If up to this hour you have concealed nothing from your mother; if you have given her the key to your soul; if your heart is for her an open book; if she can at all times read in your looks your very thoughts; on bended knees thank God from the depths of your soul for having given you such a mother, and the grace of giving her your confidence. If you remain a child to your mother you will preserve your youth through the toilsome days of life to a ripe old age, an advantage so precious that nothing should be left undone to secure it.
Woman is pleasing to others only in as much as she possesses this adornment, which exhales a sweet odor like the perfume of youth. Alas! how many women there are who have never been children even with their mothers. Women from their youth, they have treated their mother with a kind of diffidence, dissembling at an age when the only danger to be feared should be an excessive confidence.
As for the gratitude and love that you owe your parents, I would regard it as an injury offered to the candor of your age and the sincerity of your heart to undertake to prove that these are obligations which you are in duty bound to discharge. God who has commanded us to honor our parents, left us no precept obliging us to love them; but while He engraved other commandments upon stone this one He has written in the very essence of our being. Hence I appeal only to your heart in this matter, leaving you entirely to its instincts to point out to you your duty, which to assert by any other proof, I fear would lead you to suspect that there are children unnatural enough to forget and neglect their parents.
Bear in mind, however, that your love and gratitude for them must by no means be restricted to a sentiment of the heart or an instinct of nature. Those virtues must find an echo both in your words and actions. Love founded on sensibility has no signification, if you can make no sacrifice to obey or please them. Love in man is effective, and this is why our Lord tells us with regard to the love we owe Him:He who loves me keeps my commandments.
To love consists in pleasing him who is loved; it is prefering his will to our own, his interests to ours; in a word, it is to seek him rather than attract him; it is to become his property rather than to appropriate him; it is to forget ourself to think of him. Love lives upon sacrifices; as the pious author of the Following of Christ says:where love is, there is also pain: but love converts that pain into pleasure.If this be true of all the affections of the human heart; what shall we think of the one that we have first felt, and which in some way forms a part of our very nature?
It will perhaps seem strange to you to be warned in the bloom of youth against a sentiment that seems to be reserved for that period of life when delinquents, through the infinite goodness of God, are brought to enter into themselves; when the illusions of the heart have been replaced by a cold and sad reality; when hope seems to recoil under the weight of sad recollections. Still, because this mental canker preys on the most vital interests of the soul, and because a predisposition to it is found to prevail even among the youthful portion of your sex, a certain knowledge of it is necessary in order to resist it effectually.
It is most delightful and consoling to find in persons of your age and sex that pure joy, so frank and candid, springing out of the innocence and simplicity of the heart; a good conscience and a lively faith, with unbounded confidence in Divine Providence; all of which combine to produce that sweet and saintly cheerfulness which dilates the heart and lights up the soul with its amiable reflections. But, alas! we confess with deep regret, that many young ladies have been ruthlessly robbed of all those charms by a precocious development received under the world's tutorship, by which they have been made to cross with a bound the smiling season of hope and joy, to a premature old age before having tasted the charms of youth.
In order that joy may reign in the heart, the heart must first repose in the bosom of Divine Providence—free from the pressure of doleful souvenirs, and from the pestering desires stirred up by vanity; in a word, exempt from every obstacle, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, that might in any way oppose the designs of God. But, alas! by some unaccountable inconsistency, we are in contradiction with ourselves; for, notwithstanding our great desire to live, and our horror of death, still we seem to be in a hurry with the time to pass, as though we advanced too slowly to the grave.
Now, we are well aware that of this lifetime the present is all that we can claim, the past and future being in the hands of God; still, true to the same principle of inconsistency we make little or no use of the present, it is something annoying that we wish, to get over, as quickly as possible, while we are absorbed by a countless multitude of useless but importunate desires relative to the past, which we can never recall, and the future, which perhaps we shall never see.
Hence, as we journey onward in this way, we must naturally find ourselves a prey to fears and doubts, sometimes suspended between hope and despondency, while the heart is harassed by corroding desires that succeed each other like waves on a tempest-driven sea. We wish to be our own providence, to dispose of our own future of our lifetime according to those desires, instead of leaving that work to Him from whom we have received all that we possess.
When we are assailed by regrets in the evening, and filled with anxieties for the morrow, how can our heart rebound with joy, or our lips wear the smile of confidence and tranquility? Behold some of the many sources from which the fatal fiend of melancholy is fed and strengthened. But this vile destroyer of peaceful joy springs from another source not less fatal than those just mentioned. That is a certain vagueness of mind and heart, which is sometimes the result of some physical or bodily indisposition, but more frequently the consequence of an imperfect education, or indifference in the service of God.
