The Young Lady's Mentor Part 9

Thus I would have Rollings Ancient History succeed the cold and dry outlines of Tytler. Hume's History of England will serve the same purpose relatively to the modern portion; and for the History of France, that of Eyre Evans Crowe imparts a brilliancy to perhaps the most uninteresting of all historic records. If that is not within your reach, Millet's History of France, in four volumes, though dull enough, is a safe and useful school-room book, and may be read with profit afterwards: this, too, would possess the advantage of helping you on at the same time, or at least keeping up your knowledge of the French language.

It is desirable that all books from which you only want to acquire objective information should be read in a foreign language: you thus insensibly render yourself more permanently, and as it were habitually, acquainted with the language in question, and carry on two studies at the same time. If, however, you are not sufficiently acquainted with the language to prevent any danger of a division of attention by your being obliged to puzzle over the mere words instead of applying yourself to the meaning of the author, you must not venture upon the attempt of deriving a double species of knowledge from the same subject-matter: the effect of the history as a story or picture impressed on the mind or memory would be lost by any confusion with another object.

Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather" are the best history of Scotland you could read: Robertson's may come afterwards, when you have time.

Of Ireland and Wales you will learn enough from their constant connection with the affairs of England. Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics, in the Cabinet Cyclopedia, the History of the Ottoman Empire, in Constable's Miscellany, the rapid sketches of the histories of Germany, Austria, and Prussia, in Voltaire's Universal History, will be perhaps quite sufficient for this second cla.s.s of histories.

The third must enter into more particular details, and thus confer a still livelier interest upon bygone days. For instance, with reference to ancient history, you should read some of the more remarkable of Plutarch's Lives, those of Alexander, Caesar, Theseus, Themistocles, &c.; the Travels of Anacharsis, the worthy results of thirty years' hard labour of an eminent scholar:[80] the Travels of Cyrus, Telemachus, Belisarius, and Numa Pompilius, are also, though in very different degrees, useful and interesting. The plays of Corneille and Racine, Alfieri, and Metastasio, on historical subjects, will make a double impression on your memory by the excitement of your imagination. All ought to be read about the same time that you are studying those periods of history to which they refer. This is of much importance.

The same plan is to be pursued with reference to modern history. The brilliant detached histories of Voltaire, Louis XIV. and XV., Charles XII., and Peter the Great, ought to be read while the outlines of the general history of the same period are freshly impressed on your memory.

The vivid historical pictures of De Barante are to be made the same use of: he stands perhaps unrivalled as an objective historian.

Shakspeare's historical plays are the best accompaniment to Hume's History of England. Our modern novels, too, will supply you with rich and varied information, as to the manners and characters of former times. They are a very important part of our literature, and ought to be considered essential to the completion of your circle of study. That they also may be rendered as useful as possible, they should be read at the same time with the entirely true history of the period to which they refer.

From history, I have insensibly glided into the subject of works of fiction, one which perhaps previously requires a few words of apology; for the strong recommendations with which I have pressed their study upon you may sound strangely to the ears of many worthy people. In your own enlightened and liberal mind, I do not indeed suspect the indwelling of any such exclusive prejudices as those which forbid altogether the perusal of works of fiction: such prejudices belong, perhaps, to more remote periods, to those distant times when t.i.tle-pages were seen announcing "Paradise Lost, translated into prose for the benefit of those pious souls whose consciences would not permit them to read poetry."[81] This latter prejudice--that against poetry--seems, as far as my observation extends, to be entirely forgotten. Fiction in this form is now considered universally allowable; and some conscientious persons, who would not allow themselves or others the relaxation of a novel of any kind, will indulge unhesitatingly in the same sort of love-stories, rendered still more exciting through the medium of poetry.

