Not every girl is discontented, nor are any wretched all the time. If they were, our homes would lose much sunshine. Certainly no class in the community is so constantly written about, talked at, and preached to as our girls. And still there always seems to be room left for one word more. I am persuaded that the leaven of discontent pervades girls of the several social ranks, from the fair daughter of a cultured home to her who has grown up in a crowded tenement, her highest ambition to dress like the young ladies she sees on the fashionable avenue. City girls and country girls alike know the meaning of this discontent, which sometimes amounts to morbidness, and again only to nervous irritability.
I once knew and marveled at a young person who spent her languid existence idly lounging in a rocking-chair, eating candy, and reading novels, whilst her mother bustled about, provoking by her activity an occasional remonstrance from her indolent daughter. "Do, ma, keep still," she would say, with amiable wonder at ma's notable ways. This incarnation of sweet selfishness was hateful in my eyes, and I have often queried, in the twenty years which have passed since I saw her, what sort of woman she made. As a girl she was vexatious, though no ripple of annoyance crossed the white brow, no frown obscured it, and no flurry of impatience ever tossed the yellow curls. She had no aspirations which candy and a rocking-chair could not gratify.It is not so with girls of a larger mind and greater vitality--the girls, for instance, in our own neighborhood, whom we have known since they were babies. Many of them feel very much dissatisfied with life, and do not hesitate to say so; and, strangely enough, the accident of a collegiate or common-school education makes little difference in their conclusions.
"To what end," says the former, "have I studied hard, and widened my resources? I might have been a society girl, and had a good time, and been married and settled sometime, without going just far enough to find out what pleasure there is in study, and then stopping short."
I am quoting from what girls have said to me--girls who have been graduated with distinction, and whose parents preferred that they should neither teach, nor paint, nor enter upon a profession, nor engage in any paid work. Polished after the similitude of a palace, what should the daughters do except stay at home to cheer father and mother, play and sing in the twilight, read, shop, sew, visit, receive their friends, and be young women of elegant leisure? If love, and love's climax, the wedding march, follow soon upon a girl's leaving school, she is taken out of the ranks of girlhood, and in accepting woman's highest vocation, queenship in the kingdom of home, foregoes the ease of her girlish life and its peril ofennuiand unhappiness together. This, however, is the fate of the minority, and while young people continue, as thousands do, to dread beginning home life upon small means, it must so remain.
Education is not a fetich, though some who ought to know better regard it in that superstitious light. No amount of school training, dissevered from religious culture and from that development of the heart and of the conscience without which intellectual wealth is poverty, will lift anybody,make anybody happier or better, or fit anybody for blithe living in this shadowy world. I have no doubt that there are numbers of girls whose education, having made them objects of deep respect to their simple fathers and mothers, has also gone far to make the old home intolerable, the home ways distasteful, and the old people, alas! subjects of secret, deprecating scorn. A girl has, indeed, eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil when her eyes are opened in such wise that she is ashamed of her plain, honorable, old-fashioned parents, or, if not ashamed, is still willing to let them retire to the background while she shines in the front.
I did not write this article for the purpose of saying what I hold to be the bounden duty of every father and mother in the land; viz., to educate the daughter as they educate the son, to some practical, bread-winning pursuit. That should be the rule, and not the exception. A girl should be trained so that with either head or hands, as artist or artisan, in some way or other, she will be able to go into the world's market with something for which the world, being shrewd and knowing what it wants, will pay in cash. Rich or poor, the American father who fails to give his daughter this special training is a short-sighted and cruel man.
My thought was rather of the girls themselves. Some of them will read this. So will some of their mothers-Mothers and daughters often, not invariably, are so trulyen rapportthat their mutual comprehension is without a flaw. There are homes in which, with the profoundest regard and the truest tenderness on both sides, they do not understand each other. The mother either sees the daughter's discontent, recognizes and resents it, or fails to see it, would laugh at its possibility, and pity the sentimentalist who imagined it. And there are dear, blooming, merry-hearted, clear-eyedyoung women who are as gay and as elastic as bird on bough or flower in field.
