around, and looking here
and there into a book in her quiet way.
`She had been my companion thus for some time, when
it occurred to me that I might be of use to her in leading
her to cultivate a love for study. I seized the idea
enthusiastically. Now, thought I, I will see the process
of a human mind. I have studied its philosophy
from books, and now I will take a single original, and
compare them, step by step. I have seen the bud, and
the flower full blown, and I am told that the change was
gradual, and effected thus—leaf after leaf. Now I will
watch the expansion, and while I water it and let in the
sunshine to its bosom, detect the secret springs which
move to such beautiful results. The idea delighted me.
`I was aware that there was great drudgery in the first
steps, and I determined to avoid it, and connect the idea
of my own instruction with all that was interesting and
beautiful in her mind. For this purpose I persuaded
her father to send her to a better school than she had
been accustomed to attend, and, by a little conversation,
stimulated her to enter upon her studies with alacrity.
`She was now grown to a girl, and had begun to assume
the naive, womanly airs which girls do at her age.
Her figure had rounded into a flowing symmetry, and
her face, whether from associating principally with an
older person, or for what other reason I know not, had
assumed a thoughtful cast, and she was really a girl of
most interesting and striking personal appearance.
`I did not expect much from the first year of my experiment.
I calculated justly on its being irksome and
commonplace. Still, I was amused and interested. I
could hear her light step on the stair, always at the
same early hour of the evening, and it was a pleasure
to me to say, `Come in,' to her timid rap, and set her a
chair by my own, that I might look over her book, or
talk in a low tone to her. I then asked her about her
lessons, and found out what had most attracted her
notice, and I could always find some interesting fact
connected with it, or strike off into some pleasant association,
till she acquired a habit of selection in her reading,
and looked at me earnestly to know what I would
say upon it. You would have smiled to see her leaning
forward, with her soft blue eye fixed on me, and her lips
half parted with attention, waiting for my ideas upon
some bare fact in geography or history; and it would
have convinced you that the natural, unstimulated mind
takes pleasure in the simplest addition to its knowledge.
`All this time I kept out of her way everything that
would have a tendency to destroy a taste for mere
knowledge, and had the pleasure to see that she passed
with a keen relish from her text books to my observations,
which were as dry as they, though recommended
by kindness of tone and an interested manner. She
acquired gradually, by this process, a habit of reasoning
upon everything which admitted it, which was, afterwards,
features of her attainments.
`I proceeded in this way till she was fifteen. Her
mind had now become one of regular habits of thought,
and she began to ask difficult questions and wonder at
common things. Her thoughts assumed a graver complexion,
and she asked for books upon subjects of which
she felt the want of information. She was ready to receive
and appreciate fine truth and beautiful instruction,
and here was to begin my pleasure.
`She came up, one evening, with an air of embarrassment
approaching to distress. She took her usual seat,
and told me she had been thinking all day that it was
useless to study any more. There were so many mysterious
things—so much, even that she could see, which
she could not account for, and, with all her efforts, she
progressed so slowly, that she was discouraged. It was
better, she said, to be happy in ignorance, than to be
constantly tormented with the sight of knowledge to
which she could not attain, and which she only knew
enough to value. Poor child! she did not know that
she was making the same complaint with Newton and
Locke, and Bacon, and that the wisest of men were
only “gatherers of pebbles on the shore of an illimitable
sea!” I began to talk to her of the mind. I spoke
of its grandeur, and its capacities, and its destiny. I
told her instances of high attainment and wonderful discovery—sketched
the sublime philosophies of the soul—
the possibility that this life was but a link in a chain of
existences, and the glorious power, if it were true, of
entering upon another world, with a loftier capacity than
your fellow beings for the comprehension of its mysteries.
I then touched upon the duty of self-cultivation—the
pride of a high consciousness of improved time, and the
delicious feelings of self-respect and true appreciation.
