Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 34

When Lady Belfield had finished her little tale, I expressed, in the strongest terms, the delight I felt at the happy change in this charming woman. I could not forbear observing to Sir John, that as Lady Melbury had been the "gla.s.s of fashion," while her conduct was wrong, I hoped she would not lose all her influence by its becoming right. I added with a smile, "in that case, I shall rejoice to see the fine ladies turn their talent for drawing to the same moral account with this fair penitent. Such a record of their faults as she has had the courage to make of hers, hanging in their closets, and perpetually staring them in the face, would be no unlikely means to prevent a repet.i.tion, especially if the picture is to be as visible as the fault had been."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The next morning I resumed my journey northward, and on the fourth day, I reached the seat of my ancestors. The distant view of the Priory excited strong but mingled emotions in my bosom. The tender sorrow for the loss of the beloved society I had once enjoyed under its roof, was a salutary check to the abundant joy arising from the antic.i.p.ation of the blessing which awaited me there. My mind was divided between the two conflicting sentiments that I was soon to be in possession of every material for the highest happiness--and that the highest happiness is short! May I ever live under the influence of that act of devout grat.i.tude, in which, as soon as I entered the house, I dedicated the whole of my future life to its divine Author, solemnly consecrating to his service, my time, my talents, my fortune; all I am, and all I have.

I next wrote to Lucilla; with whom I continued to maintain a regular and animated correspondence. Her letters gratify my taste, and delight my heart, while they excite me to every thing that is good. This interchange of sentiment sheds a ray of brightness on a separation which every day is diminishing.

Mr. Stanley also has the goodness to write to me frequently. In one of my letters to him, I ventured to ask him how he had managed to produce in his daughter such complete satisfaction in his sober and correct habits of life; adding, that her conformity was so cheerful that it did not look so much like acquiescence as choice.

I received from Mr. Stanley the answer which follows:

"STANLEY GROVE, _September_, 1808.

"MY DEAR CHARLES;

"As I wish to put you in possession of whatever relates to the mind of Lucilla, I will devote this letter to answer your inquiries respecting her cheerful conformity to what you call our 'sober habits of life;' and her indifference to those pleasures which are usually thought to const.i.tute the sole happiness of young women of a certain rank.

"Mrs. Stanley and I are not so unacquainted with human nature, as to have pretended to impose on her understanding, by attempting to breed her up in entire ignorance of the world, or in perfect seclusion from it. She often accompanied us to town for a short time. The occasional sight of London, and the frequent enjoyment of the best society, dissipated the illusions of fancy. The bright colors with which young imagination, inflamed by ignorance, report, and curiosity, invests unknown, and distant objects, faded under actual observation. Complete ignorance and complete seclusion form no security from the dangers incident to the world, or for correct conduct at a distance from it. Ignorance may be the safety of an idiot, and seclusion the security of a nun. Christian parents should act on a more large and liberal principle, or what is the use of observation and experience? The French women of fashion, under the old regime, were bred in convents, and what women were ever more licentious than many of them, as soon as marriage had set them at liberty?

"I am persuaded that the best-intended formation of character, if founded on ignorance or deceit, will never answer. As to Lucilla, we have never attempted to blind her judgment. We have never thought it necessary to leave her understanding out of the question, while we were forming her heart. We have never told her that the world is a scene absolutely dest.i.tute of pleasure: we have never a.s.sured her that there is no amus.e.m.e.nt in the diversions which we disapprove. Even if this a.s.surance had not been deceitful, it would have been vain and fruitless. We can not totally separate her from the society of those who frequent them, who find their happiness in them, and whom she would hear speak of them with rapture.

"We went upon other grounds. We accustomed her to reflect that she was an intellectual creature; that she was an immortal creature; that she was a Christian. That to an intellectual being, diversions must always be subordinate to the exercise of the mental faculties; that to an immortal being, born to higher hopes than enjoyments, the exercise of the mental faculties must be subservient to religious duties. That in the practice of a Christian, self-denial is the turning-point, the specific distinction. That as to many of the pleasures which the world pursues, Christianity requires her votaries to live above the temptations which they hold out. She requires it the more especially, because Christians in our time, not being called upon to make great and trying sacrifices, of life, of fortune, and of liberty; and having but comparatively small occasions to evidence their sincerity, should the more cheerfully make the petty but daily renunciation of those pleasures which are the very element in which worldly people exist.

"We have not misled her by unfair and flattering representations of the Christian life. We have not, with a view to allure her to embrace it on false pretenses, taught her that when religion is once rooted in the heart, the remainder of life is uninterrupted peace, and unbroken delight: that all shall be perpetually smooth hereafter, because it is smooth at present. This would be as unfair as to show a raw recruit the splendors of a parade day, and tell him it was actual service. We have not made her believe that the established Christian has no troubles to expect, no vexations to fear, no storms to encounter. We have not attempted to cheat her into religion, by concealing its difficulties, its trials, no, nor its unpopularity.

