LETTER XXI.

MRS. DOUGLAS TO MRS. E. SANDFORD.

My dearest Elizabeth will believe that Glenalta has charms which even Killarney cannot boast for me. Yes; though the word _home_ never meets my eye or ear without producing a _gulp_, which tells of other days, when that little monosyllable of four letters contained the _world_ for me, yet repose is so necessary to my existence, that I sighed for return to my peaceful glen, and the pain of concealing every feeling that warred against the happiness of my beloved children, from their acute observation, increased my restraint, and has converted the enjoyment of my _cell_ into more positive pleasure than I have felt for years. How gracious are the mercies shed upon our daily path, and how tender the dispensation which so often renders what we conceive to be inflictions, conducive to our comfort! Elizabeth, my spirits are unusually depressed, but you are expecting an answer to your letter, and I will not suffer my pen to forget its duty, nor wander from the subject of your inquiry, till I have given you what little aid, my longer experience of your present cares, may contribute. You think that my advice would be, that you should resign yourself exclusively to the charm of such society as you find amongst the Stanleys, No, dear friend; I would only allow you to _prefer_ them; but there is a net of kind, expansive benevolence which it would seem as if Nature loved to throw more widely in scenes of rural life than in any other. "Man made cities, God formed the country." It is very true, every heart must acknowledge the distinction, and yours my friend would desire to emulate, as far as the imperfect creature is enabled to do, the bounty of that Being who has placed you where all the sweet charities of fellowship may be called into exercise. I do not mean that you should mingle indiscriminately, nor _over-much_ in society: I would only say avoid unkindness; exclusion should be reserved for the unworthy, but not visited on those who have only the misfortune to be less pleasing than their neighbours. A judicious _assortment_ will always prevent the disagreeable effects which sometimes spring from neglect of selecting such people only as harmonize with each other in manners and modes of thinking. I should be more diffuse upon this subject, were there the slightest danger of your supposing for a moment that I could be the advocate of an _electioneering_ system. You know how I abhor the arts of popularity, and revere independence; but human virtues and vices are often separated from each other by such imperceptible shades, that in giving ourselves credit for the performance of the one, it is too often our lot to glide into the other. Selfishness is an arch fiend, and ever at hand to whisper temptation. I know that it is a prevailing opinion amongst a large number of respectable and worthy people, that we are bound to make profession of our creeds in the highways, and in the corners of our streets, that every sentence which we utter should tell of the sect to which we belong, every article of dress which we wear be a symbol of distinction; and every person with whom we converse, every book that we open, be submitted to an ordeal, and pronounced upon, by a few self-elected judges, before we venture to pursue acquaintance with the one, or advance in perusal of the other.

I cannot enter into this system of parcelling out mankind by quite so restrictive a rule; I see nothing of all this in the inspired precepts of the great Founder of our faith, whose beautiful simplicity of doctrine and extensive charity of example, are too little dwelt upon as matter of imitation, while His name is mingled with disgusting familiarity in every trifling discourse.

