Our Heroine
One daughter was now his only
surviving child; and, while he watched the unfolding of her infant
character, with anxious fondness, he endeavoured, with unremitting effort,
to counteract those traits in her disposition, which might hereafter lead
her from happiness. She had
discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of mind, warm affections,
and ready benevolence; but with these was observable a degree of
susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting peace.
As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone to
her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to beauty,
and rendered her a very interesting subject to persons of a congenial
disposition....
In person, Emily resembled her
mother; having the same elegant symmetry of form, the same delicacy of
features, and the same blue eyes, full of tender sweetness.
But, lovely as was her person, it was the varied expression of her
countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer emotions of her mind, that
threw such a captivating grace around her:
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Those tend’rer
tints, that shun the careless eye,
And, in the world’s contagious circle, die.
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St. Aubert cultivated her
understanding with the most scrupulous care.
He gave her a general view of the sciences, and am exact
acquaintance with every part of elegant literature.
He taught her Latin and English [she was a native French speaker],
chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their best poets.
She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and
it was St. Aubert’s principle, as well as his inclination, to promote
every innocent means of happiness. ‘A
well-informed mind,’ he would say, ‘is the best security against the
contagion of folly and vice. The
vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into
error, to escape from the languor of idleness.
Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the
temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the
gratifications derived from the world within.
Thought, cultivation, are necessary equally to the happiness of a
country and a city life; in the first they prevent the uneasy sensations
of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in the taste they create for
the beautiful, and the grand; in the latter, they make dissipation less an
object of necessity, and consequently of interest.’ |