To discontented girls I would say, there is for you one panacea--Work; and there is one refuge--Christ. Have you been told this before? Do you say that you can find no work worth the doing? Believe me, if not in your own home, you need go no further than your own set, your own street, your own town, to discover it waiting for you. No one else can do it so well. Perhaps no one else can do it at all. The girl can not be unhappy who, without reserve and with full surrender, consecrates herself to Christ, for then will she have work enough.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
God giveth his beloved rest through actionWhich reacheth for the dream of joy on earth;Inertness brings the heart no satisfaction,But condemnation and the sense of dearth.And shall the dream of life, the quenchless yearningFor something which is yet beyond control,The flame within the breast forever burning,Not leap to action and exalt the soul?--Surmount all barriers to brave endeavor,Make for itself a way where it would go,And flash the crown of ecstacy forever,Which only laborers with God may know?In action there is joy which is no fiction,The hope of something as in faith begun,God's sweet and everlasting benediction,The flush of victory and labor done!Labor puts on the livery of greatness,While genius idle withers from the sight,And in its triumph takes no note of lateness,For time exists not in Eternal Light.
We have heard the voice in Ramah,The grief in the days of yore,When the beautiful "flowers of the martyrs"Went to bloom on another shore.The light of our life is darkness,And with sorrow we are not done;For thine is the bitterest mourning,Mourning for an only son!And what shall I utter to comfortThe heart that is dearest of all?Too young for the losses and crosses,Too young for the rise and the fall?O, yes; we own it, we own it;But not too young for the graceThat was so nameless and blameless,For the yearning and tender embrace!He hung, he hung on thy bosomIn that happiest, weariest hour,A dear little bird to its blossom,The beautiful, dutiful flower.And thus he grew by its sweetness,He grew by its sweetness soThat smile unto smile responded--But a little while ago!Illustration: We have heard the voice in Ramah.We have heard the voice in Ramah.And you and I were happyIn many a vision fairOf a ripe and glorious manhoodWhich the world and we should share.In a little while the patterOf two little feet was heard;And many a look it cheered us,A look that was more than a word.In a little while he utteredThe words we longed to hear;And mamma and papa blessed himWith a blessing of hope and fear.In a little while he budded,A bud of the promising Spring,And O for the beautiful blossom,And O for the fruit it will bring!The joy, they never may know itWho never have parents been,The joy of a swelling bosom,With a growing light within:A light that is soft and tender,And growing in strength and grace,Which wreathes a form that is slenderAnd glows in a dear little face!But life it knoweth the shadow,The shadow as well as the shine;For the one it follows the other,And both together are thine.For the bud it never unfolded,The light it flickered away,And whose is the power to utterThe grief of that bitterest day?His form is yet before me,With the fair and lofty brow,And the day since last we kissed it--Is it long since then and now?Dearest, it seems but a minute,Though Winter has spread the snow,Meek purity's mantle to coverThe one that is resting below.In the acre of God, that is yonder,And unto the west his head,He sleepeth the sleep untroubled,With one to watch at his bed.For the bright and guardian angelWho beholdeth the Father's face,Doth stand as a sentinel watchingO'er the dear one's resting-place;Doth stand as a sentinel guardingThe dust of the precious dead,Till at length the trumpet soundeth,When the years of the world are sped;And the throng which can not be numberedPut on their garments of white,And gird themselves for the gloryOf a realm that hath no night.And so he is gone, the darling,And the dream so fair and vain,Whose light has faded to darkness,We shall never dream again!Never? Is the earth the limitTo bright and beautiful hope?If the world brings not fruition,Must we in darkness grope?O no! There is expectationWhich the grave can not control;There is boundless infinite promiseFor the living and deathless soul.And the darling who left us earlyMay yonder grow a man;In deeds of the great hereafterHe may take his place in the van.O, if thine is the bitterest mourning,Mourning for an only son,Believe that in God, the Giver,Our darling his course begun;Believe that in God, the Taker,His course forever will be;For this is the blessed comfort,The comfort for thee and me.Yea, this is the blessed comfortIn sorrow like that of yore,When the beautiful "flowers of the martyrs"Went to bloom on another shore.
Illustration: We have heard the voice in Ramah.We have heard the voice in Ramah.
In the year 1730 there appeared in Paris a little volume entitled "Philosophic Letters," which proved to be one of the most influential books produced in modern times.
