t
flourish under that holy necessity--everything foul and bad fade away;
and that no quarrel or unkindness could ever be between pilgrims
travelling together through time to eternity, whether their path lead
through an Eden or a waste. Habit itself comes with humble hearts to be
gracious and benign; they who have once loved, will not, for that very
reason, cease to love; memory shall brighten when hope decays; and if
the present be not now so blissful, so thrilling, so steeped in rapture
as it was in the golden prime, yet shall it without repining suffice to
them whose thoughts borrow unconsciously sweet comforts from the past
and future, and have been taught by mutual cares and sorrows to indulge
tempered expectations of the best earthly felicity. And is it not so?
How much tranquillity and contentment in human homes! Calm onflowings of
life shaded in domestic privacy, and seen but at times coming out into
the open light! What brave patience under poverty! What beautiful
resignation in grief! Riches take wings to themselves and flee away--yet
without and within the door there is the decency of a changed, not an
unhappy lot--The clouds of adversity darken men's characters even as if
they were the shadows of dishonour, but conscience quails not in the
gloom--The well out of which humility hath her daily drink, is nearly
dried up to the very spring, but she upbraideth not Heaven--Children,
those flowers that make the hovel's earthen floor delightful as the
glades of Paradise, wither in a day, but there is holy comfort in the
mother's tears; nor are the groans of the father altogether without
relief--for they have gone whither they came, and are blooming now in
the bowers of heaven.

Reverse the picture--and tremble for the fate of those whom God hath
made one, and whom no one man must put asunder. In common natures, what
hot and sensual passions, whose gratification ends in indifference,
disgust, loathing, or hatred! What a power of misery, from fretting to
madness, lies in that mean but mighty word--Temper! The face, to whose
meek beauty smiles seemed native during the days of virgin love, shows
now but a sneer, a scowl, a frown, or a glare of scorn. The shape of
those features is still fine--the eye of the gazelle--the Grecian nose
and forehead--the ivory teeth, so small and regular--and thin line of
ruby lips breathing Circassian luxury--the snow-drifts of the bosom
still heave there--a lovelier waist Apollo never enci