I have seen her prepare herself and children,
with only the luxury of cleanliness, to receive her husband, who
returning weary home in the evening, found smiling babes and a
clean hearth. My heart has loitered in the midst of the group, and
has even throbbed with sympathetic emotion, when the scraping of
the well known foot has raised a pleasing tumult.
Whilst my benevolence has been gratified by contemplating this
artless picture, I have thought that a couple of this description,
equally necessary and independent of each other, because each
fulfilled the respective duties of their station, possessed all
that life could give. Raised sufficiently above abject poverty not
to be obliged to weigh the consequence of every farthing they
spend, and having sufficient to prevent their attending to a frigid
system of economy which narrows both heart and mind. I declare, so
vulgar are my conceptions, that I know not what is wanted to render
this the happiest as well as the most respectable situation in the
world, but a taste for literature, to throw a little variety and
interest into social converse, and some superfluous money to give
to the needy, and to buy books. For it is not pleasant when the
heart is opened by compassion, and the head active in arranging
plans of usefulness, to have a prim urchin continually twitching
back the elbow to prevent the hand from drawing out an almost empty
purse, whispering at the same time some prudential maxim about the
priority of justice.
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