It was written by Voltaire, who was then thirty-six years of age, and contained the results of his observations upon the English nation, in which he had resided for two years. Paris was then as far from London, for all practical purposes, as New York now is from Calcutta, so that when Voltaire told his countrymen of the freedom that prevailed in England, of the tolerance given to religious sects, of the honors paid to untitled merit, of Newton, buried in Westminster Abbey with almost regal pomp, of Addison, secretary of state, and Swift, familiar with prime ministers, and of the general liberty, happiness, and abundance of the kingdom, France listened in wonder, as to a new revelation The work was, of course, immediately placed under the ban by the French Government, and the author exiled, which only gave it increased currency and deeper influence.
This was the beginning of the movement which produced at length, the French Revolution of 1787, and which has continued until France is now blessed with a free and constitutional government. It began among the higher classes of the people, for, at that day, not more than one-third of the French could read at all, and a much smaller fractioncould read such a book as the "Philosophic Letters" and the books which it called forth. Republicanism was fashionable in the drawing-rooms of Paris for many years before the mass of the people knew what the word meant.
Among the young noblemen who were early smitten in the midst of despotism with the love of liberty, was the Marquis de La Fayette, born in 1757. Few families in Europe could boast a greater antiquity than his. A century before the discovery of America we find the La Fayettes spoken of as an "ancient house," and in every generation at least one member of the family had distinguished himself by his services to his king. This young man, coming upon the stage of life when republican ideas were teeming in every cultivated mind, embraced them with all the ardor of youth and intelligence. At sixteen he refused a high post in the household of one of the princes of the blood and accepted a commission in the army. At the age of seventeen he was married to the daughter of a duke, whose dowry added a considerable fortune to his own ample possessions. She was an exceedingly lovely woman, and tenderly attached to her husband, and he was as fond of her as such a boy could be.
The American Revolution broke out. In common with all the high-born republicans of his time, his heart warmly espoused the cause of the revolted colonies, and he immediately conceived the project of going to America and fighting under her banner. He was scarcely nineteen years of age when he sought an interview with Silas Deane, the American envoy, and offered his services to the Congress. Mr, Deane, it appears, objected to his youth.
"When," says he, "I presented to the envoy my boyish face, I spoke more of my ardor in the cause than of my experience; but I dwelt much upon the effect my departure would have in France, and he signed our mutual agreement."
His intention was concealed from all his family and from all his friends, except two or three confidants. While he was making preparation for his departure, most distressing and alarming news came from America--the retreat from Long Island, the loss of New York, the battle of White Plains, and the retreat through New Jersey. The American forces, it was said, reduced to a disheartened band of three thousand militia, were pursued by a triumphant army of thirty-three thousand English and Hessians. The credit of the colonies at Paris sank to the lowest ebb, and some of the Americans themselves confessed to La Fayette that they were discouraged, and tried to persuade him to abandon his project. He said to Mr. Deane:
"Until now, sir, you have only seen my ardor in your cause, and that may not at present prove wholly useless. I shall purchase a ship to carry out your officers. We must feel confidence in the future, and it is especially in the hour of danger that I wish to share your fortune."
He proceeded at once with all possible secrecy to raise the money and to purchase and arm a ship. While the ship was getting ready, in order the better to conceal his intention, he made a journey to England, which had previously been arranged by his family. He was presented to the British king, against whom he was going to fight; he dined at the house of the minister who had the department of the colonies; he visited Lord Rawdon, afterwards distinguished in the Revolutionary struggle; he saw at the opera Sir Henry Clinton, whom he next saw on the battlefield of Monmouth, and he breakfasted with Lord Shelburne, a friend of the colonies.
"While I concealed my intentions," he tells us, "I openly avowed my sentiments. I often defended the Americans. I rejoiced at their success at Trenton, and it was my spiritof opposition that obtained for me an invitation to breakfast with Lord Shelburne."
On his return to France his project was discovered, and his departure forbidden by the king. He sailed, however, in May, 1777, cheered by his countrymen, and secretly approved by the government itself. On arriving at Philadelphia, he sent to Congress a remarkably brief epistle to the following effect: "After my sacrifices, I have the right to ask two favors. One is, to serve at my own expense; the other, to begin to serve as a volunteer."