That which gives to the mind its needed assurance and strength, and to the heart its consistency and solidity, is a lively faith, nourished and sustained by a sincere piety. Of this you are thoroughly convinced, as you know full well that faith alone can give a solid basis to our thoughts, a true direction to our desires, and an eternal destiny to our hopes. Without faith the mind is without ballast—unsettled as to what it ought to believe or reject; the heart ignores what it should fear or hope for; in a word, the soul is lost in the midst of her vacillating desires.
In order that faith may impart its vivifying influence it must penetrate the soul's substance, and become to her the principle of a new life, directing all her movements, animating all her thoughts, desires and hopes. A superficial and inactive faith that is purely exterior, satisfied with believing what God reveals, without quickening the spiritual pulsations of the soul, will not preserve her from that vagueness and uncertainty which deprive all objects of their natural colors, and lend them a sombre shade which saddens the heart.
If you would escape falling a victim to melancholy, preserve your faith with precious care, enliven it constantly by fervent prayer, by meditation and the abundant graces received through the Sacraments. Let its pure light be the rule of your thoughts and actions, accustom your mind to dwell upon things that are practical, and consequently useful, sedulously avoiding all speculative or doubtful topics, that have no other result than to keep the mind in a state of suspense and indecision. You will fare better in having a clear knowledge of practical things, even at the cost of appearing less learned than others.
A third source of melancholy is a species of mental idleness, concerning which women are exposed to labor under a false impression. As they are naturally given to manual occupation habit begets with them an antipathy to mental labor; their judgment is readily but erroneously convinced by their feelings, which easily lead them to believe that they are sufficiently occupied when their fingers are engaged in fixing an embroidery or something similar. To reason the matter, they will readily admit that labor exclusively manual having no share in the exercise of the mental faculties, cannot be considered to give sufficient occupation to an intelligent being; since the imagination would be left to the mercy of its caprices and the heart to the whims of its desires, which is not worthy of a being created to the image and likeness of God, who commands us to labor as He labored, namely: with mind and heart constantly supplying useful thoughts to the one and noble sentiments to the other.
Such is the heavenly duty enjoined by those consoling words of our Saviour:pray always. At first sight it would seem that such an obligation is impossible and contrary to human nature. We cannot, however, even suppose that He who has made man what he is, misunderstood his nature so far as to command him to do impossibilities.
Every thought that raises the mind towards God, every sentiment that brings the heart near to Him, is a prayer. Hence there is no occupation that may not become a prayer, since there is none that may not be referred to God. The duties and obligations of woman, far from being an obstacle to the practical exercise of the above principle, on the contrary favor its execution most admirably; for her duties, though of the manual order for the most part, are not of a nature to distract the mind or absorb the heart; she can easily and constantly concentrate the thoughts of the one and the affections of the other upon God.
That you should make God the object of all your actions is your first and most imperative duty, and the moment that you discharge your duties for any other end that moment they shall lose the dignity of deeds worthy of a Christian or even of a rational being; moreover, your mind, as you are fully aware, is endowed with perpetual activity, it is never idle,—you need only chose the objects to which you wish to apply it. But if you fail to apply it to things worthy of your sublime calling it will soon escape from your control, and, flitting from one trifle to another, it will meddle with objects that might become dangerous to the peace of your soul. It will soon become preoccupied by puerile fears, unfounded apprehensions, vague sadness, which, when constantly indulged in, will deliver your soul over to melancholy which never fails to tarnish the purity of the heart and enervate the energy of the will.
The pain that many suffer from their imaginary ills robs them of the noble and generous love of compassionating the real and painful griefs of others. Egotism is nurtured and fortified in those ravings which attach the soul's energies to the consideration of our own ills or sorrows; the heart grows cold and hardened in a deplorable insensibility which estranges it to every sentiment of pity and compassion for others.
There is, I am aware, a sorrow that is salutary to the soul, and conformable to the spirit of Christianity, as also to man's condition in this vale of tears. I know that it is very difficult to be always joyful, when we take into account the dangers by which we are surrounded, the countless calamities to which we are exposed since the day that sin had entered the world. We very often see the objects of our warmest affections disappear from around us; and every day some new misfortune or some new loss adds some new tears to our cup of sorrow, from whose bitterness every one is doomed to drink during life.