Oh, my friend, human nature is so frail that we should not _tempt_ our pride, or our vanity, by putting on external marks that may deceive even our own hearts, and persuade us that we are better than others. Let our consistency be seen in our _lives_; our religion shine through our actions; our tastes be proclaimed by our preferences; and let us not _profess_ at all, let us not belong _exclusively_ to one party, or one preacher. Let us catch illumnination from those who possess more than we do, contributing our own light to such as have less. Do not suffer your dear girls to assume names or badges. Do not permit them to be tied down by observances. Let their books, their society, their opinions, and their tastes, spring from their _habits_ and their _principles_. It is an _inverted_ method, to begin with the mere trappings, and argue to the indwelling of the spirit, from the rigidity of the letter. Set up no sign-posts; use no cabalistic phraseology; make no premature vows, and adopt no rule but that of your Bible in matters of religion. In matters of inferior concern, I would advise equally against precipitancy either in proscribing or adopting. _Parade_ is of all things to be avoided; be natural, be kind. You will find that some, of whom you may at first have formed high expectation, are over-rated, whilst others may rise in your estimation as you know them better. A little _time_ settles our modes of life, and regulates our conduct without any _eclat_ much more consistently than any pre-arrangement of our own, and with a little patience we may gradually _sift_ people and things, till we find ourselves placed as nearly as circumstances permit, in the situation most suited to our characters. My little experience leads me to certain conclusions which had they been earlier impressed upon my mind I should have been spared much anxiety. One of them is, that in the beginning of our career we all _plan_ too much. We take as it were a _survey_ of all the territory that lies spread before us, and sitting down in the pride of full possession, we scan the map of futurity, dazzle our imaginations with mines that are to be dug, and riches that are to be realized, amuse our fancies with palaces to be built, and forests to be planted, worshipping within our breasts the idol of self-complacency, while we contemplate _ourselves_ as the _great_ engineers whose skill is to operate these mighty improvements. We _assume_ too much, we _trust_ too little; we know nothing but the present, and the present we despise. Our limited vision cannot extend beyond a point, and we strain our eyes over all created space. _Little_ things and _proximate_ purposes, make up the real sum of happiness and virtue: but we pass by these in contemptuous disdain, to aim at the great and the distant; the undefined and generally unattainable. True wisdom is surely to watch with our best attention, and cultivate with assiduity, the daily, the hourly circumstances which arise in our path, leaving the widely spreading consequences of unseen result, to Him who alone is acquainted with the final issues.

I have never known a failure in any wish of my own respecting the good of my family, which I could not resolve into over solicitude in _looking_ too far, and _doing_ too much in my _own strength_. Examine your heart; be sure that it is single, that no divided empire _there_ is likely to split its councils, and lead to compromise or dissimulation. _Simplicity_ of design is a panoply of power. Clad in its protective guardianship, put up your prayers with confidence for that aid, without which all your efforts will be abortive, and rising from your knees refreshed by the blessed assurance that the sincere suppliant is _never_ disregarded, go forth to your _daily_ task; as you are taught to ask for your _daily_ bread. Endeavour to perform the little duties which are allotted to a _given hour_. Neither perplex your thoughts, nor weaken your sight by scrutinizing the hidden things, and pouring through the darksome mists of future time, but leave it to _become_ the present. At its appointed period your duty is declared, and its boundary is traced: be that your _practical_ object. What mind indeed of "lofty pitch" would be contented with the prison that I prescribe, were I not confining the consideration to that part which we are individually called upon to _act_ in life; but you do not mistake my meaning. Ah! who would wish to walk over "the field of Marathon, or wander amid the ruins of Iona," without desiring to possess the power of abstracting thought from the fleeting moment that eludes our grasp, to expatiate in the mighty vast of years gone by? Or who that has ever loved and lost, would clip the spirit's wing, and stay its airy flight from stretching beyond this narrow strait of time and space into the boundless regions of eternal blessedness, where it is not forbidden to seek amongst the dazzling host, the happy myriads of the sky, for _one_ bright seraph, dearer than the rest, towards whom the newly emancipated stranger flies to meet its fondest though unearthly welcome? _Can_ there be danger--_is_ there impiety--in this vision which steals with heavenly influence on my solitary musings? Oh, if there be, speak, my Elizabeth, and I will try to curb my _waking_ thoughts, and turn imploringly to _sleep_ for the precious imagery which perhaps my day-light dreams ought not to mingle.

Sleep! balmy Sleep! thy poppies shed A pitying respite on my woes; Bind on thy charm around my head, And lull my soul to calm repose!

Yet not those slumbers I implore, That steep the brain in Lethe's wave, Tho' such the weary sense restore, 'Tis not this lifeless boon I crave!

I woo thee with thy world of dreams, That o'er the mind in vision play Thro' mimic shades--by airy streams Where phantom Hope delights to stray.

Now gorgon Reason sinks to rest, And Fancy, with unchartered range, Soars to the regions of the bless'd; The transit neither hard, nor strange.

How radiant the etherial light! Credulity, companion kind, Has spread her wing to join the flight-- The spirit's dungeon left behind.

Borne upward to the glorious sky, Crowds of celestial beings throng; Whose brighter, more inquiring eye, Is that which beams their ranks among?