Most women, unfortunately, are incapable of carrying out the argument from one course of action into another, or even of clearly comprehending, when it is suggested to them, that whatever is wrong in prose cannot be right in poetry. In a general way you will be able to form your own judgment on this subject, by observing how much safer prose-fiction is for yourself at times, when your feelings are excited, and your mind unsettled and exhausted. A novel, even the most trifling novel of fas.h.i.+onable life, if it has only cleverness sufficient to engage your thoughts, would be, perhaps, a very desirable manner of spending your time at the very period that poetry would be decidedly injurious to you. Indeed, at all times, those who have vivid imaginations and strong feelings should carefully guard and sparingly indulge themselves in the perusal of poetic fictions.

If it were possible, as some say, to study poetry artistically alone, contemplating it as a work of art, and not allowing it to excite the affections or the pa.s.sions, there is no kind of poetry that might not be enjoyed with safety in any state of mind: it is doubtful, however, whether any work of art ought to be so contemplated. Its excellence can only be estimated by the degree of emotion it produces; how then can an unimpa.s.sioned examination ever form a true estimate of its merit? When such an inspection of any work of art can be carried through, there is generally some fault either in the thing criticized or in the critic; for the distinctive characteristic of art is, that it is addressed to our _human_ nature, and excites its emotions. In the words of the great German poet:--

Science, O man, thou sharest with higher spirits; But art thou hast alone.

Pure science must be the same to all orders of created beings, but, as far as our knowledge extends, the physical organization of humanity is required for a perception of the beauties of art: therefore physical excitement must be united with mental, in proportion as the work of art is successful. Do not then hope ever to be able to study poetry without a quickened pulse and a flus.h.i.+ng cheek; you may as well leave it alone altogether, if it produces no emotion. It must be either rhyme and no poetry, or to you poetry can be nothing but rhyme.

Think not, however, that I do wish you to leave it alone altogether; nothing could be farther from my purpose.

There is some old saying about fire being a good servant, but a bad master. Now this is what I would say of the faculty of imagination, as cultivated and excited by works of fiction in general, including, of course, poetic fictions. As long as you can keep your imagination, even though thus quickened and excited, under the strict control of religious feeling--as long as you are able to prevent its rousing your temper to an uncontrollable degree of susceptibility--as long as you can return from an ideal world to the lowly duties of every-day life with a steady purpose and unflinching determination, there can be no danger for you in reading poetry. Perhaps you will, on the contrary, tell me that all this is impossible, and, coward-like, you may prefer resigning the pleasure to encountering the difficulties of struggling against its consequences: but this is not the way either to strengthen your character or to form your mind. All cultivation requires watchfulness and additional precautions, either more or less: you must not, for the sake of a few superable difficulties, resign the otherwise unattainable refinement effected by poetry. Besides, its exalting and enn.o.bling influence, if properly understood and employed, will help you incalculably over the rugged paths of your daily life; it will shed softening and hallowing gleams over many things that you would otherwise find difficult to endure, many duties otherwise too hard to fulfil; for there is poetry in every thing that is really good and true. Happy those practical students of its beauties who have learned to track the ore beneath the most unpromising surfaces! Poetry, I look upon, in fact, as the most essential, the most vital part of the cultivation of your mind, as from its spirit your character will receive the most beneficial influence: you must learn the double lesson of extracting it from every thing, and of throwing it around every thing; and, for the better attainment of this object, you must study it in itself, that you may become deeply imbued with its spirit.

Along with the poetry of every age and of every nation, I would have you diligently study the criticisms of the masters of the art. It is true that the intimate knowledge of all that has been written on this hackneyed subject will never supply the want of natural poetic taste, of that union of mental and moral refinement which produces the only infallible touchstone of the beautiful; still such criticisms will tend to refine and sharpen a natural taste, where it does exist; and without bringing its technical rules practically to bear upon the objects of your delighted admiration,[82] they will insensibly improve, refine, and subtilize the natural delicacy of your perceptions.