Far from me be the thought of engaging you to fly this holy sorrow imposed by our condition and recommended by our Lord Himself."There is,"says St. Paul,"a sorrow accordingto God" which, far from plunging the heart into a state of despondency, enables the soul to avoid the dangers which constantly expose her to lose God by sin. But this sorrow does not trouble the peace of either the heart or the mind, for it is that sorrow which our divine Saviour called blessed, and for which He has promised consolation.
Far be from me, also, the thought of advising that foolish and boisterous joy which carries away the soul, absorbing all her energies filling her with void and disgust. This joy, far from being a remedy or a protection against melancholy, is, on the contrary, both its cause and effect. The result of those intemperate paroxysms of joy, so little in conformity with our nature is that which invariably results from any forced or undue influence.
When shackled nature recovers her liberty she revenges the violence that she was made to endure. But, seizing her rights with too great avidity, she suffers more from the reaction than from the force that infringed upon them. This explains the reason of those fitful outbursts of joy and grief that pass in quick succession. Those puerile fears, followed by hopes, without rule or aim, that vain confidence giving place to sad discouragement. Those despondent feelings after moments of zealous fever, during which we seem to be able to do and attempt everything. Here we find the solution of those sudden and varied shades of temperament which will instantaneously cheer or prostrate the energies of the soul.
If you would preserve your soul from melancholy, conserve your heart in a calm composure, your mind in a just equanimity keeping both equally distant from all extremes able to taste joy with discretion, and sorrow without becoming discouraged. This will be putting in practice the advice of the wise man: Give not up thy soul to sadness and afflict not thyself in thy own counsel. The joyfulness of the heart is the life of man and a never-failing treasure of holiness, and the joy of man is length of life. Have pity on thy own soul, pleasing God and contain thyself; gather up thy heart in his holiness and drive away sadness far from thee. For sadness hath killed many and there is no profit in it. Envy and anger shorten a man's days, and pensiveness will bring old age before the time. A cheerful and good heart is always feasting, for his banquets are prepared with diligence. Eccl. xxx. 22-27.
If the wisdom of nations, which loves to find expression in the proverbs, teaches us that a man may be known by knowing the company that he frequents; we can say with the same assurance that his character and dispositions may be known from the books which he constantly reads. Of all friends, the most intimate are the books that we constantly read, hence there is nothing more important for a young person, as there is nothing that entails such grave consequences for the moral culture, than the selection of proper and suitable books. Because it is a noted fact that such readings exercise the deepest influence over the mind and heart, so much that all the resources which the ingeniousness of maternal love can employ against it avail nothing. God's minister in the pulpit of truth has no weight with those souls fascinated by the deceitful charms of a bad book, which addresses itself to their prejudices and passions. The charitable advice of the confessor in the tribunal of penance is futile against the intoxicating seductions of those romances whose only merit consists in flattering the most depraved inclinations of the human heart.
Indeed it is a subject both of surprise and sorrow to see an author of the most menial abilities lauded to the skies for a book still more abject than himself, a book teeming with error and immorality; while, very often, a discourse, a sermon or an instruction, whatever may be the authority that they receive either from the character of the person who pronounces them, or from the gravity of the circumstances in which he speaks, are heard with indifference. Good and evil, truth and error, are never so rapidly propagated, never so powerful in their action, never so certain in their effects as when they are communicated to us under the form of a book authorized by fashion or party spirit. Hence there is no greater responsibility before God than that which man assumes when he wields the pen in the name of humanity, whether for noble or selfish ends.
A book is a teacher whose doctrine is listened to with a willingness equal to its degree of conformity to the inclinations of our heart. It is a friend that gains our confidence, inasmuch as it flatters our prejudices and passions, and in which we find a reflection of our own thoughts, the echo of our most secret sentiments. You would not like to receive a stranger into your house without his being properly recommended, but you will readily receive a book on the strength of reports that are often deceitful.
The country is flooded with productions that sap the foundations of morality, and which bear thatimprimaturgiven by a poisoned public opinion to such authors as pander to its craven spirit. The world judges with a depraved indulgence the book in which it finds its maxims approved and sanctioned, portraying the exact seducing picture of its vanities. The purest souls and, not unfrequently, serious minds are too often imposed upon by those popular prejudices, and, despite their good reason, yield to their influence by reading the flimsy productions of depraved minds, which, besides all the other injuries they cause, rob them of a most precious time. A book must be very bad before the world condemns it, so bad, in fact, that its own intrinsic filth disgusts the reader and seals its fate. But, there is another kind of literature favorably received by that portion of mankind called respectable, honest, and sometimes even severe, and whose authority is capable of making a grave impression on your mind.