Congress immediately named him a major-general of the American army, and he at once reported himself to General Washington. His services at the Brandywine, where he was badly wounded; in Virginia, where he held an important command; at Monmouth, where he led the attack--are sufficiently well known. When he had been in America about fifteen months, the news came of the impending declaration of war between France and England. He then wrote to Congress that, as long as he had believed himself free, he had gladly fought under the American flag; but that his own country being at war, he owed it the homage of his service, and he desired their permission to return home. He hoped, however, to come back to America; and asserted then that, wherever he went, he should be a zealous friend of the United States. Congress gave him leave of absence, voted him a sword, and wrote a letter on his behalf to the king of France. "We recommend this noble young man," said the letter of Congress, "to the favor of your majesty, because we have seen him wise in council, brave in battle, and patient under the fatigues of war." He was received in France with great distinction, which he amusingly describes:
"When I went to court, which had hitherto only writtenfor me orders for my arrest, I was presented to the ministers. I was interrogated, complimented, and exiled--to the hotel where my wife was residing: Some days after, I wrote to the king to acknowledgemy fault. I received in reply a light reprimand and the colonelcy of the Royal Dragoons. Consulted by all the ministers, and, what was much better, embraced by all the women, I had at Versailles the favor of the king and celebrity of Paris."
In the midst of his popularity he thought always of America, and often wished that the cost of the banquets bestowed upon him could be poured into the treasury of Congress. His favorite project at that time was the invasion of England--Paul Jones to command the fleet, and he himself the army. When this scheme was given up, he joined all his influence with that of Franklin to induce the French Government to send to America a powerful fleet and a considerable army. When he had secured the promise of this valuable aid, he returned to America and served again in the armies of the young republic.
The success of the United States so confirmed him in his attachment to republican institutions, that he remained their devoted adherent and advocate as long as he lived.
"May this revolution," said he once to Congress, "serve as a lesson to oppressors, and as an example to the oppressed."
And, in one of his letters from the United States occurs this sentence: "I have always thought that a king was at least a useless being; viewed from this side of the ocean, a king cuts a poor figure indeed."
By the time he had left America, at the close of the war, he had expended in the service of Congress seven hundred thousand francs--a free gift to the cause of liberty.
One of the most pleasing circumstances of La Fayette's residence in America was the affectionate friendship which existed between himself and General Washington. He looked up to Washington as to a father as well as a chief; and Washington regarded him with a tenderness truly paternal. La Fayette named his eldest son George Washington, and never omitted any opportunity to testify his love and admiration for the illustrious American. Franklin, too, was much attached to the youthful enthusiast, and privately wrote to General Washington, asking him, for the sake of the young and anxious wife of the marquis, not to expose his life except in an important and decisive engagement.
In the diary of the celebrated William Wilberforce, who visited Paris soon after the peace, there is an interesting passage descriptive of La Fayette's demeanor at the French court:
"He seemed to be the representative of the democracy in the very presence of the monarch--the tribune intruding with his veto within the chamber of the patrician order. His own establishment was formed upon the English model, and amidst the gayety and ease of Fontainebleau he assumed an air of republican austerity. When the fine ladies of the court would attempt to drag him to the card-table, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of affected contempt for the customs and amusements of the oldregime. Meanwhile, the deference which this champion of the new state of things received, above all from the ladies of the court, intimated clearly the disturbance of the social atmosphere, and presaged the coming tempest."
From the close of the American war for independence to the beginning of the French Revolution a period of six years elapsed, during which France suffered much from theexhaustion of her resources in aiding the Americans. La Fayette lived at Paris, openly professing republicanism, which was then the surest passport to the favor both of the people and the court. The queen of France herself favored the republican party, though without understanding its object or tendencies. La Fayette naturally became the organ and spokesman of those who desired a reform in the government. He recommended, even in the palace of the king, a restoration of civil rights to the Protestants; the suppression of the heavy and odious tax on salt; the reform of the criminal courts; and he denounced the waste of public money on princes and court favorites.
The Assembly of the Notables convened in 1787 to consider the state of the kingdom. La Fayette was its most distinguished and trusted member, and it was he who demanded a convocation of the representatives of all the departments of France, for the purpose of devising a permanent remedy for the evils under which France was suffering.
"What, sir," said one of the royal princes to La Fayette, "do you really demand the assembling of a general congress of France?"
"Yes, my Lord," replied La Fayette, "andmore than that."
Despite the opposition of the court, this memorable congress met in Paris in 1789, and La Fayette represented in it the nobility of his province. It was he who presented the "Declaration of Rights," drawn upon the model of those with which he had been familiar in America, and it was finally adopted. It was he, also, who made the ministers of the crown responsible for their acts, and for the consequences of their acts.