'Twas his!--no more--the vision's past! Hark! is that sound the funeral bell? Raptures too vivid cannot last-- That dream is but a broken spell!

There are days so sad, and feelings so overwhelming, that to make war against their flow is as fruitless as to oppose a barrier to the sea. Forgive me. _You_ are not one of the unskilful comforters who attempt to impart consolation by checking the tide of sorrow. _You_ understand better the nature of the human heart, and are aware that a little kind sympathy is the truest balm which friendship can bestow.

I will now impart to you some circumstances which have weighed upon spirits, at _best_ so tremblingly poised, that the slightest addition to their usual burthen destroys the balance. As I mentioned to you, my excursion to Killarney was, in itself, a great effort. _Such_ scenery, and sweet music, are the most powerful exciters, in my mind, to a train of association which I dread in company. Memory is so acutely painful, from the minuteness with which its traces are engraved, and the fidelity of its pictures, that I fly from whatever is likely to unlock the stores, and present to my view _much_ that I dare not contemplate, unless I am alone. The delight, however, of gratifying my dear children overcame every other consideration: and I accompanied a party composed of admirable materials, but too numerous and too gay for me. I had not been long from home before I felt myself, for the first time, involved in those cares which, as my children grow up, I must expect to encounter.

My dear friend Mrs. Fitzroy, whose enlivening society charmed the whole group, was the first to awaken my attention to the expressions, both by looks and manner, of feelings in Mr. Russell's mind, which her quick eye discovered that Charlotte had excited. I have such perfect confidence in the delicacy of my dear girls, that I was spared all solicitude on the score of _conduct_; but I watched with uneasiness the progress of a sentiment which, as it met no return, will I fear be the cause of pain to an amiable and an accomplished young man. I find that he is acquainted with you, and, as he talks of going into Derbyshire on his return from France, you will probably see him, and perchance hear his story from his own lips.

The conversation, in which he made known his attachment to Charlotte, took place on the evening preceding his departure, and was so unlike the common place dialogues upon such occasions, that I could not, when it was repeated to me, repress a smile in the midst of more serious impressions. It was a lovely evening, and the young people had, as usual, strayed away from the elders, whose more sober views of happiness, and less active powers of locomotion, happily prepare us, as time advances, for the final rest.

As lovers always contrive to find the opportunity which they are seeking, Russell soon detached Charlotte from the group, by some appeal to her taste in particular; and when removed from all ears, save her own, he exclaimed (and, poor fellow, I believe with genuine truth), "How wretched is the _ending_ of such happiness!"

"It is indeed," replied my innocent Charlotte, who willingly perhaps gave her companion a share in the feeling which she echoed.

Perhaps assured by this encouraging sympathy that all might be as he wished, Russell continued: "Even inanimate objects interest the heart when we are about to quit them."

"Yes," said Charlotte, "and when one lives entirely in retreat, where the living objects are few, we do _really_ love trees, rocks, and streams, as if they were human beings. Is it not for this reason that mountaineers, like the Swiss, Scotch, and Irish, are fonder of their homes than any other nation?"

This is not what Russell wanted to know, or cared to inquire respecting. "To waste love upon trees and rocks, when so many of our own species are dying for want of the food lavished upon _them_, is not right," said Russell; "and _you_ are more guilty than any one, inasmuch as your affection is more prized."

Charlotte interrupted what she perceived to be a _compliment_, by answering: "You must not make _speeches_. The love that one feels for rural objects, long known, and seen with daily interest, can never interfere with better affections. It is a different thing, and _you_ must know how _very_ different, as you have a father, mother, and sisters." The honest air of directness, which I can imagine to have accompanied this _reasoning_ upon love, was not very favourable to farther dalliance.

When the youthful heart is _first_ excited, and hope is felt that kindred feeling has touched the soul in which it feels an interest, how exquisite the happiness of developement! Like the beautiful buds of early spring, the unfolding of each individual scale that binds the young leaves is in itself delightful, and we do not wish to lose a single hour of _progressive_ enjoyment, in impatience to behold the crown of summer foliage. Did you ever meet with an old book called "_Guadentio di Lucca?_"--It is a story in which, amongst some primitive race of people in South America, I think the lovers are made to declare their mutual sentiments by an interchange of buds, and, as inclinations advance, the full-blown flower.

