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Page 32
To the rarity of the virtue upon which I have so long dwelt, we may
trace the cause of almost all the domestic unhappiness we witness
whenever the veil is withdrawn from the secrets of _home_. Alas! how
often is this blessed word only the symbol of freely-indulged
ill-tempers, unresisted selfishness, or, perhaps the most dangerous of
all, exacting and unforgiving requirements. While the one party select
their home as the only scene where they may safely and freely vent their
caprices and ill-humours, the other require a stricter compliance with
their wishes, a more exact conformity with their pursuits and opinions,
than they meet with even from the temporary companions of their lighter
hours. They forget that these companions have only to exert themselves
for a short time for their gratification, and that they can then retire
to their own home, probably to be as disagreeable there as the relations
of whom the others complain. For then the mask is off, and they are at
liberty,--yes, at liberty,--freed from the inspection and the judgments
of the world, and only exposed to those of God!
My friend, I am sure you have often shared in the pain and grief I feel,
that in so few cases should home be the blessed, peaceful spot that
poetry pictures to us. There is no real poetry that is not truth in its
purest form--truth as it appears to eyes from which the mists of sense
are cleared away. Surely our earthly homes ought to realize the
representations of poetry; they would then become each day a nearer,
though ever a faint type of, that eternal home for which our earthly
one ought daily to prepare us.
Poetry and religion always teach the same duties, instil the same
feelings. Never believe that any thing can be truly noble or great, that
any thing can be really poetical, which is not also religious. The poet
is now partly a priest, as he was in the old heathen world; and though,
alas! he may, like Balaam, utter inspirations which his heart follows
not, which his life denies, yet, like Balaam also, his words are full of
lessons for us, though they may only make his own guilt the deeper.
I have been led to these concluding considerations respecting poetry by
my anxiety that you should turn your refined tastes and your acute
perceptions of the beautiful to a universally moral purpose. There is no
teaching more impressive than that which comes to us through our
passions. In the moment of excited feeling stronger impressions may be
made than by any of the warnings of duty and principle. If these latter,
however, be not motives co-existent, and also in strength and exercise,
the impressions of feeling are temporary, and even dangerous. It is only
to the faithful followers of duty that the excitements of romance and
poetry are useful and improving. To such they have often given strength
and energy to tread more cheerfully and hopefully over many a rugged
path, to live more closely to their beau-id�al, a vivid vision of which
has, by poetry, been awakened and refreshed in their hearts.
To others, on the contrary, the danger exceeds the profit. By the
excitement of admiration they may be deceived into the belief that
there must be in their own bosoms an answering spirit to the greatness,
the self-sacrifice, the pure and lofty affections they see represented
in the mirror of poetry. They are deceived, because they forget that we
have each within us two natures struggling for the mastery. As long as
we practically allow the habitual supremacy of the lower over the
higher, there can be no real excellence in the character, however a mere
sense of the beautiful may temporarily exalt the feelings, and thus
increase our responsibility, and consequent condemnation.
I am sure you have experimentally understood the subject on which I have
been writing. I am sure you have often risen from the teaching of the
poet with enthusiasm in your heart, ready to trample upon all those
temptations and difficulties which had, perhaps an hour before, made the
path of self-denial and self-control apparently impracticable.
Receive such intervals of excitement as heaven-sent aids, to help you
more easily over, it may be, a wearying and dreary path. They are most
probably sent in answer to prayer--in answer to the prayers of your own
heart, or to those of some pious friend.
Our Father in heaven works constantly by earthly means, and moulds the
weakest, the often apparently useless instrument to the furtherance of
his purposes of mercy, one of which you know is your own sanctification.
It is not his holy word only that gives you appointed messages and helps
exactly suited to your need. The flower growing by the way-side, the
picture or the poem, the works of God's own hand, or the works of the
genius which he has breathed into his creature Man, may all alike bear
you messages of love, of warning, of assistance.
Listen attentively, and you will hear--clearer still and clearer--every
day and hour. It is not by chance you take up that book, or gaze upon
that picture; you have found, because you are on the watch for it, in
the first, a suggestion that exactly suits your present need, in the
latter an excitement and an inspiration which makes some difficult
action you may be immediately called on to perform comparatively easy
and comparatively welcome.
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