When this National Assembly was declared permanent, La Fayette was elected its vice-president, and it was in thatcharacter that, after the taking of the Bastile, he went to the scene, at the head of a deputation of sixty members, to congratulate the people upon their triumph. The next day, a city guard was organized to preserve the peace of Paris, and the question arose in the assembly who should command it. The president arose and pointed to the bust of La Fayette, presented by the State of Virginia to the city of Paris. The hint was sufficient, and La Fayette was elected to the post by acclamation. He called his citizen soldiers by the name of National Guards, and he distinguished them by a tri-colored cockade, and all Paris immediately fluttered with tri-colored ribbons and badges.
"This cockade," said La Fayette, as he presented one to the National Assembly, "will make the tour of the world." From the time of his acceptance of the command of the National Guard, the course of La Fayette changed its character, and the change became more and more marked as the revolution proceded. Hitherto he had been chiefly employed in rousing the sentiment of liberty in the minds of his countrymen; but now that the flame threatened to become a dangerous conflagration, it devolved upon him to stay its ravages. It was a task beyond human strength, but he most gallantly attempted it. On some occasions he rescued with his own hands the victims of the popular fury, and arrested the cockaded assassins who would have destroyed them. But even his great popularity was ineffectual to prevent the massacre of innocent citizens, and more than once, overwhelmed with grief and disgust, he threatened to throw up his command.
On that celebrated day when sixty thousand of the people of Paris poured in a tumultuous flood into the park of Versailles, and surrounded the palace of the king, La Fayette was compelled to join the throng, in order, if possible, tocontrol its movements. He arrived in the evening, and spent the whole night in posting the National Guard about the palace, and taking measures to secure the safety of the royal family. At the dawn of day he threw himself upon the bed for a few minutes' repose. Suddenly, the alarm was sounded. Some infuriated men had broken into the palace, killed two of the king's body-guard, and rushed into the bed-chamber of the queen, a minute or two after she had escaped from it. La Fayette ran to the scene, followed by some of the National Guard, and found all the royal family assembled in the king's chamber, trembling for their lives. Beneath the window of the apartment was a roaring sea of upturned faces, scarcely kept back by a thin line of National Guards. La Fayette stepped out upon the balcony, and tried to address the crowd, but could not make himself heard. He then led out upon the balcony the beautiful queen, Marie Antoinette, and kissed her hand; then seizing one of the body-guard embraced him, and placed his own cockade on the soldier's hat. At once the temper of the multitude was changed, and the cry burst forth:
"Long live the general! Long live the queen! Long live the body-guard!"
It was immediately announced that the king would go with the people to Paris; which had the effect of completely allaying their passions. During the long march of ten miles, La Fayette rode close to the door of the king's carriage, and thus conducted him, in the midst of the tramping crowd, in safety to the Tuilleries. When the royal family was once more secure within its walls, one of the ladies, the daughter of the late king, threw herself in the arms of La Fayette, exclaiming:
"General, you have saved us."
From this moment dates the decline of La Fayette's popularity;and his actions, moderate and wise, continually lessened it. He demanded, as a member of the National Assembly, that persons accused of treason should be fairly tried by a jury, and he exerted all his power, while giving a constitution to his country, to preserve the monarchy.
To appease the suspicions of the people that the king meditated a flight from Paris, he declared that he would answer with his head for the king's remaining. When, therefore, in June, 1791, the king and queen made their blundering attempt to escape, La Fayette was immediately suspected of having secretly aided it. Danton cried out at the Jacobin club:
"We must have the person of the king, or the head of the commanding general!"
It was in vain that, after the king's return, he ceased to pay him royal honors; nothing could remove the suspicions of the people. Indeed, he still openly advised the preservation of the monarchy, and, when a mob demanded the suppression of the royal power, and threatened violence to the National Guard, the general, after warning them to disperse, ordered the troops to fire--an action which totally destroyed his popularity and influence. Soon after, he resigned his commission and his seat in the Assembly, and withdrew to one of his country seats.
He was not long allowed to remain in seclusion. The allied dynasties of Europe, justly alarmed at the course of events in Paris, threatened the new republic with war. La Fayette was appointed to command one of the three armies gathered to defend the frontiers. While he was disciplining his troops, and preparing to defend the country, he kept an anxious eye upon Paris, and saw with ever-increasing alarm the prevalence of the savage element in the national politics. In 1792 he had the boldness to write a letter to the NationalAssembly, demanding the suppression of the clubs, and the restoration of the king to the place and power assigned him by the constitution.