`She listened to me in silence and wept. It was one
of those periods, which occur to all delicate minds, of
distrust and fear; and when it passed by, and her ambition
stirred again, she gave vent to her feelings with
a woman's beautiful privilege. I had no more trouble
to urge her on. She began the next day with the philosophy
of the mind, and I was never happier than while
following her from step to step in this delightful study.
`I have always thought that the most triumphant
intellectual feeling we ever experience, is felt upon the
first opening of philosophy. It is like the interpretation
of a dream of a lifetime. Every topic seems to you like
a phantom of your own mind from which a mist has
suddenly melted. Every feature has a kind of half
familiarity, and you remember musing upon it for hours,
till you gave it up with an impatient dissatisfaction.
Without a definite shape, this or that very idea has
floated in your mind continually. It was a phenomenon
without a name—a something which you could not describe
to your friend, and which, by and by, you came
to believe was peculiar to yourself, and would never be
brought out or unravelled. You read on, and the blood
rushes to your face in a tumultuous consciousness—you
have had feelings in peculiar situations which you could
not define, and here are their very features—and you
know, now, that it was jealousy, or ambition, or love.
There have been moments when your faculties seemed
blinded or reversed. You could not express yourself
at all when you felt you should be eloquent. You could
not fix your mind upon the subject, of which, before,
you had been passionately fond. You felt an aversion
for your very partialities, or a strange warming in your
heart toward people or pursuits that you had disliked;
and when the beauty of the natural world has burst upon
you, as it sometimes will, with an exceeding glory, you
heart and a wish that you might die.
`These are mysteries which are not all soluble, even
by philosophy. But you can see enough of the machinery
of thought to know its tendencies, and like the
listener to mysterious music, it is enough to have seen
the instrument, without knowing the cunning craft of
the player.
`I remembered my school-day feelings, and lived them
over again with my beautiful pupil. I entered with as
much enthusiasm as she, into the strength and sublimity
which I had wondered at before; and I believe, that,
even as she sat reading by herself, my blood thrilled, and
my pulses quickened as vividly as her own, when I saw,
by the deepening color of her cheek, or the marked
passages of my book, that she had found a noble thought
or a daring hypothesis.
`She proceeded with her course of philosophy, rapidly
and eagerly. Her mind was well prepared for its relish.
She said she felt as if a new sense had been given her—
an inner eye which she could turn in upon herself, and
by which she could, as it were, stand aside while the
process of her thought went on. She began to respect
and rely upon her own mind, and the elevation of countenance
and manner, which so certainly and so beautifully
accompanies inward refinement, stole over her daily. I
began to feel respectful in her presence, and when, with
the peculiar elegance of a woman's mind, she discovered
a delicate shade of meaning which I had not seen, or
traced an association which could spring only from an
unsullied heart, I experienced a sensation like the consciousness
of an unseen presence—elevating without
accusing me.
`It was probably well, that, with all this change in
her mind and manner, her person still retained its childish
she wore her hair yet as she used to do—falling with a
luxuriant fulness upon her shoulders. Hence, she was
still a child when, had she been taller or more womanly,
the demands upon her attention, and the attractiveness
of mature society might have divided that engrossing
interest which is necessary to successful study.
`I have often wished I was a painter; but never so
much as when looking on this beautiful being as she sat
absorbed in her studies, or turned to gaze up a moment
to my face, with that delicious expression of inquiry
and affection. Every one knows the elevation given to
the countenance of a man by contemplative habits.
