English poet and essayist (1743-1825)
If I were a king, the mischief would be much greater; for I should ruin not only myself, but my subjects.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
A Star appears; they marked its kindling beam
O'er night's dark breast unusual splendours stream:
The lesser lights that deck the sky,
In wondering silence softly gliding by,
At the fair stranger seemed to gaze,
Or veiled their trembling fires and half withdrew their rays.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"The Epiphany"
Education, in its largest sense, is a thing of great scope and extent. It includes the whole process by which a human being is formed to be what he is, in habits, principles, and cultivation of every kind.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
As most of the unhappiness in the world arises rather from disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of the utmost consequence to attain just notions of the laws and order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves with fruitless wishes, or give way to groundless and unreasonable discontent.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with you from the schools must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust things; and for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed your understanding with plain, household truths.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
You might no doubt with the lamp of Aladdin, or Fortunatus's purse, have every thing you wished for; but do you know what the consequences would be? Very pleasant, I should think. On the contrary, you would become whimsical and capricious, and would soon grow tired of every thing. We do not receive pleasure long from any thing that is not bought with our own labor: this is one of those permanent laws of nature which man cannot change; and therefore pleasure and exertion will never be separated even in imagination in a well-regulated mind.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Still it will be urged that man is a rational being, and therefore reason is the only true ground of belief, and authority is not reason. This point requires a little discussion. That he who receives a truth upon authority has not a reasonable belief, is in one sense true, since he has not drawn it from the result of his own inquiries; but in another it is certainly false, since the authority itself may be to him the best of all reasons for believing it. There are few men who, from the exercise of the best powers of their minds, could derive so good a reason for believing a mathematical truth as the authority of Sir Isaac Newton. There are two principles deeply implanted in the mind of man, without which he could never attain knowledge,— curiosity, and credulity; the former to lead him to make discoveries himself, the latter to dispose him to receive knowledge from others. The credulity of a child to those who cherish him, is in early life unbounded. This is one of the most useful instincts he has, and is in fact a precious advantage put into the hands of the parent for storing his mind with ideas of all kinds. Without this principle of assent he could never gain even the rudiments of knowledge. He receives it, it is true, in the shape of prejudice; but the prejudice itself is founded upon sound reasoning, and conclusive though imperfect experiment He finds himself weak, helpless, and ignorant; he sees in his parent a being of knowledge and powers more than his utmost capacity can fathom; almost a god to him. He has often done him good, therefore he believes he loves him; he finds him capable of giving him information upon all the subjects he has applied to him about; his knowledge seems unbounded, and his information has led him right whenever he has had occasion to try it by actual experiment: the child does not draw out his little reasonings into a logical form, but this is to him a ground of belief that his parent knows every thing, and is infallible. Though the proposition is not exactly true, it is sufficiently so for him to act upon: and when he believes in his parent with implicit faith, he believes upon grounds as truly rational as when, in after life, he follows the deductions of his own reason.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Happy is he to whom, in the maturer season of life, there remains one tried and constant friend: their affection, mellowed by the hand of time, endeared by the recollection of enjoyments, toils, and even sufferings shared together, becomes the balm, the consolation, and the treasure of life.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
No man is so rich as to buy every thing his unrestrained fancy might prompt him to desire. Hounds and horses, pictures and statues and buildings, will exhaust any fortune. There is hardly any one taste so simple or innocent, but what a man might spend his whole estate in it, if he were resolved to gratify it to the utmost. A nobleman may just as easily ruin himself by extravagance as a private man, and indeed many do so.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights
Than all their largest wealth, and thro' the heart
Each joy and new-born hope
With softest influence breathes.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"Ode to Spring"
Do you ask, then, what will educate your son? Your example will educate him.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
And oft the starry scope of heaven beneath,
When day's tumultuous sounds had ceased to breathe,
With fixed feet, as rooted there,
Through the long night they drew the chilly air;
While sliding o'er their head,
In solemn silence dread,
The' ethereal orbs their shining course pursued,
In holy trance enwrapt the sages stood,
With folded arms laid on their reverent breast,
And to that Heaven they knew, their orisons addressed.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"The Epiphany"
Do not expect the mind of your son is to resemble yours, as your figure is reflected by the image in the glass; he was formed, like you, to use his own judgment, and he claims the high privilege of his nature.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Remember that the true pleasures of life consist in the exertion of our own powers. If you were to feast every day upon roasted partridges from off Dresden china, and dip your whiskers in syllabubs and creams, it could never give you such true enjoyment as the commonest food procured by the labor of your own paws.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
With regard to the choice of friends, there is little to say: for a friend was never chosen. A secret sympathy, the attraction of a thousand nameless qualities; a charm in the expression of the countenance, even in the voice, or the manner, a similarity of circumstances, — these are the things that begin attachment, which is fostered by being in a situation which gives occasion for frequent intercourse; and this depends upon chance. Reason and prudence have, however, much to do in restraining our choice of improper or dangerous friends. They are improper, if our line of life and pursuits are so totally different as to make it improbable we shall long keep up an intimacy, at least without sacrificing to it connections of duty; they are dangerous, if they are in any respect vicious.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
We can only love what we know.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Are children then to be neglected? Surely not: but having given them the instruction and accomplishments which their situation in life requires, let us reject superfluous solicitude, and trust that their characters will form themselves from the spontaneous influence of good examples, and circumstances which impel them to useful action.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise?
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"
You speak of beginning the education of your son. The moment he was able to form an idea his education was already begun; the education of circumstances — insensible education—which, like insensible perspiration, is of more constant and powerful effect, and of infinitely more consequence to the habit, than that which is direct and apparent.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
The shadows spread apace; while meekened Eve,
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Through the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"