But to return. Russell felt that his way was retrograde, and therefore, making an effort, he bounded over rocks, shrubs, and rivulets, and, taking my sweet child by the hand, declared, in the spirit of Hector to Andromache, though with the difference between _is_ and _might be_, that _all_ relations, however fond, concentrate in the object of tender and devoted love. To hear a confession of this nature, for the first time, must necessarily produce confusion in the mind of so gentle a being as Charlotte, and she told her sister that she felt quite unable for a few minutes to collect herself. Courage was imparted at length, by the fear of conveying the opposite of what she intended to communicate by her silence; and, summoning resolution, she turned to our young friend, and, thanking him kindly for the preference which he had just expressed, added:

"I have many blessings, and I am very young. It has never before occurred to me even to _think_, in my own case, of parting with such treasures as I possess; and though I shall always remember your visit to Glenalta as a period of _great_ pleasure, and _you_ as an agreeable member of our happy party, I can say no more."

Russell urged the usual arguments. "Surely she did not mean to devote herself to a single life. She might still have the society of mother, sisters, brother. Marriage was the natural object of life: it was the happiest lot when 'heart met heart.'"

"And _how_ can heart meet heart," replied Charlotte, "on a three weeks' acquaintance? _My_ heart would require a much longer time for disposing of itself, if I could disengage it from the ties that bind it here; and I cannot imagine how people should be either so vain, or so confiding as to fancy that the foundation of happiness, for perhaps a long life, can be laid in a short moment of time."

Russell assured her that to the quick eye of a lover, moments were years in bringing people acquainted.

"Ah then," said Charlotte, "why are so many married people unhappy?"

"They are just as well off in the end," answered Russell, "as those who are single, and certainly, till they discover their mistakes, much happier."

"Well, my life," replied Charlotte, "is too happy for any change of my _own_ making, I believe. If heaven deprived me of all that I love, it is another question, but to deprive _myself_, I cannot. My idea of marriage is not so favourable as yours. I think it would require the most powerful affection to render it a relation of real felicity; and if not _that_, I should think it much worse than even an unfortunate lot in single life."

"Have I then _no_ ground of hope," said Russell.

"Indeed, I feel wholly disinclined to marry any mortal at present," answered Charlotte. "To you I am scarcely at all known; and I believe that you are entirely mistaken in supposing for an instant that we are suited to each other. You and I have been educated in very different schools, and could never sympathize."

"Do you then forget our musical sympathies. Am I not devoted to your sweet melodies, and have we not often admired them in unison?"

"Oh yes, certainly," said Charlotte, "but music is a very little part of life.--We must not stay any longer from our party, who, perhaps, are wondering at our absence." Fanny appeared precisely as Charlotte spoke the last word, and the latter, seizing her sister's arm, was delighted to find excuse for terminating the conversation.

The _last_ evening is always sad, when those who have been pleased in each other's society are to part; but there is generally also some degree of bustle, immediately preceding a journey, which prevents the mind from dwelling on gloomy thoughts, at least in _common_ cases; and as all were ignorant of what had happened, except the pair immediately concerned, there was less reserve than might have been anticipated by any one who knew the fact that a proposal had been made and rejected.

Mr. Annesley is a very sweet young man, and he too was happy enough in our friendly circle to leave us with regret, which expressed itself silently in a fine and speaking countenance. We said farewell. The morning saw our visitors set out at so early an hour that the track of their carriage wheels alone reported of them when we met at breakfast. Is there one bright, breathless, listening joy that ever hung upon expected happiness which is not familiar to my memory; and is not that memory too a faithful register of every pang that severed love could teach the heart? How is it then, I wonder, that a tear is left for minor griefs? Yet tears _will_ flow; and I felt the difference between the gladsome merriment of approach, when our young friends were introduced by Mrs. Fitzroy, and the melancholy of their departing hour.