Perhaps the natural delicacy of feminine features has
combined with its rarity, to make this expression less
observable in woman; but, to one familiar with the
study of the human face, there is, in the look of a truly
intellectual woman, a keen subtlety of refinement, a
separation from everything gross and material, which
comes up to our highest dream of the angelic. For myself,
I care not to analyze it. I leave it to philosophy to
find out its secret. It is enough for me that I can see
it and feel it in every pulse of my being. It is not a
peculiar susceptibility. Every man who approaches
such a woman feels it. He may not define it; he may
be totally unconscious what it is that awes him; but he
feels as if a mysterious and invisible veil were about
her, and every dark thought is quenched suddenly in
his heart, as if he had come into the atmosphere of a
spirit. I would have every woman know this. I would
tell every mother who prays nightly for the peculiar
watchfulness of good spirits over the purity of her
child, that she may weave round her a defence stronger
than steel—that she may place in her heart a living
amulet whose virtue is like a circle of fire to pollution.
know, that an empty mind is not a strong citadel; and
in the melancholy chronicle of female ruin the instances
are rare of victims distinguished for mental cultivation.
I would my pen were the “point of a diamond,” and I
were writing on living hearts! for when I think how the
daughters of a house are its grace and honor—and when
I think how the father and mother that loved her, and
the brother that made her his pride, and the sister in
whose bosom she slept, are all crushed, utterly, by a
daughter's degradation, I feel that if every word were a
burning coal, my language could not be extravagant!
`My pupil had, as yet, read no poetry. I was uncertain
how to enter upon it. Her taste for the beautiful
in prose had become so decided, that I feared for the
first impression of my poetical world. I wished it to
burst upon her brilliantly—like the entrance to an inner
and more magnificent temple of knowledge. I hoped
to dazzle her with a high and unimagined beauty, which
should exceed far the massive but plain splendors of
philosophy. We had often conversed on the probability
of a previous existence, and, one evening, I opened
Wordsworth, and read his sublime “Ode upon Intimations
of Immortality.” She did not interrupt me, but I
looked up at the conclusion and she was in tears. I made
no remark, but took Byron, and read some of the finest
passages in Childe Harold, and Manfred, and Cain—
and, from that time, poetry has been her world!
`It would not have been so earlier. It needs the
simple and strong nutriment of truth to fit us to relish
and feel poetry. The mind must have strength and
cultivated taste, and then it is like a language from
Heaven. We are astonished at its power and magnificence.
We have been familiar with knowledge as with
a person of a plain garment and a homely presence—
glorious in purple and gold. We have known him as an
unassuming friend who has talked with us by the wayside,
and kept us company on our familiar paths—and
we see him coming with a stately step, and a glittering
diadem on his brow; and we wonder that we did not see
that his plain garment honored him not, and his bearing
were fitter for a king!
`Poetry entered to the very soul of Caroline Grey.
It was touching an unreached string, and she felt as if
the whole compass of her heart were given out. I used
to read to her for hours, and it was beautiful to see her
eye kindle, and her cheek burn with excitement. The
sublimed mysticism and spirituality of Wordsworth were
her delight, and she feasted upon the deep philosophy
and half hidden tenderness of Coleridge.
`I had observed, with some satisfaction, that, in the
rapid developement of her mental powers, she had not
found time to study nature. She knew little of the
character of the material creation, and I now commenced
walking constantly abroad with her at sunset,
and at all the delicious seasons of moonlight and starlight
and dawn. It came in well with her poetry. I
cannot describe the effect. She became, like all who
are, for the first time, made sensible of the glories
around them, a worshipper of the external world.
`There is a time when nature first loses its familiarity
and seems suddenly to have become beautiful. This is
true, even of those who have been taught early habits
of observation. The mind of a child is too feeble to
comprehend, and does not soon learn, the scale of sublimity
and beauty. He would not be surprised if the
sun were brighter, or if the stars were sown thicker in
the sky. He sees that the flower is beautiful, and he
feels admiration at the rainbow; but he would not wonder
were laced to the four corners with the colors of a prism.
He grows up with these splendid phenomena at work
about him, till they have become common, and, in their
most wonderful forms, cease to attract his attention.