Learning, soon after, the new outrages put upon the king, he suddenly left his army and appeared before the bar of the Assembly, accompanied by a single aide-de-camp; there he renewed his demands, amid the applause of the moderate members; but a member of the opposite party adroitly asked:
"Is the enemy conquered? Is the country delivered, since General La Fayette is in Paris?"
"No," replied he, "the country is not delivered; the situation is unchanged; and, nevertheless, the general of one of our armies is in Paris."
After a stormy debate, the Assembly declared that he had violated the constitution in making himself the organ of an army legally incapable of deliberating, and had rendered himself amenable to the minister of war for leaving his post without permission. Repulsed thus by the Assembly, coldly received at court, and rejected by the National Guard, he returned to his army despairing of the country. There he made one more attempt to save the king by inducing him to come to his camp and fight for his throne. This project being rejected, and the author of it denounced by Robespierre, his bust publicly burned in Paris, and the medal formerly voted him broken by the hand of the executioner, he deemed it necessary to seek an asylum in a neutral country. Having provided for the safety of his army, he crossed the frontiers in August, 1792, accompanied by twenty-one persons, all of whom, on passing an Austrian post, were taken prisoners, and La Fayette was thrown into a dungeon. The friend of liberty and order was looked upon as a common enemy. His noble wife, who had beenfor fifteen months a prisoner in Paris, hastened, after her release, to share her husband's captivity.
For five years, in spite of the remonstrances of England, America, and the friends of liberty everywhere, La Fayette remained a prisoner. To every demand for his liberation the Austrian Government replied, with its usual stupidity, that the liberty of La Fayette was incompatible with the safety of the governments of Europe. He owed his liberation, at length, to General Bonaparte, and it required allhisgreat authority to procure it. When La Fayette was presented to Napoleon to thank him for his interference, the first consul said to him:
"I don't know what the devil you have done to the Austrians; but it cost them a mighty struggle to let you go."
La Fayette voted publicly against making Napoleon consul for life, against the establishment of the empire. Notwithstanding this, Napoleon and he remained very good friends. The emperor said of him one day:
"Everybody in France is corrected of his extreme ideas of liberty except one man, and that man is La Fayette. You see him now tranquil: very well; if he had an opportunity to serve his chimeras, he would reappear on the scene more ardent than ever."
Upon his return to France, he was granted the pension belonging to the military rank he had held under the republic, and he recovered a competent estate from the property of his wife. Napoleon also gave a military commission to his son, George Washington; and, when the Bourbons were restored, La Fayette received an indemnity of four hundred and fifty thousand francs.
Napoleon's remark proved correct. La Fayette, though he spent most of the evening of his life in directing thecultivation of his estate, was always present at every crisis in the affairs of France to plead the cause of constitutional liberty. He made a fine remark once in its defense, when taunted with the horrors of the French Revolution: "The tyranny of 1793," he said, "was no more a republic than the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a religion."
His visit to America in 1824 is well remembered. He was the guest of the nation; and Congress, in recompense of his expenditures during the Revolutionary War, made him a grant of two hundred thousand dollars and an extensive tract of land. It was La Fayette who, in 1830, was chiefly instrumental in placing a constitutional monarch on the throne of France. The last words, he ever spoke in public were uttered in behalf of the French refugees who had fled from France for offenses merely political; and the last words he ever wrote recommended the abolition of slavery. He died May 19, 1834, aged seventy-seven. His son, George Washington, always the friend of liberty, like his father, died in 1849, leaving two sons--inheritors of a name so full of inspiration to the world.
"A beautiful life I have had. Not more trial than was for my good. Countless blessings beyond expectation or desert.... Behind me stretch the green pastures and still waters by which I have been led all my days. Around is the lingering of hardy flowers and fruits that bide the Winter. Before stretches the shining shore."
These are the words of Mrs. Sigourney, written near the close of a life of seventy-four years. All who have much observed human life will agree that the rarest achievement of man or woman on this earth is a solid and continuous happiness. There are very few persons past seventy who can look back upon their lives, and sincerely say that they would willingly live their lives over again. Mrs. Sigourney, however, was one of the happy few.