Still we are not bereaved of our guests all at once, though I grieve to add that another week will deprive me of dear Augusta Fitzroy, and my charming Arthur. I have real pleasure in the hope of presenting the latter to you one of these days, and in the mean time I prepare you for finding him _almost_ all that I desire to see him. Such a change I did not imagine possible, as has taken place in his mind since he has been with us. The materials were in existence, no doubt, but a London life has little need of _heart_, and, therefore, _his_ remained _hermetically sealed_, except when brought into action by his inestimable friend young Falkland, whose letters, which Arthur prsserves like "leaves of the Sybil", have rendered me acquainted with his extra-ordinary virtues. _Now_ in full exercise, my dear nephew's affections are the source of happiness to himself and delight to all around. His abilities are shining, and, as habit strengthens the power of applying them, I feel no doubt of his becoming an ornament to society, and filling the situation appointed for him by Providence so as to set an example worthy of imitation. Domestic anxiety at present weighs upon his spirits, proving at once an acuteness of feeling and exalted sense of rectitude, which promise a foundation of future character, delightful to anticipate.

I must speak of George Bentley before I conclude; and, to answer your inquiry in the _first_ instance, I am wholly unconscious of any ground for his uncle's apprehensions, though had I been aware of any such before we set out, I should not have consented to his being of our Killarney party; however, as Mr. Bentley followed us, my anxiety was removed. The young man is a fine and uncommon character: you shall have a sketch of it as far as I can trace its peculiarities. George Bentley offers a remarkable instance to prove, that what climate is to the vegetable kingdom, such to man is the moral atmosphere by which he is surrounded in early life. The temperature and aspect will not indeed convert an oak into an elm; but as the sapling of either, or of _any_ kind may be checked in its growth by the chill north-eastern blast, and turned aside from the natural tendency of its course; or, as the tender and languid seedling may be improved in strength by the care which tempers its exposure, and provides shelter for its weakness, just so may a particular bias of nature in the human mind be enfeebled or invigorated by circumstance, that powerful agent in the completion of its structure. Young Bentley came into the world with excellent faculties and dispositions, but nothing could be less favourable than that society in which they were to be unfolded. It is not the tutor's lessons, it is the manners and opinions which _breathe_ around us, that impart the _tone_ which distinguishes individuals from each other. Young Bentley was formed in a different _mould_ of intellect from all his family, and soon discovered in books, a companionship which was denied in the circle of his immediate relations. As he advanced in years, his mind, stimulated by a general sense of hunger, rather than by any discrimination of appetite, sought food for the cravings of curiosity in a library of motley mixture, accruing from various professional hoards, and a medley of novels, annual registers, and magazines, accumulated in a series of generations, through family survivorship. He was not met at home by either literary tact or talent. No, nor by that sort of tact which sometimes supplies in a great degree, the defect of one and the other.

Let loose as it were in an immense common, without a guide to direct him in the choice of his pasture, he devoured with avidity whatever presented itself. He passed through school and university with distinguished success, less the meed of brilliant talent than the reward of diligent application, and, unfortunately for himself, was emancipated from the trammels of education long before his age would permit him to enter one of the learned professions for which he was designed. The interval between the termination of a young man's first course of scholastic discipline, and the commencement of his professional career, is perhaps by far the most important period of existence in determining his future fate, and no prudent parent should permit that interval to be a long one. The mind, relieved from its former habitual restraint, and not yet _harnessed_ in a new pursuit, dashes wildly forward to revel in the charms of liberty, and woe to him who enjoys such length of holyday as to unfit him for returning to the toilsome track in which he must plod for daily bread. George Bentley employed the _chasm_ in _his_ course, chiefly in reading every thing upon which he could lay his hands in the region of fiction and romance. His college studies were ended before he had passed that awkward time of life, when neither child, nor man, the youth not knowing how to dispose of the disproportioned length of legs and arms by which he is encumbered, often flies from polished society in which he cannot expect to receive much notice; and young Bentley was too amiable, too aspiring a character to seek in low company the ease which he might have attained at the expense of morality. Thus while he was sliding into manhood, his days were principally occupied in solitude, amidst a heterogeneous mass of books, except during the hours of occasional meeting with his parents, brothers and sisters.