No criticisms can perhaps equal the masterly ones of Frederick Schlegel, or those of the less powerful but not less rich mind of Augustus William Schlegel,"--those two wonderful brothers," as a modern litterateur has justly called them. Leigh Hunt, with perhaps more poetic originality, but with less accuracy of aesthetical perception, will be a useful guide to you in English poetry. Burke's "Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful" will give you the most correct general ideas on the subject of taste. These are always best and most influential after they have been for some time a.s.similated with the forms of the mind. It is a far more useful exercise to apply them yourself to individual cases than merely to lend your attention, though carefully and fixedly, to the applications made for you by the writer. Alison's "Essay on Taste,"

though interesting and improving, saves too much trouble to the reader in this way.

Your enjoyment and appreciation of poetry will be much heightened by having it read aloud,--by yourself to yourself, if you should have no other sympathizing reader or listener.

The sound of the metre is essential to the full _sense_ of the meaning and of the beauty of all poetry. Even the rhymeless flow of blank verse is absolutely necessary to an accurate and entire perception of the effect the author intends to produce: it is in both cases as the colouring to a picture. It may be, indeed, that part of the composition which appeals most directly to the senses; but all the works of art must be imperfect which do not make this appeal; for, as I said before, all works of art are intended to affect our _human_ nature.

A well-practised _eye_ will, it is true, detect in a moment either the faults or the excellence of the rhyme or the flow; but the effect on the mind cannot be the same as when the impression is received through the _ear_.

Nor is the fuller appreciation of the poetry you read aloud the only advantage to be derived from the practice I recommend. Few accomplishments are more rare, though few more desirable, than that of reading aloud with ease and grace. Great are the sufferings inflicted on a sensitive ear by listening to one's favourite pa.s.sages, touching in pathos, or glorious in sublimity, travestied into twaddle by the false taste or the want of practice of the reader. For it is not always from false taste that the species of reading above complained of proceeds; on the contrary, there may be a very correct perception of the writer's meaning and object, while from want of practice, from mere mechanical inexpertness, there may be an incapability of giving effect to that meaning: hence arises false emphasis, and a thousand other disagreeables.

In this art, this important art of reading aloud, simplicity ought to be the grand object of attainment, at the same time that it is the last that can be attained. It is a point to reach after long efforts; not to start from, as those of uncultivated or artificial taste would imagine.

I must repeat, that it cannot be acquired without persevering practice.

The best time to set vigorously about such practice would be when you have but just listened with dismay to the injuries inflicted on some favourite poet by the laboured or tasteless reading of an unpractised performer.

From reading aloud, I pa.s.s on to a still more important subject,--that of writing: both are intimately connected branches of the main one--cultivation of the mind. When this latter is attained in the first place, a slight individual direction of previously acquired powers will enable you to succeed in both the former. In your own case, however, as in that of all those who have not the active organisation which involves great facilities for mechanical efforts, it will be quite necessary to give a special direction to your studies for the attainment of any degree of excellence in both those arts. Those, on the contrary, whose organization is more lively and vigorous, and whose nature and habits fit them more for action than thought, will find little difficulty in making any degree of cultivation of mind an immediate stepping-stone to the other attainments: such persons can read at once with force and truth as soon as education has given them accurate perceptions; they will also write with ease, rapidity, and energy, as soon as the mind is furnished with suitable materials. This is a kind of superiority which you may often be inclined to envy, at least until experience has taught you, in the first place, that the law of compensation is universal, and in the second, that every thing is doubly valuable which is acquired through hard labour and many struggles. For the first, you may observe that such persons as possess naturally the mechanical facilities of which I have spoken will never attain to an equal degree of excellence with those whose naturally soft and inactive organization obliges them to labour over every step of their onward way. They can, I repeat, never attain to the same degree of excellence, either in feeling or expression, because they do not possess the same refined delicacy of perceptions, the same deep thoughtfulness and intuitive wisdom, as those who owe these advantages to the very organization from which they otherwise suffer. This is another ill.u.s.tration of the universal law--that action is always in inverse proportion to power. For the second, you will find that there is a pleasure in overcoming difficulties, compared with which all easily attained or naturally possessed advantages appear tame and vapid:[83] and besides the difference in the pleasurable excitement of the contest, you are to consider the advantage to the character that is derived from a battle and a victory.

