Alas! dear Emma, is it so soon come to this ?-Little did I imagine that she, who so lately wept over my sister's bier, would, ere the year came round, press her own. But one year since, we beheld them both in the bloom of sprightly youth, gay and smiling, the delight of all who beheld them. "But now the spoiler is fallen upon their summer fruits, and upon their vintage.” No sighs, however, can recall them; no lamentation awake them from their deep, everlasting slumber. No! let us not say everlasting; for it ill becomes us, the heirs of immortal hope, to use that word, fit only for the lips of the cold, despairing materialist. Emma! if it is indeed (as surely it is) given us, in the world of light and life, to know and love the companions of our mortal state, let us think of her whom we have recently lost, emerging at once from the dimness of a mortal decline, and from the bitterness of death,-a merciful God speaking pardon to all her frailties, and confirming her unalloyed and ever-during felicity! Let us imagine, amidst the bright angelic host, one gentle, beatified spirit hailing the new inhabitant of Heaven: imagine that she shall discover, amidst the encircling splendours of immortal beauty, the friend of her youth, the sweet companion of her innocent pleasures in this world; a world which had been to them, the few hours of preparatory sickness excepted, the pleasing, though faint dawn of being, now brightened into that day which shall bring no sorrow, and which shall know no night. How selfish then our murmurs!-Yet who can stifle the sighs of nature? or, at once, disperse the gloom arising from the consciousness, that, through a perhaps long course of years, we shall not behold the beloved of our hearts?—Yet let us endeavour, by the solemn aids of reason and religion, to submit cheerfully to the doom which we cannot reverse; and, by the soft assistance of hope and tender imagination, to gild and irradiate even the dark mansions of the grave. Another consolation remains to us from the early, and, apparently, premature death of those we love. Observation has already taught me, that youth, amidst all its rash hopes and giddy indiscretions, is, in general, more amiable than middle or advanced life. "The world's infectious; few bring back, at eve, Immaculate, the manners of the morn." Quitting this mournful subject, let me observe, that scarcely any thing, except our mutual loss pressing forward to my pen, could thus long have prevented my expressing how welcome is the assurance you give me, that, as soon as these March winds are over, you will come to Lichfield, be our guest some weeks, and remain with your aunt in this city during the ensuing summer. How delightful had this intelligence been, if ill health had not suggested the scheme, and if such tidings had arrived in cheerfuller hours! Dearly are they consoling even in these. Whatever our sorrows, whatever our consolations, it is, at least, sweet to reflect, that we shall share them together, as the vernal day rolls on. Adieu! May I soon receive you in amended health and spirits; for joy, or even cheerfulness, must, till that moment, be unknown to the heart of your friend Anna Seward. LETTER IV. To miss Scott*. Lichfield, April 13, 1788. Alas! dear miss Scott, (for I must write to you once more ere you resign that name which I have long valued,) my heart sympathizes with you in the mournful sense of privation resulting from the total dissolution of the filial ties. Mine yet subsist; but it is by so attenuated a thread, that I live in hourly apprehension of shedding hopeless tears for the loss of one of the sweetest and most interesting satisfactions which the human bosom can feel. I shall be glad to learn that a new situation, new cares, new duties, have combined to occupy your mind, and to leave it less leisure for unavailing regrets. I dare assure myself that Mr. Taylor will make you a kind husband. His fine understanding and strict piety are guarantees for your future peace. His temper had severe trials in the sacrifices you made of his happiness to the surely unreasonable opposition of a parent. Your health has doubtless suffered much from the conflicts you endured; and from their cessation, we may hope for a great amendment in that important source of comfort. The doubts you have felt and expressed for your happi * Of this lady, miss Seward, in a letter to Mr. Hayley, (May 10, 1788,) speaks in the following terms: "Miss Scott has a serious and religious mind. Her filial piety has been exemplary. The bridegroom has waited for her, with Jocobean constancy, nearly twice seven years; for she would not marry while her aged mother lived, whose wretched health demanded her watchful and unremitting cares. Last winter, sorrow and liberty came to her at once, from the grave of a beloved parent." ness as a wife, increase my trust on that head. Disappointment is a prime source of the woes of wedlock. Dangerous are those partial hopes and dependences which frail mortality can so seldom fulfil. No, dear miss Scott, I shall not be in London for a long time. There is no leaving my dearest father; and should I soon lose him, I could not quit Lichfield till I had settled my little household in a habitation better suited to my fortune and my singleness, which would be much out of their place in a palace. But never can any other home be dear to me as this. No local attachment can be more passionate than mine to these walls and bowers, that seem to wear the resemblance, and breathe the spirit, of all whom I have loved. Adieu! Anna Seward. LETTER V. To miss Helen Maria Williams. Lichfield, April 21, 1790. Much and various is the kindness for which I have to thank you, my dear miss Williams: for your consoling sympathy; for the desire you express for our speedy meeting in town; and for your acceptable pre sent. It is true, that the existence of my father, whose death yet sits heavy on my heart, had been long destitute of all corporeal and intellectual energy: but it is a state of severe suffering alone, which, thank God, his was not, that can banish the yearning regrets of affection, for the loss of even the most faded and imperfect resemblance of what once was. I am, however, most thankful, that the heart-dear gratifications of protecting, comforting, and caressing that desolated form, so long were mine; since the desolation, though almost total, was not to himself drear. Pain seldom visited his weak and torpid frame, and never his mind, during several past years; one period of about two years excepted, in which his failing memory made him perpetually fancy that he had no property, and was become poor. Except in that interval, his life had been happy above the common lot. No unpleasing circumstances ever dwelt upon his joyous imagination. The pleasure he took in my attendance and caresses, survived till within the three last months, amidst the general wreck of sensibility. His reply to my inquiries after his health, was always, "Pretty well, my darling;" and when I gave him his food and his wine, "That's my darling," with a smile of comfort and delight, inexpressibly dear to my heart. I often used to ask him if he loved me, his almost constant answer was: “Do I love my own eyes?" These pleasures are passed, dear miss Williams; and their recollection is yet too mournfully impressed, to admit an idea of mixing soon with the gay and busy world. Adieu! Yours faithfully, Anna Seward. LETTER VI. To Thomas Christie, esq. Lichfield, July 1, 1790. Yes, my kind friend, Heaven has at length deprived me of that dear parent to whom I was ever most tenderly attached; and whose infirmities, exciting |