Lydia Huntley, for that was her maiden name, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on the first of September, 1791. Her father was Ezekiel Huntley, an exceedingly gentle, affectionate man, of Scotch parentage, who had as little of a Yankee in him as any man in Connecticut. Unlike a Yankee, he never attempted to set up in business for himself, but spent the whole of the active part of his life in the service of the man to whom he was apprenticed in his youth. His employer was a druggist of great note in his day, who made a large fortune in his business, and builtone of the most elegant houses in the State. On his retirement from business his old clerk continued to reside under his roof, and to assist in the management of his estate; and, even when he died, Mr. Huntley did not change his abode, but remained to conduct the affairs of the widow. In the service of this family he saved a competence for his old age, and he lived to eighty-seven, a most happy, serene old man, delighting chiefly in his garden and his only child. He survived as late as 1839.
Owing to the peculiar relations sustained by her father to a wealthy family--living, too, in a wing of their stately mansion, and having the free range of its extensive gardens--Lydia Huntley enjoyed in her youth all the substantial advantages of wealth, without encountering its perils. She was surrounded by objects pleasing or beautiful, but no menial pampered her pride or robbed her of her rightful share of household labor. As soon as she was old enough to toddle about the grounds, her father delighted to have her hold the trees which he was planting, and drop the seed into the little furrows prepared for it, and never was she better pleased than when giving him the aid of her tiny fingers. Her parents never kept a servant, and she was brought up to do her part in the house. Living on plain, substantial fare, inured to labor, and dressed so as to allow free play to every limb and muscle, she laid in a stock of health, strength, and good temper that lasted her down to the last year of her life. She never knew what dyspepsia was. She never possessed a costly toy, nor a doll that was not made at home, but she passed a childhood that was scarcely anything but joy. She was an only child, and she was the pet of two families, yet she was not spoiled.
She was one of those children who take naturally to all kinds of culture. Without ever having had a child's book,she sought out, in the old-fashioned library of the house, everything which a child could understand. Chance threw a novel in her way ("Mysteries of Udolpho"), which she devoured with rapture, and soon after, when she was but eight years of age, she began to write a novel. Poetry, too, she read with singular pleasure, never weary of repeating her favorite pieces. But the passion of her childhood was painting pictures. Almost in her infancy she began to draw with a pin and lilac-leaf, and advanced from that to slate and pencil, and, by and by, to a lead-pencil and backs of letters. When she had learned to draw pretty well, she was on fire to paint her pictures, but was long puzzled to procure the colors. Having obtained in some way a cake of gamboge, she begged of a washerwoman a piece of indigo, and by combining these two ingredients she could make different shades of yellow, blue, and green. The trunks of her trees she painted with coffee-grounds, and a mixture of India ink and indigo answered tolerably well for sky and water. She afterwards discovered that the pink juice of chokeberry did very well for lips, cheeks, and gay dresses. Mixed with a little indigo it made a very bad purple, which the young artist, for the want of a better, was obliged to use for her royal robes. In sore distress for a better purple she squeezed the purple flowers of the garden and the field for the desired tint, but nothing answered the purpose, until, at dinner, one day, she found the very hue for which she longed in the juice of a currant and whortleberry tart. She hastened to try it, and it made a truly gorgeous purple, but the sugar in it caused it to come off in flakes from her kings and emperors, leaving them in a sorry plight. At length, to her boundless, inexpressible, and lasting joy, all her difficulties were removed by her father giving her a complete box of colors.
At school she was fortunate in her teachers. One of them was the late Pelatiah Perit, who afterward won high distinction as a New York merchant and universal philanthropist. Her first serious attempts at practical composition were translations from Virgil, when she was fourteen years of age. After leaving school she studied Latin with much zeal under an aged tutor, and, later in life, she advanced far enough in Hebrew to read the Old Testament, with the aid of grammar and dictionary. To these grave studies her parents added a thorough drill in dancing. Often, when her excellent mother observed that she had sat too long over her books, she would get her out upon the floor of their large kitchen, and then, striking up a lively song, set her dancing until her cheeks were all aglow.
