It is a great error to suffer a child, who has been trained in the
hard school of poverty and self-denial, to be transplanted suddenly
into the hot-bed of wealth and luxury. The idea of the child being
so much happier and better off blinds her fond parents to the
dangers of her new situation, where she is sure to contract a
dislike to all useful occupation, and to look upon scanty means and
plain clothing as a disgrace. If the re-action is bad for a grown-up
person, it is almost destructive to a child who is incapable of
moral reflection. Whenever I saw little Addie, and remarked the
growing coldness of her manner towards us, my heart reproached me
for having exposed her to temptation.
Still, in the eye of the world, she was much better situated than
she could possibly be with us. The heart of the parent could alone
understand the change.
So sensible was her father of this alteration, that the first time
he paid us a visit he went and brought home his child.
"If she remain so long away from us, at her tender years," he said,
"she will cease to love us. All the wealth in the world would not
compensate me for the love of my child."
The removal of my sister rendered my separation from my husband
doubly lonely and irksome. Sometimes the desire to see and converse
with him would press so painfully on my heart that I would get up in
the night, strike a light, and sit down and write him a long letter,
and tell him all that was in my mind; and when I had thus unburdened
my spirit, the letter was committed to the flames, and after
fervently commending him to the care of the Great Father of mankind,
I would lay down my throbbing head on my pillow beside our
first-born son, and sleep tranquilly.
It is a strange fact that many of my husband's letters to me were
written at the very time when I felt those irresistible impulses to
hold communion with him. Why should we be ashamed to admit openly
our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of
those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship
and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth?
Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief
words, tell us in one pithy sentence that "if we talk of the devil
he is sure to appear." While the name of a long-absent friend is
in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence.