Then his senses are, suddenly, as by an invisible influence,
unsealed, and, like the proselyte of the Egyptian
pyramids, he finds himself in a magnificent temple, and
hears exquisite music, and is dazzled by surpassing
glory. He never recovers his indifference. The perpetual
changes of nature keep alive his enthusiasm,
and if his taste is not dulled by subsequent debasement,
the pleasure he receives from it flows on like a stream—
wearing deeper and calmer.
`Caroline became now my constant companion. The
changes of the natural world have always been my chief
source of happiness, and I was curious to know whether
my different sensations under different circumstances
were peculiar to myself. I left her, therefore, to lead
the conversation, without any expression of my feelings,
and, to my surprise and delight, she invariably struck
their tone, and pursued the same vein of reflection.
It convinced me of what I had long thought might be
true—that there was, in the varieties of natural beauty,
a hidden meaning, and a delightful purpose of good;
and, if I am not deceived, it is a new and beautiful
evidence of the proportion and extent of God's benevolent
wisdom. Thus, you may remember the peculiar
effect of the early dawn—the deep, unruffled serenity,
and the perfect collectedness of your senses. You may
remember the remarkable purity that pervades the
stealing in of color, and the vanishing of the cold shadows
of gray—the heavenly quiet that seems infused, like a
visible spirit, into the pearly depths of the East, as the
light violet tints become deeper in the upper sky, and
softens away its intensity; and then you will remember
how the very beatings of your heart grew quiet, and
you felt an irresistible impulse to pray! There was no
irregular delight, no indefinite sensation, no ecstasy.
It was deep, unbroken repose, and your pulses were
free from the fever of life, and your reason was lying
awake in its chamber.
`There is a hush also at noon; but it is not like the
morning. You have been mingling in the business of
the world, and you turn aside, weary and distracted, for
rest. There is a far depth in the intense blue of the
sky which takes in the spirit, and you are content to
lie down and sleep in the cool shadow, and forget even
your existence. How different from the cool wakefulness
of the morning, and yet how fitted for the necessity
of the hour!
`The day wears on and comes to the sunsetting. The
strong light passes off from the hills, and the leaves are
mingled in golden masses, and the tips of the long grass,
and the blades of maize, and the luxuriant grain, are all
sleeping in a rich glow, as if the daylight had melted
into gold and descended upon every living thing like
dew. The sun goes down and there is a tissue of indescribable
glory floating upon the clouds, and the
almost imperceptible blending of the sunset color with
the blue sky, is far up towards the zenith. Presently
the pomp of the early sunset passes away, and the
clouds are all clad in purple with edges of metallic
lustre, and very far in the West, as if they were sailing
away into another world, are seen spots of intense
brightness, and the tall trees on the hilly edge of the
horizon seem piercing the sky, on fire with its consuming
heat. There is a tumultuous joy in the contemplation
of this hour which is peculiar to itself. You feel
stirring in your heart to follow on—and your imagination
bursts away into that beautiful world, and revels among
the unsubstantial clouds till they become cold. It is a
triumphant and extravagant hour. Its joyousness is an
intoxication, and its pleasure dies with the day.
`The night, starry and beautiful, comes on. The sky
has a blue, intense almost to blackness, and the stars
are set in it like gems. They are of different glory, and
there are some that burn, and some that have a twinkling
lustre, and some are just visible and faint. You know
their nature, and their motion; and there is something
awful in so many worlds moving on through the firmament
so silently and in order. You feel an indescribable
awe stealing upon you, and your imagination trembles
as it goes up among them. You gaze on, and on,
and the superstitions of olden time, and the wild visions
of astrology steal over your memory, till, by and by, you
hear the music which they “give out as they go,” and
drink in the mysteries of their hidden meaning, and believe
that your destiny is woven by their burning spheres.
