VARIETIES IN WOMAN. CHAPTER I. TO MY SON ALBERT. IN choosing to address you, my dear Albert, in this manner,-to speak to you when I have no longer the power of utterance, to project plans for your future welfare, when the possibility of my witnessing their realization is completely withdrawn, I am not influenced by the desire of working on your mind whilst it is enfeebled, perhaps, by sorrow for my loss. I wish not to extort from you any rash vow of yielding implicit VOL. I. B credence to my observations. bequeath to you the most valuable legacy in my power, the fruits of my own experience. You have equal capacity of judging what mode of life is best adapted to you, as I had;you are the same free agent, the same accountable being. I am not now going to depart from that maxim which has invariably regulated my conduct to you,— ing me, Hoc patrium est potius consuefacere filium, Suâ sponte recte facere, quàm alieno metu. Believe that the only earthly object, which has now the power of interestis your happiness. It is this which diverts my soul from the contemplation of that world which is to be her eternal abode. I would smooth your path to the great goal of human life. I would point out the means of happiness within your reach, and then call on your reason to approve or not, accordingly as it shall agree or disagree with me. I am not addressing a youth just starting into manhood, and I need not expatiate on the principle, " to be virtuous is to be happy." If there were any necessity of recalling this to your mind, the work of your education is indeed incomplete; I must have failed miserably in the end which I had always in view. Of late years, my son, you have been my friend, my confidential friend,-in many instances my adviser, in distress, always my consoler, because I do not blush to avow, that you have a greater strength of mind, and elevation of thought, than I ever had the happiness to possess. In one word, you are a man and a Christian, and I desire, as such, to suggest to you what happiness you may reasonably hope to attain. The most important consideration towards the attainment of such an end, is marriage. I believe, from your domestic inclinations, from the strength and perhaps from the infrequency of your attachments, from the natural sensibility and enthusiasm of your temperament, that you are calculated to enjoy extreme felicity, or extreme misery in this state, accordingly as you shall select a partner whose disposition may respond to your own, or contrast with it. 1. Be careful then,-Oh, most careful. The cautious mariner, who, in the darkest night, continually sounds the ocean, fearing to be grounded in a shallow, or to be dashed against a Midden rock, should be your emblem.. |