Philadelphia, November 1850
GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia, November 1850
EDITOR'S TABLE.
MOORE.
ARMSTRONG.
THE age of music has come for America. The national enthusiams which has greeted and welcomed the sweet nightingale of Europe to our shores proves that our people have souls to appreciate the highest kind of this heavenly art, namely, vocal music. The perfection of this melody can only be reached by the female voice; hence we find another reason besides personal beauty why woman should be called angelic. Jenny Lind adds the third and holiest requisite to this claim on our hearts - excellence of character. She is a woman who brings honor to her sex and glory to humanity; so gifted and so good; so rich and so bounteous; seemingly so far removed from care and sorrow, and yet so ready to sympathize with the poor and afflicted. The melody of her voice seems but the natural expression of her sweet, earnest desire to confer happiness on the world. And this is the secret of her great popularity. This deep swell of benevolent love for humanity (which her heart, by its overflowings in charity of deeds, as well as her lips, by kind words and pleasant smiles, testifies) brings home to almost every person the ideal hopes of making earth a paradise, which, at some time in our lives, we all cherish. "I'd sow the earth with flowers, had I the seed," is the spontaneous feeling of almost every heart; but few, probably, would fulfill these ideal fancies were they entrusted with the power. Prosperity corrupts; success dazzles; the false is magnified by glitter and tumult, and those who are thus surrounded soon cease to search in the shade for humble merit, or listen for the still small voice of truth. But Jenny Lind has never suffered the love of the false to enter into her heart. Simple in her tastes, and true to the moral instincts of her woman's nature, she keeps her beautiful soul open to the influence that enkindle hope and strengthen genius. While her nature moves thus in harmony with the music of her voice, she must - she will draw the hearts of the people to love and honor her more and more. Some complain of the enthusiasm created by her presence, and denounce it as folly or madness. We do not thus consider it. We are glad to see this warmth of popular sentiment manifested, when it is done towards a woman who merits the homage. Jenny Lind has received from Heaven one of the richest gifts of genius; she employs this gift nobly. We thank her for the lesson she reads to all gifted women, that virtue is their highest glory; we thank her for the example she gives to our daughters, that the highest genius can be simple and natural as a village school-girl; we thank her for the sweet pleasure, without meretricious arts, which she confers on the guardians of our country's weal, and on the youth who are our country's hope. May her progress through our land be to her as pleasant as the tones of her sweet voice in the song are to all who hear them!
The following pretty poem seems a fitting close for our impromptu tribute to the human nightingale.
SUMMER FLOWERS.
BY THE HERMIT.
AFTER the song, comes the sermon - a true word and worth treasuring, written by a woman who must love music, because it is the natural expression of joy.
A TEXT FROM ST. PAUL.
"Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice."
ALL seek for happiness. And would not one be called a benefactor of the race who could point to the plain, unerring path to the highest happiness of which the soul is capable? And oh, how boundless is that capacity!
St. Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say rejoice." Let us think on these words now as though they had never met our ear before. St. Paul had large experience, and his clear, powerful mind, his philosophy, hissimple integrity, his noble independence, give weight to his testimony, independently of his inspiration. And he found matter of rejoicing - rejoicing always in the Lord. Let us rejoice in God; let us rejoice in his power, for it is ever exerted for the highest good of his children, and many a bright manifestation of it hath he given us. "It is written all over this great world of ours."
Let us rejoice in his mercy - mercy inexhaustible, that awaken hope in the darkest heart.
Let us rejoice in his love, that pervades the whole universe - subtle as the sunlight, life-giving as the air. Let us rejoice in all his ordinatious and laws; for the close observer will find abundant matter for joy in their adaptation to human nature.
Let us rejoice in prayer, by which the humblest soul can come near - oh, no human being can conceive how near - to Almighty God! In which the afflicated can pour out all their sorrows to a sympathizing Father, sure to receive comfort unspeakable, and peace that passeth all understanding; where the guilty may find mercy and love greater than their guilt; where the Christian may give voice to the praise and thanksgiving that swell his heart, and anticipate the joys of heaven. Oh, let us rejoice that the soul is only required to worship an inifinte being! Nothing less - we speak it with humility - nothing less could fill the soul with its boundless aspirations - its illimitable capacities. All the wonders of the heavens, the munificence of earth, fail to satisfy the soul - the image of the Infinite. It is ever reaching up, up to God!
Let us rejoice beyond measure in the infinity of God, and again I say rejoice.
DIARIES. - Every young lady who aspires to the dignity of having a well-cultivated mind should keep a diary; say from the time she is fifteen till she reaches the regulated age of twenty-five. An earlier attempt would not often be perservered in; and after twenty-five, a woman, if married, will find her duties are calling into requisition all her faculties and attainments; in this will be active, needful improvement, which is far better than speculative goodness.
If any young lady is ambitious of becoming an authoress, let her keep a diary for a year, and she can judge better of the province on which she would enter. Devote one half hour each morning to recording the events of the preceding day, and at the end of the year there will be a large volume - of more value to the writer, probably, than all she could obtain by scribbling for the periodicals during her lifetime. It is not the money we get, but the wisdom we gain, which makes authorship desirable for a woman.
But keeping a diary is very useful to a single lady who has leisure time on her hands. It is the best corrective of that fault of the age, excessive reading without reflection. One may read mechanically, as it were, but not thus heedlessly can she write. The effort to embody her thoughts in language, seize her truant fancies and bind them down on the page before her, while she contemplates their gossamer wings, will compel the young lady to think. And if, at the end of each month, she will carefully read over her diary, faithfully kept, of her actions, thoughts, hopes, and resolutions, she will be sure to correct her own faults; she will become ashamed of wasting her time on trifles; she will find out, and pursue a course of self-training, the only mode of education which makes one really enjoy what is learned.
TO CORRESPONDENTS. - Articles accepted: "The Baroness Von Stullbert," "The Flowers," "Why should our hearts feel dull?" "The Forest Stream," "The Departed," "Lord Linn," "Simon of Cyrene," "I Love Thee," "To Hennie," "The Prayer of the Shepherd," "Song - You have stolen my heart." &c.
"F. A. H." is informed that Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution" first appeared in Godey's Lady's Book.
"H. W.," of Detroit, Mich. - Received your kind letter; but it is really too complimentary to publish. The same reason we must give "T. B.," of Montrose, Pa.
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