The Lady's Pocket Library (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1809. Excerpt: ... PREFACE TO THE READER. CORNELIA, daughter of Scipio Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, was not more distinguished by the nobility of her rank, than by the lustre of those virtues which adorned her character--a most pleasing and amiable trait of which shines in that little incident recorded to hei immortal honour. A lady of Ionia coming one day to visit her, impatiently expected to be shewn the splendour and magnificence of her toilette, which she supposed, from her rank and fortune, to be very superb. The illustrious Roman prolonged the conversation till her children were at hand, and then introducing them to her visitor--" These, says she, are my jewels." The writer of these letters has so great a veneration for the domestic character of this lady, that she thinks she cannot do better than give them to the public, under, the signature of Cornelia. And whatever their other defects may be, they have this at least to recommend them, that the same sentiments of maternal tenderness which influenced the Roman Matron, gave rise to these epistles, and prompted a fond Mother to become an Author. LETTER I. A DESIRE of happiness is the first propensity of the heart.--It is bor n with us, and to attempt its suppression were equally fruitless and wrong: for the Author of Nature has done nothing in vain, and the happiness he has imprinted on the mind so clear an idea of, has somewhere an existence. Hitherto you have obeyed the impulse of nature in the artless pursuits of childhood: but the time is at hand, when this sweet tranquillity will be interrupted by the bustle of the world, which will not longer permit you to repose in the simple amusements of dressing dolls, pursuing butterflies, or plucking daisies. Sweet dear delights of innocence: on which, as you climb...