It is, therefore, very important for you to know not only the signs by which to recognize a bad book, but also whom you should consult as judges in the matter. There can be no question here of those books professedly immoral, in which vice is eulogized and corrupt maxims sustained. Those books are not dangerous for you, because they will not fall under your hands, and even when they would you could not open one of them without flinging it away with horror;—in this case the evil—contains in itself its own remedy.
But there are books, less dangerous in appearance, in which the most delicate situations are represented, clothed in all the charms of style, well calculated, under their moral guise and serious bearing, to captivate the heart and imagination. Indeed to represent in lively colors the terrible effects of the passions, and the fatal consequences that a momentary excitement might entail is not of a nature to inspire a young lady with horror for vice and love for virtue. How is it possible that she will guard against the evil inclinations of the heart, when she is conscious of the danger in giving them free scope, and that a momentary forgetfulness is sometimes punished by a life-time of sorrow and bitterness? Such a culpable negligence might be accounted for, if there existed a necessary relation between the will and the imagination, by which the determinations of the former are necessarily dependant upon the impressions of the latter.
But such is not the case, for the imagination has a sphere of action very different from that of the intelligence or the will. It is an interior mirror which reflects back upon the soul images of things beheld by the senses and conceived by the intelligence, without regard to time or place. Positively no, would be the answer of a young lady of self-respect, whom we would ask if she would like to see with her own eyes all that is spoken of in the novel which she reads with so little caution! Your answer would be given in the same terms, should we ask you if she might read without impunity to virtue those intrigues, those scenes so engaging to curiosity, and which incite the reader to follow up the details of ineffectual struggles against passion. Could she, without blushing, listen to the passionate conversations of those who had lead each other to destruction, after having exhausted all the resources of heart and mind to render vice amiable, even when their fall would seem to be less the effect of a criminal will than the result of a kind of fatality? Your answer to all this would be emphatically, no!
But while young ladies will neither listen to nor look at scenes of this nature, many, alas! do not scruple to look at them in books, where they are much more dangerous, for being adorned with all the charms of style, and because the persons represented are made to speak and act in a much more luring manner than they do in reality. They devour with avidity those dangerous, and sometimes scurrilous pages; but while they chain their attention to the matter they are reading, their imagination gains the ascendancy over all the senses, and under their united action images are formed which leave a lasting impression on the mind—images of misfortune that has befallen persons either through their own fault or the fault of others, and which, through sympathy, the human heart, whether wrong or right, is always ready to find a pretext to justify.
In reading of those misfortunes she may perhaps recognize the hand of divine vengeance pursuing the criminal culprit, which is of a nature to inspire her with a sentiment of fear that deters from the commission of crime; but such sentiments have been felt by the heroes of the novel which she has read, and nevertheless they have fallen into the abyss which they so much dreaded, I would almost say while fleeing from it. But when they take their stand on a declivity so steep and slippery, nothing short of a miracle can save them.
Such is precisely the nature of the danger in which the readers of such books place them-selves. In those books human frailty is idolized, deeds committed through it are either necessary or excusable, the hair-breadth escapes, and often the tragical conclusion of their story, will often inspire the reader with a salutary terror, it is true; but will that feeling destroy all those tender sympathizing sentiments that were felt while dreading it? Of course this fear is felt by the will, but the imagination has already finished its work; it has seen, heard and felt by the senses; it has delighted and fascinated the soul by those images whose charms cannot be destroyed by the unfortunate issue of those struggles in which frailty played such an important role.
The will, distracted by the tumult of external things, and the variety of, her occupations or pleasures, will soon lose this sentiment of terror on which she seems to count so much, but the imagination will conserve for a long time the impressions and images upon which it has feasted, and which will form the constant subject of her thoughts during the day and of her dreams during the night.
Hence, the books that are capable of producing such results are evidently bad, and if you wish to preserve intact the innocence of your heart you should never take one of them in your hands. If you wish to conceive a deep horror for vice, and guard against the snares of passion, you will more readily and securely attain your end by reading a few serious books in which truth is presented in its own simplicity without artifice. Books in which the author, realizing the importance of his mission, directly addresses the mind without trying to captivate the heart and imagination, or to render vice amiable first in order to inspire you with horror for it afterwards. If you wish to be true to yourself; if by your readings your object is to cultivate a love for virtue and horror for evil, novels are not the books that you will have recourse to.
