Alida; or, Miscellaneous Sketches of Incidents During the Late American War.: Founded on FactComfield, Amelia Stratton
History
Alida; or, Miscellaneous Sketches of Incidents During the Late American War.: Founded on Fact
Comfield, Amelia Stratton
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Juvenile fiction
"Peace, wing'd in fairer worlds above,"
Has ta'en thy form away from this;
Has beckon'd thee to seats of glory,
To realms of everlasting bliss.
[John Bowring: Benevolence (hymn), stz. 2, lines 5-8:
Peace, winged in fairer worlds above,
Shall bend her down to brighten this,
When all man's labour shall be love
And all his thoughts--a brother's bliss.]
So rich in piety and worth,
Too soon, alas! lamented one,
Thou hast been call'd away from earth,
And heaven has claim'd thee for its own.
[James G. Brooks and Mary E. Brooks: To Cora (in _The Rivals of
Este, and Other Poems_, 1829), stz. 3, lines 1-4:
Cora! thou wast not formed for earth:
So bright thy angel beauty shone,
So rich in innocence and worth,
That heaven has claimed thee for its own.]
CHAPTER III.
"'T is by degrees the youthful mind expands; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm;
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care."
"Delightful task, to rear the tender thought,
To pour the new instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast."
[Thomson: _Seasons_: end of "Spring":
By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought.
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.]
The period at length arrived, when it became necessary that Alida should
receive further instruction in the various branches of female
literature. With this view, her father thought proper to change the
place of her studies from the village school to the New-York Seminary.
It was his idea that nothing afforded so pleasing a prospect as the
graces of beauty, aided by wisdom and useful knowledge, and that care
should be taken that the mind should first be initiated in the solid
acquirements, before the embellishments of education should be allowed
to take up the attention or engross the thoughts; and that the first
purposes of the teacher should be directed to endeavour to cause the
mental powers of the scholar to be excited, in the first place, to
attain to whatever is most useful and necessary, and that suitable
application and industry was the only means whereby we may gain
celebrity in any art or science, or therein arrive at any degree of
perfection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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