mist, the details are continually present; she is overwhelmed by their weight, and is perpetually bespeaking your pity for her labors, and your praise for her exertions; she is afraid you will not see how much she is harassed. She is not satisfied, that the machine moves harmoniously, unless she is perpetually exposing every secret spring to observation. Little events and trivial operations engross her whole soul; while a woman of sense, having provided for their probable recurrence, guards against the inconveniences, without being disconcerted by the casual obstructions, which they offer to her general scheme. Subordinate expenses, and inconsiderable retrenchments, should not swallow up that attention, which is better bestowed on regulating the general scale of expense, correcting and reducing an overgrown establishment, and reforming radical and growing excesses. LESSON CXIX. Maternal Influence.-MRS. SIGOURNEY. DOMESTIC education has great power in the establishment of those habits, which ultimately stamp the character for good or evil. Under its jurisdiction, the Protean forms of selfishness are best detected and eradicated. It is inseparable from the well-being of woman, that she be disinterested. In the height of youth and beauty, she may inhale incense as a goddess; but a time will come for nectar and ambrosia to yield to the food of mortals. Then the essence of her happiness, will be found to consist in imparting it. If she seek to intrench herself in solitary indifference, her native dependence comes over her, from sources where it is least expected, convincing her that the true excellence of her nature, is to confer rather than to monopolize felicity. When we recollect that her prescribed sphere mingles, with its purest brightness, seasons of deep endurance, anxieties which no other heart can participate, and sorrows for which earth has no remedy, we would earnestly incite those, who gird her for the warfare of life, to confirm habits of fortitude, selfrenunciation, and calm reliance on an Invisible Supporter. We are not willing to dismiss this subject, without induiging a few thoughts on maternal influence. Its agency, in the culture of the affections, those springs which put in motion the human machine, has been long conceded. That it might also bear directly upon the development of intellect, and the growth of the sterner virtues of manhood, is proved by the obligations of the great Bacon to his studious mother, and the acknowledged indebtedness of Washington to the decision, to the almost Lacedemonian culture, of his maternal guide. The immense force of first impressions is on the side of the mother. An engine of uncomputed power is committed to her hand. If she fix her lever judiciously, though she may not, like Archimedes,* aspire to move the earth, she may hope to raise one of the habitants of earth to heaven. Her danger will arise from delay in the commencement of her operations, as well as from doing too little, or too much, after she has engaged in the work. In early education, the inertness which undertakes nothing, and the impatience which attempts all things at once, may be equally indiscreet and fatal. The mental fountain is unsealed to the eye of a mother, ere it has chosen a channel, or breathed a murinur. She may tinge with sweetness or bitterness the whole stream of future life. Other teachers have to contend with unhappy combinations of ideas; she rules the simple and plastic elements. Of her, we may say, she hath "entered into the magazines of snow, and seen the treasures of the hail." In the moral field, she is a privileged laborer. Ere the dews of morning begin to exhale, she is there. She breaks up a soil, which the root of error and the thorns of prejudice have not preoccupied. She plants germs whose fruit is for eternity. While she feels that she is required to educate, not merely a virtuous member of society, but a Christian, an angel, a servant of the Most High, how does so holy a charge quicken piety, by teaching the heart its own insufficiency! The soul of her infant is uncovered before her. She * Pronounced Ar-ki-me'-dės. knows that the images, which she enshrines in that unpolluted sanctuary, must rise before her at the bar of doom. Trembling at such tremendous responsibility, she teaches the little being, whose life is her dearest care, of the God who made him ; and who can measure the extent of a mother's lessons of piety, unless his hand might remove the veil, which divides terrestrial from celestial things? "When I was a little child," said a good man, "my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and place her hand upon my head, while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her worth, she died, and I was left too much to my own guidance. Like others, I was inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked, and, as it were, drawn back, by a soft hand upon my head. "When a young man, I travelled in foreign lands, and was axposed to many temptations. But when I would have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. 1 seemed to feel its pressure, as in the days of my happy infancy; and sometimes there came with it a voice, in my heart,—a voice that must be obeyed-'Oh! do not this wickedness, my son, nor sin against thy God.' LESSON CXX. Diedrich Knickerbocker's Description of Tea-Parties in New York.-W. IRVING. THE Company commonly assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six; unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. The tea-table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company, being seated around the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in lanching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish;-in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts, —a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in the city, excepting in genuine Dutch families. The tea was served out of a majestic delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs-with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper teakettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup; and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady,-which was, to suspend a large lump directly over the tea-table, by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth. At these primitive tea-parties, the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting, no gambling of old ladies, nor høyden chattering and romping of young ones-no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets, nor amusing conceits, and monkey divertisements, of smart, young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say, "Yes, sir," or "Yes, madam," to any question that was asked them; behaving, in all things, like decent, well educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles, with which the fire-places were decorated. The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respecive abodes, and took leave of them at the door. LESSON CXXI. The Recluse.-BEATTIE. THE gusts of appetite, the clouds of care, I lurk the more secure from Fortune's blast, The end and the reward of toil is rest. Be all my prayer for virtue and for peace. Of wealth and fame, of pomp and power possessed, Who ever felt his weight of wo decrease? Ah! what avails the lore of Rome and Greece, The lay, heaven-prompted, and harmonious string, The dust of Ophir, or the Tyrian fleece, All that art, fortune, enterprise, can bring, If envy, scorn, remorse, or pride, the bosom wring? Let vanity adorn the marble tomb With trophies, rhymes and scutcheons of renown In the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome, Where night and desolation ever frown; Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down, Where a green, grassy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrown, Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave. And thither let the village swain repair, And, light of heart, the village maiden gay, To deck with flowers her half-dishevelled hair, And celebrate the merry morn of May. |