Inelegant, and unrefined in the habits of domestic economy, the circle of his relations presented not a single likeness to any of the pictures of imagination which were promiscuously piled in his memory. What he _saw_, did not in the least agree with what he _imagined_; but there where two powerful motives, though of opposite parentage, which co-operated to prevent him from making the humiliating confession, even to _himself_, that he could not trace the most distant resemblance in his mother and sisters, to the portraits which delighted him in story. These motives were the _vice_ of pride, and the _virtue_ of filial piety; and these combined, determined him to try every effort that was practicable in the way of twisting and turning, letting out and taking in, to fit some of the drapery with which his favourite novels abounded, on those forms which his affectionate heart would have gladly invested with whatever he found most attractive. It would not do: and he has at length given up the attempt, satisfied to respect and esteem, what he cannot admire; but the effect upon his mind of this war which I have described between his tastes and his fortunes, is singular. Let him describe character, whether in actual existence, or of abstract contemplation; and you would be surprised by the accuracy of his judgment, and the refinement of his taste; yet from having studied books more than men, and been debarred in early life from referring the rules which he learned, to any living examples which might have afforded a practical illustration of them, he seems at a loss in society, and gives one the idea of a person who had attained to a perfect skill in geography by mere inspection of maps, without ever having stirred from a close room in the heart of London. If such a person were suddenly brought to the coast, he would be confused, and quite unable for some time to follow the line of bays and harbours, creeks and head-lands, with which he was familiar on paper. When George Bentley, at a later period extended his acquaintance, and quitted home, a number of new varieties were presented to his view, in which he might have found specimens of every character; but the most impressible time of life had passed away, he did never possess, originally, the power of comparison in any vividness, and the absence of all encouragement to its exercise in youth, has rendered him slow, now that he is of maturer age, in adapting objects for the first time to his patterns. The eye accustomed only to painting, does not come at _once_ to criticise sculpture; and a surgeon, who knows the whole anatomy of the living subject, which _either_ is employed to represent, may be a dunce in _both_. The things are _different_, and will remain so, unless early habit and natural tact familiarize the mind in applying them to each other, and seeking similitudes between them. Young Bentley's mind and manners in fine do not amalgamate; one _layer_ lies upon the other like a _fineering_, which does not make a part of the plank to which it is cemented, but is glued on to a material less fine than itself. He _reasons_ more than he _feels_, is more solid than brilliant, and wants that beautiful _lightning_ of the mind which plays sometimes round characters not half so intrinsically valuable as his, with fascinating illumination. Such is my brief sketch of 'poor George,' as his uncle calls him. The future is concealed in mist. If a child of mine ever love young Bentley well enough to marry him, she shall have my full consent, for I am _sure_ of all the essentials that give security for substantial peace. The graces which he wants _may_ be dispensed with. The virtues which he possesses are indispensible; but I shall avoid giving _direction_ to the inclination of my girl, towards any particular objects, not because I do not think that many a parent might choose more wisely than young people do for themselves; but there is something perhaps inseparable from the human heart, which renders us more willing to excuse our own blunders, than those of even the people whom we love best. "Youth is easily deceived;" "love is blind," &c. Many of these flattering aphorisms occur to extenuate our own errors, while the question of "how did _your_ experience fail, how did you commit a mistake?" arises in the heart, though it may not be expressed by the lips, of every young romancer, who, finding life a chequered scene in which the _tessalæ_ of black and white, hold perpetual contrast, attributes to the influence of a friend's advice, the failure of those _generally_ disappointed hopes that paint the marriage state in colours bright and fleeting as the imagination which supplies them.

This moment comes a letter from the India House, to say that my poor brother, General Douglas, has had so serious an attack of illness, that his voyage to England is hastened, and we are informed, that his arrival may be looked for immediately. How this event may operate at Glenalta, I cannot tell; but though "the noiseless tenour of my way" should be disturbed, I shall rejoice if it be permitted me to afford comfort and assistance to the invalid. Adieu, my Elizabeth.

Your faithful CAROLINE DOUGLAS.