The chief respects in which they might be likened, without
much stress, to the harmless creatures we have mentioned, were their
love for each other, together with their total inoffensiveness as
regarded the outside world; and we are delighted to say this, for we see
so many of the multitudinous sides of human nature dark and depraved,
that we are apt to think there is no bright side at all. Nor shall we
let slip the opportunity of saying, at the risk of being considered very
simple, that of all the gifts of felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer
tells, upon mankind by the gods, no one is so perfect and beautiful as
the love that exists between a good mother and a good daughter.
For so much we may be safe by having recourse to instinct, which is
deeper than any secondary causes we poor mortals can see. But beyond
this, there were special reasons tending to this same result of mutual
affection, which come more within the scope of our observation. In
explanation of which, we may say that the mother, having something in
her power during her husband's life, had foreseen the advantages of
using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter in an
art of far more importance then than now--that of artistic, needlework.
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