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No sweeping denunciation is here intended against those who have the unspeakable misfortune to be destitute of religion; for I know many, and doubt not that many more are to be found in every class of society, who fulfil the duties of the present life in such an exemplary manner, as to be well worthy of our esteem and love. What I mean to assert, and deem it all important for the cause of Education to establish, is, that the above fact furnishes no adequate proof of the sufficiency of the worldly code of morals, either to preserve or to reclaim mankind from vice and crime. If their propensities happen to be vicious, their desires criminal, no obstacle whatever exists to their indulgence, but the ever variable opinions of the particular society in which they live, and the fear of detection by mere human, frail, and fallible witnesses. Their code may well be called a system of compromise between sensual appetites and regard for appearances--a calculation of chances and probabilities--a rule for conduct whose standard has no well defined, certain marks, by which right and wrong can always be accurately distinguished--no omnipotent sanction to sustain all its requirements; and consequently, that, as the governing principle of our whole lives, it will bear no just comparison whatever with the Christian code of morality, where every thing is not only sure, but forever unchangeable--full not only of the happiest assurances in regard to the present life, but of the most soul-cheering hopes as to that which is to come.
Should any person doubt the preference usually given to what are called accomplishments, over matters of infinitely higher real value, let them ask as many pupils as they please, "what inquiries do your parents, guardians, and friends most frequently make relative to your studies and progress at school?" The answers will furnish undeniable proof; for a very large proportion will be found to have been substantially like the following: "How do you come on in your Music, your Dancing, your Drawing, or your French?" according as they have been striving to acquire one or more of these inestimable outfits for their progress through Time to the realms of Eternity. It is pitiable, most pitiable, to see the thousands of innocent little girls throughout our country, many of them without the slightest taste or talent for these things, still laboring four, five, or six hours in every twenty-four, to gain a little elementary knowledge of what they will generally abandon immediately after leaving school, or at farthest, as soon as they get married--to gain which knowledge has been the chief object, the painful toil for so many irrevocable years of all this warring against nature, common sense, and moral fitness. But suppose the success of such training as ample as heart can wish, and the poor little creatures are made prodigies of early proficiency in arts, which are very soon to be of little or no real use to them? Is it politic--is it wise--in fact, is it not a most sinful breach of parental duty, to impart to our daughters, as among the most desirable things in life, strong tastes which they can scarcely gratify at all without frequently seeking company abroad, nor often indulge at home, unless by neglecting some of those important, indispensable domestic employments which devolve exclusively on the mistress of the family?
Milton is indebted for some of the finest passages in the Paradise Lost to Marino's "Sospetti D'Herode."
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
LOSS OF BREATH.
A TALE A LA BLACKWOOD. BY EDGAR A. POE.
The most notorious ill-fortune must, in the end, yield to the untiring courage of philosophy--as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless vigilance of an enemy. Salmanezer, as we have it in the holy writings, lay three years before Samaria: yet it fell. Sardanapalus--see Diodorus--maintained himself seven in Nineveh: but to no purpose. Troy expired at the close of the second lustrum: and Azoth, as Aristaeus declares upon his honor as a gentleman, opened at last her gates to Psammitticus, after having barred them for the fifth part of a century.
Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard fate!--yet there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow. I found upon trial that the powers of utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.
Throwing myself upon a chair, I remained for some time absorbed in meditation. My reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory kind. A thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possession of my soul--and even the phantom Suicide flitted across my brain; but it is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal. Thus I shudderd at self-murder as the most decided of atrocities, while the tabby cat purred strenuously upon the rug, and the very water-dog wheezed assiduously under the table, each taking to itself much merit for the strength of its lungs, and all obviously done in derision of my own pulmonary incapacity.
Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, I at length heard the footstep of my wife descending the staircase. Being now assured of her absence, I returned with a palpitating heart to the scene of my disaster.
Carefully locking the door on the inside, I commenced a vigorous search. It was possible, I thought, that concealed in some obscure corner, or lurking in some closet or drawer, might be found the lost object of my inquiry. It might have a vapory--it might even have a tangible form. Most philosophers, upon many points of philosophy, are still very unphilosophical. William Godwin, however, says in his "Mandeville," that "invisible things are the only realities." This, all will allow, is a case in point. I would have the judicious reader pause before accusing such asseverations of an undue quantum of absurdity. Anaxagoras--it will be remembered--maintained that snow is black. This I have since found to be the case.
My exertions, as I have before said, proved fruitless. Closet after closet--drawer after drawer--corner after corner--were scrutinized to no purpose. At one time, however, I thought myself sure of my prize, having, in rummaging a dressing-case, accidentally demolished a bottle of Hewitt's "Seraphic and Highly-Scented Extract of Heaven or Oil of Archangels"--which, as an agreeable perfume, I here take the liberty of recommending.
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