There comes on you a delirious joy, and a kind of terrible
fellowship with their sublime nature, and you feel
as if you could go up to a starry place and course the
heavens in company. There is a spirituality in this
hour, a separation from material things, which is of a
fine order of happiness. The purity of the morning,
and the noontide quietness, and the rapture of the glorious
sunset are all human and comprehensible feelings;
but this has the mystery and the lofty energy of a higher
world, and you return to your human nature with a refreshed
spirit and an elevated purpose.—See now the
wisdom of God!—the collected intellect for the morning
prayer and our daily duty—the delicious repose for our
noontide weariness, and the rapt fervor to purify us by
of immortality! They are all suited to our need; and
it is pleasant to think, when we go out at this or that
season, that its peculiar beauty is fitted to our peculiar
wants, and that it is not a chance harmony of our hearts
with nature.
`The world had become to Caroline a new place. No
change in the season was indifferent to her—nothing
was common or familiar. She found beauty in things
you would pass by, and a lesson for her mind or her
heart in the minutest workmanship of nature. Her
character assumed a cheerful dignity, and an elevation
above ordinary amusements or annoyances. She was
equal and calm, because her feelings were never reached
by ordinary irritations, and, if there were no other
benefit in cultivation, this were almost argument enough
to induce it.
`It is now five years since I commenced my tutorship.
I have given you the history of two of them. In the
remaining three there has been much that has interested
my mind—probably little that would interest yours. We
have read together, and, as far as possible, studied together.
She has walked with me, and shared all my
leisure and known every thought. She is now a woman
of eighteen. Her childish graces are matured, and her
blue eye would send a thrill through you. You might
object to her want of fashionable tournure, and find fault
with her unfashionable impulses. I do not. She is a
highminded, noble, impassioned being—with an enthusiasm
that is not without reason, and a common sense
that is not a regard to self-interest. Her motion was
not learnt at schools, but it is unembarrassed and free,
and her tone has not been educated to a refined whisper,
but it expresses the meaning of her heart as if its very
pulse had become articulate. The many might not admire
her—I know she would be idolized by the few.
`Our intercourse is as intimate still; and it could not
change without being less so—for we are constantly
together. There is—to be sure—lately—a slight degree
of embarrassment—and—somehow—we read more
poetry than we used to do—but it is nothing at all—
nothing.'
My friend was married to his pupil a few months
after writing the foregoing. He has written to me
since, and I will show you the letter if you will call,
any time. It will not do to print it, because there are
some domestic details not proper for the general eye;
but, to me, who am a bachelor, bent upon matrimony,
it is interesting to the last degree. He lives the same
quiet, retired life, that he did before he was married.
His room is arranged with the same taste, and with
reference to the same habits as before. The light
comes in as timidly through the half closed window, and
his pictures look as shadowy and dim, and the rustle of
the turned leaf adds as mysteriously to the silence. He
is the fondest of husbands, but his affection does not
encroach on the habits of his mind. Now and then he
looks up from his book, and, resting his head upon his
hand, lets his eye wander over the pale cheek and drooping
lid of the beautiful being who sits reading beside him;
but he soon returns to his half forgotten page, and the
smile of affection which had stolen over his features fades
gradually away into the habitual soberness of thought.
There sits his wife, hour after hour, in the same chair
which she occupied when she first came, a curious
loiterer to his room; and though she does not study so
much, because other cares have a claim upon her now,
she still keeps pace with him in the pleasanter branches
of knowledge, and they talk as often and as earnestly
as before on the thousand topics of a scholar's contemplation.
understands the economy of time, and I have no doubt
that, with every attention to her daily duties, she will find
ample time for her mind, and be always as well fitted as
now for the companionship of an intellectual being.