"We have been always aware, that to have enforced the most exalted Christian principles, together with the necessity of a corresponding practice, ever so often and so strongly, would have been worse than foolish, had we been impressing these truths one part of the day, and had on the other part, been living ourselves in the actual enjoyment of the very things against which we were guarding her. My dear Charles, if we would talk to young people with effect, we must, by the habits of which we set them the example, dispose them to listen, or our doc.u.ments will be something worse than fruitless. It is really hard upon girls to be tantalized with religious lectures, while they are at the same time tempted to every thing against which they are warned; while the whole bent and bias of the family practice are diametrically opposite to the principles inculcated.

"In our own case, I think I may venture to affirm, that the plan has answered. We endeavored to establish a principle of right, instead of unprofitable invective against what was wrong. Perhaps there can scarcely be found a religious family in which so few anathemas have been denounced against this or that specific diversion, as in ours. We aimed to take another road. The turn of mind, the tendency of the employment, the force of the practice, the bent of the conversation, the spirit of amus.e.m.e.nt, have all leaned to the contrary direction, till the habits are gradually worked into a kind of nature. It would be cruel to condemn a creature to a retired life without qualifying her for retirement: next to religion, nothing can possibly do this but mental cultivation in women who are above the exercise of vulgar employments. The girl who possesses only the worldly acquirements--the singer and the dancer--when condemned to retirement, may reasonably exclaim with Milton's Adam, when looking at the constellations,

Why all night long shine these?

Wherefore, if none _behold_?

"Now the woman who derives her principles from the Bible, and her amus.e.m.e.nts from intellectual sources, from the beauties of nature, and from active employment and exercise, will not pant for _beholders_. She is no clamorous beggar for the extorted alms of admiration. She lives on her own stock. Her resources are within herself. She possesses the truest independence. She does not wait for the opinion of the world, to know if she is right; nor the applause of the world, to know if she is happy.

"Too many religious people fancy that the infectious air of the world is confined to the ball-room, or the play-house, and that when you have escaped from these, you are got out of the reach of its contagion. But the contagion follows wherever there is a human heart left to its own natural impulse. And though I allow that places and circ.u.mstances greatly contribute to augment or diminish the evil; and that a prudent Christian will always avoid an atmosphere which he thinks not quite wholesome; yet whoever lives in the close examination of his own heart, will still find something of the morbid mischief clinging to it, which will require constant watching, whatever be his climate or his company.

"I have known pious persons, who would on no account allow their children to attend places of gay resort, who were yet little solicitous to extinguish the spirit which these places are calculated to generate and nourish. This is rather a geographical than a moral distinction. It is thinking more of the place than of the temper. They restrain their persons; but are not careful to expel from their hearts the dispositions which excite the appet.i.te, and form the very essence of danger. A young creature can not be happy who spends her time at home in amus.e.m.e.nts destined for exhibition, while she is forbidden to be exhibited.

"But while we are teaching them that Christianity involves a heroic self-denial; that it requires some things to be done, and others to be sacrificed, at which mere people of the world revolt; that it directs us to renounce some pursuits because they are wrong, and others because they are trifling; we should, at the same time, let them see and feel, that to a Christian the region of enjoyment is not so narrow and circ.u.mscribed, is not so barren and unproductive, nor the pleasures it produces so few and small, as the enemies of religion would insinuate. While early habits of self-denial are giving firmness to the character, strengthening the texture of the mind, and hardening it against ordinary temptations; the pleasures and employments which we subst.i.tute in the stead of those we banish, must be such as tend to raise the taste, to invigorate the intellect, to exalt the nature, and enlarge the sphere of enjoyment; to give a tone to the mind, and an elevation to the sentiments, which shall really reduce to insignificance the pleasures that are prohibited.

"In our own instance I humbly trust, that through the divine blessing, perseverance has been its own reward. As to Lucilla, I firmly believe that right habits are now so rooted, and the relish of superior pleasures so established in her mind, that had she the whole range of human enjoyment at her command; had she no higher consideration, no fear of G.o.d, no obedience to her mother and me, which forbade the ordinary dissipations, she would voluntarily renounce them, from a full persuasion of their empty, worthless, unsatisfying nature, and from a superinduced taste for higher gratifications.

"I am as far from intending to represent my daughter as a faultless creature, as she herself is from wishing to be so represented. She is deeply conscious both of the corruption of her nature, and the deficiencies of her life. This consciousness I trust will continue to stimulate her vigilance without which all religion will decline, and to maintain her humility, without which all religion is vain.

"My dear Charles! a rational sense of felicity lies open before you both. It is lawful to rejoice in the fair perspective, but it is safe to rejoice with trembling. Do not abandon yourself to the chimerical hope that life will be to you, what it has never yet been to any man--a scene of unmingled delight. This life, so bright in prospect, will have its sorrows. This life, which at four-and-twenty seems to stretch itself to an indefinite length, will have an end. May its sorrows correct its illusions! May its close be the entrance on a life, which shall have no sorrows and no end.

"I will not say how frequently we talk of you, nor how much we miss you. Need I tell you that the person who says least on the subject, is not the one that least feels your absence? She writes by this post.

"Adieu, my dear Charles! I am with great truth your attached friend, and hope before Christmas to subscribe myself your affectionate father,

"FRANCIS STANLEY."

Delightful hope! as Miss Stanley, when that blessed event takes place, will resign her name, I shall resume mine, and joyfully renounce forever that of

C[OE]LEBS.

THE END.