Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1872-01-24
Hiss Harriet Hartineau

AZ hao perhaps a A41sAZlccat-c -utpE -@S
10 many readers Of Mr.. Fields :. Whisp or.
periug Gallery" 10 the AtI2atlo Monthly.
to be informed through Mr.. Hawthorne's
unpublished diary, quoted therein that
| Miss Harriet NaItineaU did not believe 10
| any hereafter. Hawthorne left, he says,
her genial presence with she sad thought
that her own boundary Of any kind Of exist =
enoe hereafter was the grave, to which we
are an Fastening.
Miss Nartinelu would seem. from all
the other accounts given BY different " in
! itervievers " Of her, to have been not al
together tne deaf conversational bore, an
Introduction TO whom was So much dreaded
and so persistentiy and ingeniously avoided
or JeTaded1 by the late Mr.. j. X. Pauid
ing. as mentioned ia late paragraph 10
,le Eaenizg Post Personally. perhaps,
sac was BOT IN attractive visitaut. going
about With her ear-trumpet, picking up
things ike aa elephant with his circulating
trunk ia a menagerie. She was, also, ss
every reader knows. an old maid. But
she was no cheap moral female PecksnIff,
o. an uncertain, OF rather very certain,
age, so vel understood by Dickens, who Is
always found out, and '' cannot continue ia
long stay Perhaps she never vas ia
love. very possibly she never had G senti-
mental lover. Neither supposjtjon Is sub
stanyiatad In any account Of her. but one
thing IS quite certain, that Wnou she
penne3 the lolloviuy beautiful description
OF tine UniEersaitv of love. she felt what
sae was writing about. even II she had
nevor szporioneod II aud la tho very
contradiction 70 the assumption that sac
did not believe In q hereafter, for she says
e There needs no other proof that happi-
ness Is the most wholesome moral atmos-
pheCe. and that in which the Immortality
Of man Is destined ultimately TO thrive,
than the elevation Of soul, the religious
aspiration which attends the first assurance.
the first sober certainty Of Love, And
she continues
Strengthened. sustained v.vihed by
thst most mysterious power. union With
another spirit, it feels itself well set forth
on the way Of victory over evil. sent out
ooD4uerinz and % conquer. There is no
other such crisis Ia human life. No emo
tions SO divine as those of the spirit hecom-
ing conscious that it Is beloved arc known
to any beings beneath the sun. be 1t the
poasaBt-girl in ihe meadow. or the daughter
of the esga reposing IN her fathers conf
dense OF she artisan beside has loom, or
tho msn o. letters masing by his freside,
The warrior about 70 strike the decisive
blow tor the liberties of nation IS nos q
S -tste Of such lofty resolution as those
who, oy Joining hesrJs, are laying their
hands on the wide realm of futurlty for
their own. The statesman Is tue leader of
q nation the warrior Is the grace q an
age; the philosopher l. the birth OF q
thousand years but the lover, where Is
he not? Wherever parents look upon
their children. there he has been wherever
children are at play together. there he
soon will be +. wherever there are roofs
under which men dwell, wherever there is /
an atmosphere vibrating with human |
voices, there Is the lover, aud there Is his |
lofty worship going on, Unspeakabie, but |
revealed 10 the brightness Of ;hs the eye,
majesty Of his presence. and the hign /
temper Of the discourse. Men baye been
and perverse; they have done
what they could to counteract, to debase, |
this most heavenly influence OF their life. |
But the laws Of their Maker are too
strong the benignity of their Father Is
too patient and fervent, for their opposition
70 withstand the true love continues, and /
viii continue 70 send ~ its homage amidst |
the meditations Of every eventjde s1d the
song Of tbe morning stars