I have, like all bachelors, speculated a great deal
upon matrimony. I have seen young and beautiful
women, the pride of gay circles, married—as the world
said—well! Some have moved into costly houses, and
their friends have all come and looked at their fine
furniture and their splendid arrangements for happiness,
and they have gone away and committed them to their
sunny hopes, cheerfully, and without fear. It is natural
to be sanguine for the young, and at such times I am
carried away by similar feelings. I love to get unobserved
into a corner, and watch the bride in her white
attire, and with her smiling face and her soft eyes
moving before me in their pride of life, weave a waking
dream of her future happiness, and persuade myself that
it will be true. I think how they will sit upon that
luxurious sofa as the twilight falls, and build gay hopes,
and murmur in low tones the now unforbidden tenderness,
and how thrillingly the allowed kiss and the beautiful
endearments of wedded life, will make even their
parting joyous, and how gladly they will come back
from the crowd and the empty mirth of the gay, to
each other's quiet company. I picture to myself that
young creature, who blushes even now, at his hesitating
caress, listening eagerly for his footsteps as the night
steals on, and wishing that he would come; and when
he enters at last, and, with an affection as undying as
his pulse, folds her to his bosom, I can feel the very
tide that goes flowing through his heart, and gaze with
him on her graceful form as she moves about him for
the kind offices of affection, soothing all his unquiet
and unshadowed beauty.
I go forward for years, and see her luxuriant hair
put soberly away from her brow, and her girlish graces
ripened into dignity, and her bright loveliness chastened
with the gentle meekness of maternal affection. Her
husband looks on her with a proud eye, and shows her
the same fervent love and the delicate attentions which
first won her, and fair children are growing up about
them, and they go on, full of honor and untroubled
years, and are remembered when they die!
I say I love to dream thus when I go to give the
young bride joy. It is the natural tendency of feelings
touched by loveliness that fears nothing for itself, and,
if I ever yield to darker feelings, it is because the light
of the picture is changed. I am not fond of dwelling
on such changes, and I will not, minutely, now. I
allude to it only because I trust that my simple page
will be read by some of the young and beautiful beings
who move daily across my path, and I would whisper to
them, as they glide by, joyously and confidingly, the
secret of an unclouded future.
The picture I have drawn above is not peculiar. It
is colored like the fancies of the bride; and many—
oh! many an hour will she sit, with her rich jewels
lying loose in her fingers, and dream such dreams
as these. She believes them, too—and she goes on,
for a while, undeceived. The evening is not too long
while they talk of their plans for happiness, and the
quiet meal is still pleasant with the delightful novelty of
mutual reliance and attention. There comes soon,
however, a time when personal topics become bare and
wearisome, and slight attentions will not alone keep up
the social excitement. There are long intervals of
silence, and detected symptoms of weariness, and the
the hours they were to spend together. I cannot follow
it circumstantially. There come long hours of unhappy
listlessness, and terrible misgivings of each other's worth
and affection, till, by and by, they can conceal their
uneasiness no longer, and go out separately to seek
relief, and lean upon a hollow world for the support
which one who was their `lover and friend' could not
give them!
Heed this, ye woh are winning by your innocent
beauty, the affections of highminded and thinking beings!
Remember that he will give up the brother of
his heart with whom he has had, ever, a fellowship of
mind—the society of his cotemporary runners in the
race of fame, who have held with him a stern companionship—and
frequently, in his passionate love, he
will break away from the arena of his burning ambition,
to come and listen to the `voice of the charmer.' It
will bewilder him at first, but it will not long; and then,
think you that an idle blandishment will chain the mind
that has been used, for years, to an equal communion?
Think you he will give up, for a weak dalliance, the
animating themes of men, and the search into the fine
mysteries of knowledge!—Oh! no, lady!—believe me—
no! Trust not your influence to such light fetters!
Credit not the oldfashioned absurdity that woman's is
a secondary lot—ministering to the necessities of her
lord and master! It is a higher destiny I would award
you. If your immortality is as complete, and your gift
of mind as capable as ours of increase and elevation,
I would put no wisdom of mine against God's evident
allotment. I would charge you to water the undying
bud, and give it healthy culture, and open its beauty to
the sun—and then you may hope, that when your life is
bound up with another, you will go on equally, and in
a fellowship that shall pervade every earthly interest!
| UNWRITTEN PHILOSOPHY. The legendary | |