When I speak to you of writing, and of your attaining to excellence in this art, I have nothing in view but the improvement of your private letters. It can seldom be desirable for a woman to challenge public criticism by appearing before the world as an author. "My wife does not write poetry, she lives it," was the reply of Richter, when his highly-gifted Caroline was applied to for literary contributions to her sister's publications. He described in these words the real nature of a woman's duties. Any degree of avoidable publicity must lessen her peace and happiness; and few circ.u.mstances can make it prudent for a woman to give up retirement and retired duties, and subject herself to public criticism, and probably public blame.

The writing, then, in which I have advised you to accomplish yourself, is the epistolary style alone, at once a means of communicating pleasure to your friends, and of conferring extensive and permanent benefits upon them. How useful has the kind, judicious, well-timed letter of a Christian friend often proved, even when the spoken word of the same friend might, during circ.u.mstances of excitement, have only increased imprudence or irritation!

Few printed books have effected more good than the private correspondence of pious, well-educated, and strong-minded persons.

Indeed, the influence exercised by letters and conversation is so much the peculiar and appropriate sphere of a woman's usefulness, that all her studies should be pursued with an especial view to the attainment of these accomplishments. The same qualities are to be desired in both. The utmost simplicity--for nothing can be worse than speaking as if you were repeating a sentence out of a book, except writing a friendly letter as if you were writing out of a book,--a great abundance and readiness of information for the purpose of supplying a variety of ill.u.s.trations, an intelligent perception of, and a cautious attention to, that which you are called upon to answer, a conciseness of expression, that is perfectly consistent with those minute details, which, gracefully managed, as women only can, form the chief charm of their conversation and writing,--with all these you should be careful to give free play to the peculiarities of your own individual mind: this will always, even where there is little or no talent, produce a pleasing degree of originality.

Before every thing else, however, let unstudied ease, I could almost add carelessness, be the marked characteristics of both your conversation and your writing. Refined taste will indeed insensibly produce the former, without any effort of your own, far better than the strictest rules could do.

The praises of nonsense have been often written and often spoken; nor can it ever be praised more than it deserves. However "within its magic circle none dare walk"[84] but those who have naturally quick and refined perceptions, a.s.sisted by careful cultivation. Narrow indeed is the boundary which divides unfeminine flippancy from the graceful nonsense which good authority and our own feelings p.r.o.nounce to be "exquisite."[85] The unsuccessful attempt at its imitation always reminds me of Pilpay's fable of the Donkey and the Lapdog:--The poor donkey, who had been going on very usefully in its own drudging way, began to envy the lap-dog the caresses it received, and fancied that it would receive the same if it jumped upon its master as the lap-dog did: how awkwardly and unnaturally its attempts at playfulness were executed, how unwelcome they proved, I need not tell you. Nothing is more difficult than playfulness or even vivacity of manner--nothing is so sure a test of good breeding and high cultivation of mind; either may carry you safely through, but their union alone can render playfulness and vivacity entirely fascinating.

After all that I have written, I must again repeat what I began with,--that you are to try each different mode of study for yourself, and that the advice of others will be of use to you only when you have a.s.similated it with your own mind, testing it by your own practice, and giving it the fair trial of _patient_ perseverance.

I ought perhaps, before I close this letter, to make some apology for recommending, as a part of your course of study, either Rollin or Hume, one because he is "_trop bon homme_,"[86] the other because he is not "_bon_" in any sense of the word. My apology, or rather my reason, will, however, be only a repet.i.tion of that which I have said before, viz.

that I should wish you to read history strictly, and merely, as a story, and to form your _own_ philosophic and religious opinions previously, and from other sources.

