University of Virginia Library

The first moment which I have been able
to snatch from the affectionate embraces of my
honored mamma, and my dear sister Maria, is
devoted to you. Judging by the anxious solicitude
of my own heart, I know you are impatient
to hear of my safe arrival. It is needless to tell
you how cordially I was received. You have
witnessed the mutual tenderness which actuates
our domestic circle. Where this is the governing
principle, it is peculiarly interesting to sensibility.
It is extremely exhilarating to the mind
to revisit, after the shortest absence, the place of
our nativity and juvenile happiness. “There is
something so seducing in that spot, in which we
first had our existence, that nothing but it can
please. Whatever vicissitudes we experience in
life, however we toil, or wheresoever we wander,
our fatigued wishes still recur to home for
tranquillity. We long to die in that spot which
gave us birth, and in that pleasing expectation
opiate every calamity.”[1]

The satisfaction of returning home, however,
has not obliterated the pleasure which I enjoyed
on my visit to you. Does not a change of scene

and situation contribute to the happiness of life?
The natural love of this variety seems wisely implanted
in the human breast; for it enables us to
accommodate ourselves with facility to the different
circumstances in which we are placed. I believe
that no pleasures make so deep an impression
on the memory, as those of the first and most
innocent period of our lives. With what apparent
delight do persons, advanced in years, re-trace
their puerile feats and diversions! “The hoary
head looks back with a smile of complacency, mixed
with regret, on the season when health glowed
on the cheek, when lively spirits warmed the heart,
and when toil strung the nerves with vigour.”[2]

The pleasures of childhood and youth, when
regulated by parental wisdom, and sweetened by
filial affection and obedience, must be grateful to
the recollection at any age: and for this plain
reason, because innocence and simplicity are their
leading traits. How soothing, how animating,
then, must be reflection, at the evening of a life,
wholly spent in virtue and rectitude!

Pope observes that “Every year is a critique
on the last. The man despises the boy, the philosopher
the man, and the Christian all.” Happy
are those who can take a retrospect of all, with
the supporting consciousness, that each part has
been rightly performed! Adieu.