This studious and happy girl, like other young people, had her day-dream of the future.It was to keep a school. This strange ambition, she tells us in her autobiography, she feared to impart to her companions, lest they should laugh at her; and she thought even her parents would think herarrogantif she mentioned it to them. The long-cherished secret was revealed to her parents at length. Her mother had guessed it before, but her father was exceedingly surprised. Neither of them, however, made any objection, and one of the pleasantest apartments of their house was fitted up for the reception of pupils. She was then a delicate-looking girl of about eighteen, and rather undersized. As soon as her desks were brought home by the carpenter, the ambitious little lady went around to the families of the place, informed them of her intention, and solicited their patronage at the established rate of three dollars a quarter for each pupil. She was puzzled and disappointed at the coolness with which her project was received. Day after day she tramped the streets of Norwich, only to return at nightwithout a name upon her catalogue. She surmised, after a time, that parents hesitated to intrust their children to her because of her extreme youth, which was the fact. At length, however, she began her school with two children, nine and eleven years of age, and not only did she go through all the formalities of school with them, working six hours a day for five days, and three hours on Saturday, but at the end of the term she held an examination in the presence of a large circle of her pupils' admiring relations.
Afterwards, associating herself with another young lady, to whom she was tenderly attached, she succeeded better. A large and populous school gathered about these zealous and admirable girls, several of their pupils being older than themselves. Compelled to hold the school in a larger room, Lydia Huntley walked two miles every morning, and two more every night, besides working hard all day; and she was as happy as the weeks were long. Her experience confirms that of every genuine teacher--from Dr. Arnold downward--that, of all employments of man or woman on this earth, the one that is capable of giving the most constant and intense happiness is teaching in a rationally conducted school. So fond was she of teaching, that when the severity of the Winter obliged her to suspend the school for many weeks, she opened a free school for poor children, one of her favorite classes in which was composed of colored girls. In the course of time, the well-known Daniel Wadsworth, the great man of Hartford sixty or seventy years ago, lured her away to that city, where he personally organized a school of thirty young ladies, the daughters of his friends, and gave her a home in his own house. There she spent five happy years, cherished as a daughter by her venerable patron and his wife, and held in high honor by her pupils and their parents.
It was in 1815, while residing in Hartford, that her fame was born. Good old Mrs. Wadsworth, having obtained sight of her journals and manuscripts in prose and verse, the secret accumulation of many years, inflamed her husband's curiosity so that he, too, asked to see them. The blushing poetess consented. Mr. Wadsworth pronounced some of them worthy of publication, and, under his auspices, a volume was printed in Hartford, entitled "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." The public gave it a generous welcome, and its success led to a career of authorship which lasted forty-nine years, and gave to the world fifty-six volumes of poetry, tales, travels, biography, and letters.
So passed her life till she was past twenty-eight. She had received many offers of marriage from clergymen and others, but none of her suitors tempted her to forsake her pupils, and she supposed herself destined to spend her days as an old maid. But another destiny was in store for her. On her way to and from her school, "a pair of deep-set and most expressive black eyes" sometimes encountered hers and spoke "unutterable things." Those eyes belonged to a widower, with three children, named Charles Sigourney, a thriving hardware merchant, of French descent, and those "unutterable things" were uttered at length through the unromantic medium of a letter. The marriage occurred a few months after, in the year 1819.
For the next fifteen years she resided in the most elegant mansion in Hartford, surrounded by delightful grounds, after Mr. Sigourney's own design; and even now, though the Sigourney place is eclipsed in splendor and costliness by many of more recent date, there is no abode in the beautiful city of Hartford more attractive than this. Mr. Sigourney was a man of considerable learning, and exceedingly interested in the study of languages. When he waspast fifty he began the study of modern Greek. Mrs. Sigourney became the mother of several children, all of whom, but two, died in infancy. One son lived to enter college, but died at the age of nineteen, of consumption. A daughter grew to womanhood, and became the wife of a clergyman.
After many years of very great prosperity in business, Mr. Sigourney experienced heavy losses, which compelled them to leave their pleasant residence, and gave a new activity to her pen. He died at the age of seventy-six. During the last seven years of Mrs. Sigourney's life, her chief literary employment was contributing to the columns of theNew York Ledger. Mr. Bonner, having while an apprentice in theHartford Currentoffice "set up" some of her poems, had particular pleasure in being the medium of her last communications with the public, and she must have rejoiced in the vast audience to which he gave her access--the largest she ever addressed.
Mrs. Sigourney enjoyed excellent health to within a few weeks of her death. After a short illness, which she bore with much patience, she died in June, 1865, with her daughter at her side, and affectionate friends around her. Nothing could exceed her tranquility and resignation at the approach of death. Her long life had been spent in honorable labor for the good of her species, and she died in the fullest certainty that death would but introduce her to a larger and better sphere.