So many valuable and important histories, so many necessary books on every subject, have been written by the professed infidel, as well as by the practical forgetter of G.o.d, that you must prepare yourself for a constant state of intellectual watchfulness, as to all the various opinions suggested by the different authors you study. It is not their opinions you want, but their facts. Most standard histories, even Hume and Voltaire, tell truth as to all leading facts: after half-a-century or so of filtration, truth becomes purified from contemporary pa.s.sions and prejudices, and can be easily got at without any importantly injurious mixture.

It was to mark my often-repeated wish that you should _philosophize_ for yourself, that I have omitted the names of Guizot and Hallam in the list of authors recommended for your perusal. With the tastes which I suppose you to possess and to acquire, you will not be likely to leave them out of your own list. The histories of Arnold and Niebuhr also belong to a distinct cla.s.s of writings. I should prefer your being intimately acquainted with the so-called poetical histories which have been so long received and loved, before you interest yourself in these modern discoveries.

The lectures of Dr. Arnold upon Modern History contain, however, such a treasure of brilliant philosophy, of deep thought and forcible writing, that the sooner you begin them, and the more intimately you study them, the better pleased I should be. With respect to his singular views on religion and politics, you must always keep carefully in mind that his peculiar mental organization incapacitated him from forming correct opinions on any subject connected with imagination or metaphysics. You will soon be able to trace the manner in which the absence of these two powers affected all his reasonings, and closed up his mind against the most important species of evidence. I carry on the supposition that you have formed, or will form, all your views on religion and politics from your own judgment, a.s.sisted by the experience of those whose mind you know to be qualified by their many-sidedness to judge clearly and impartially--upon universal, not _partial_ data. Remember, at the same time, however, that you belong to a church which professedly protests against popes of every description, against the unscriptural practice of calling any man "Father upon earth." May you attend diligently, and in a child-like spirit of submission, to the teaching of that Holy and Apostolic Church, and there will then be no danger of your being led astray either by the infidel Hume or the sainted Arnold.

Finally, I would again refer to that subject which ought to be the beginning and end, the foundation and crowning-point of all our studies.

Let "whatever you do be done to the glory of G.o.d."[87] Earthly motives, if pure and amiable ones, may hold a subordinate place; but unless the mainspring of your actions be the desire "to glorify your Father which is in heaven," you will find no real peace in life, no blessedness in death. As one likely means of keeping this primary object of your life constantly before you, I should strongly recommend your making the cultivation and improvement of your mental powers the subject of special prayer at all the appointed seasons of prayer; at the same time, your studies themselves should never be entered upon without prayer,--prayer, that the evil mingled with all earthly things may fall powerless on your sanctified heart,--prayer, that any improvement you obtain may make you a more useful servant of the Lord your G.o.d--more persuasive and influential in that great work which in different ways is appropriated to all in their several spheres of action, viz. the high and holy office of winning souls to Christ.[88]

FOOTNOTES:

[77] Coleridge.

[78] a.s.sembly's Catechism.

[79] Plebeii videntur appellandi omnes philosophi qui a Platone et Socrate et ab ea familia dissiderent.--CICERO, _Tuscul._ 1, 2, 3.

[80] L'Abbe Barthelemi.

[81] Quarterly Review.

[82] The critic who suffers his philosophy to reason away his pleasure is not much wiser than a child who cuts open his drum to see what is within it that causes the music.--_Edinburgh Review_.

[83] Ce n'est pas la victoire, c'est le combat qui fait le bonheur des n.o.bles coeurs.--_Montalembert_.

Si le Tout-puissant tenait dans une main la verite, et dans l'autre la recherche de la verite, c'est la recherche que je lui demanderais.

--_Lessing_.

[84] Dryden, of Shakspeare.

[85] Miss Ferrier. Mrs. H.E.

[86] Napoleon's remark on Rollin's History.

[87] 1 Cor. x. 31.