Hence, to draw a practical conclusion from our considerations on this subject, you may safely say that a book is, if not bad, at least dangerous when its tendencies are to render interesting, and agreeable such deeds or language as you would neither look at nor listen to. This should be the first rule by which to judge of the moral worth of the books you wish to read.
To the rule given in the foregoing chapter may be added another of equal importance in the selection of suitable books to read. Generally speaking, all books that draw too much on the imagination may be considered as dangerous. You are well aware, and it has been frequently said, in the course of this little book, that the imagination is precious and useful when regulated with discretion, and directed with prudence; but the moment that it is allowed to assume a preponderance which does not belong to it, it becomes noxious to our spiritual and temporal welfare. Moreover, it is united to the senses by the most intimate ties, through which it receives impressions and images that keep it in constant activity; we should constantly labor to check, rather than to encourage its development; while we should spare neither pains nor diligence to develop the intelligence which, when left in ignorance of truths that could enlighten and elevate it, becomes the victim of cruel doubt, idleness, effeminacy and pleasure.
There are books said to be useless, and consequently harmless, but the conclusion, without being false, is not just; for we have just as much reason to believe they are dangerous as to admit the contrary. Now, if a book is indeed useless you cannot bear to read it, and since you do read it, it must certainly contain something interesting which renders it agreeable to you; it pleases some faculty of your soul, some habitual thought of your mind, some predominating disposition of your heart.
That a book may be read without profit is quite true. But that the same book can be read without danger of sustaining some loss is evidently false, unless that it be maintained that we are justified in having no proposed end for our actions; or that we may act solely for pastime which is diametrically opposed to the end for which we were created: Our time is too precious to be used indifferently. Again if there is in life anything that may be read or omitted without losing some advantage, or committing some evil, it is certainly not a book, for it always contains either some facts or some pictures, or some maxims capable of making an impression on your mind and heart.
The intelligence is formed and developed by means of language, and language, considered from this point of view, furnishes us with no idle words. Hence a useless book is, in the true acceptation of the term, a book that amuses the imagination and the heart. Now, whatever the soul receives through these channels must be of some importance for good or evil. Hence we are not justified, on the plea of indifference to accept any book that falls under our hands without being thoroughly examined and competently recommended.
Here, of course, a new difficulty occurs: at your age, and with your experience, you are unable to judge what books you should read; you are therefore obliged to follow the advice of others in the matter, but not the advice of all indiscriminately, as all are not competent to direct you in a matter of such grave importance. Popularity will give a wide circulation to a book bat can by no means recommend it; hence public opinion is not a rule that will guarantee you against deception.
Those in whom you place entire confidence to choose a book for you should themselves be recommended by their sincere and generous piety, the dignity of their life, the solidity of their judgment, strengthened by an extensive knowledge of men and things. Above all things be on your guard against the books recommended by worldly women, lovers of pleasure and parties; those whose light and frivolous minds sicken at serious thoughts, who are on their guard lest they may do too much for God, and who vainly endeavor to reconcile, in a monstrous union, the maxims of the world with those of the Gospel, the seductions of pleasure with the austerities of virtue, desiring to serve God and mammon.
If, by some negligence, or even in good faith; you open one of those books against which you have been warned, shut it the moment you feel your imagination excited by the images it offers, or when you perceive that the mind's curiosity becomes aroused to its agreeable narration of incidents, for it is almost always an unfavorable sign of a book that produces those and similar effects. Such is not the manner in which truth and virtue affect us. Their action is milder and calmer, and has the heart and will, rather than the imagination for its object. Hence, be on your guard, lest by some indiscretion you allow a poison to enter your soul, which is never more dangerous than when it seems least to be feared.
Finally, to resume in a few words, all that we have considered on the subject: If you would place the moral merit of a book beyond question, ask yourself if you would like to have its author for your spiritual director; do not think that this precaution is exaggerated or uncalled for; for between the author of a book and the reader there are relations established so intimate that they beget a kind of intellectual paternity, which produces deeper and more durable effects than you may be aware of.
To express the influence that our actions exercise over our life and over our fate, man is said to be the son of his works. For similar reason, it may be said of him, but more especially of woman, that he is the son of his readings, for reading forms such an important factor in the formation of the heart and mind that it often modifies our whole being. Besides, if you wish to profit by your reading, read only a few books, but read them well, with close attention, reflecting long and often on what you have read, identifying your very thoughts and sentiments with the subject matter of their pages. But let all this have its practical utility, let all those advantages find a living expression in your language, in your actions, and in your whole life.