Spirit of Chambers's Journal

I only quote this popular expression from a very popular play, in order to warn my juvenile friends against being too much impressed by it. It is a fatal error running through nearly the whole mass of our fictitious literature, that parents are represented as invariably adverse, through their own cruel and selfish views, to the inclinations of their children: either the glowing ambition and high spirit of the boy is repressed by the cold calculations of his father, who wishes him to become a mere creature of the counting-room and shop like himself; or the romantic attachment of the girl to some elegant Orlando, procures her a confinement to her chamber, with no other alternative than that of marrying a detestable suitor, whom her father prefers to all others on account of his wealth. Then, the boy always runs away from his father’s house, and, by following his own inclinations, acquires fortune and fame; while the girl as invariably leaps a three-pair-of-stairs window, and is happy for life with the man of her choice. The same dangerous system pervades the stage, where, I am sorry to remark, every vicious habit of society, and every impropriety in manners and speech, is always sure to be latest abandoned.

I warn my juvenile readers most emphatically against the fallacy and delusion which prevails upon this subject. Fathers, as a class, have not flinty hearts, nor is it their wish or interest, in general, to impose a cruel restraint upon their children. Young people would do well to examine the circumstances in which they stand in regard to their parents and guardians, before believing in the reality of that schism which popular literature would represent as invariably existing between their own class and that of their natural protectors. The greater part, I am sure, of my young friends, must have observed, that, so long as they can remember, they have been indebted for every comfort, and for a thousand acts of kindness and marks of affection, to those endeared beings—their father and mother. The very dawning light of existence must have found them in the enjoyment of many blessings procured to them solely by those two individuals. From them must have been derived the food they ate, the bed they lay on, the learning at school which enabled their minds to appreciate all the transactions and all the wisdom of past times, and, greatest blessing of all, the habits of devotional exercise which admitted them to commune with their almighty Creator. Surely it is not to be supposed that, at a certain time, the kindness and friendship of these two amiable persons is all at once converted into a malignant contrariety to the interests of their children. Is it not far more likely, my dear young friends, that they continue, as ever, to be your well-wishers and benefactors: and that the opposition which they seem to set up so ungraciously against your inclinations, is only caused by their sense of the dangers which threaten you in the event of your being indulged? It may appear to you that no such danger exists: that your parents are actuated by narrower and meaner views than your own, or that they do not allow for the feelings of youth. But they are in reality deeply concerned for the difference of your feelings from theirs; they sympathise with them in secret, from a recollection of what were their own at your period of life; but know, from that very experience of your feelings, and of their result, that it is not good for you that they should be indulged. You are, then, called upon—and I do so now in the name of your best feelings, and as you would wish for present or future happiness—to trust in the reality of that parental tenderness which has never, heretofore, known interruption, and in the superiority of that wisdom with which years and acquaintance with the world have invested your parents.

Perhaps, my young friends, you may have perceived, even in the midst of your childish frolics and careless happiness, that your parents were obliged to deny themselves many indulgences, and toil hard in their respective duties, in order to obtain for you the comforts which you enjoy. You may have perceived that your father, after he had returned home from his daily employment, could hardly be prevailed upon to enter, as you wished, into your sports, or to assist you with your lessons, but would sit, in silent and abstracted reflection, with a deep shade of care upon his brow. On these occasions, perhaps, your amiable and kind protector is considering how difficult it is, even with all his industry, and all his denial of indulgences to himself, to procure for you an exemption from that wretchedness in which you see thousands of other children every day involved. But though many are the cares which your parents experience, in the duty of rearing you to manhood, there is none so severe or so acute as that which comes upon them at the period of your entering into life. Heretofore, you were simple little children, with hardly a thought beyond the family scene in which you have enjoyed so many comforts. Heretofore, with the exception of occasional rebukes from your parents, and trifling quarrels with your brothers and sisters, you have all been one family of love, eating at the same board, kneeling in one common prayer, loving one another, as the dearest of all friends. But now the scene becomes very different. You begin to feel, within yourselves, separate interests, and each thinks himself best qualified to judge for himself. At that moment, my young friends, the anxiety of your parents is a thousand times greater than it ever was before. Your father, probably, is a man of formed habits and character; he occupies a certain respectable station in the world; he has all his life been governed by certain principles, which he found to be conducive to his comfort and dignity. But though he has been able to conduct himself through the world in this satisfactory manner, he is sensible, from the various and perhaps altogether opposite characters which nature has implanted in you, that you may go far wide of what have been his favourite objects, and perhaps be the means of impairing that respectability which he, as a single individual, has hitherto maintained. It is often observed in life, that children who have been reared by poor but virtuous parents, as if their minds had received in youth a horror for every attribute of poverty, exert themselves with such vigorous and consistent fortitude, as to end with fortune and dignity; while the children, perhaps, of these individuals, being brought up without the same acquaintance with want and hardship, are slothful through life, and soon bring back the family to its original condition. If you then have been reared in easy circumstances, you may believe what I now tell you, that your approach to manhood or womanhood will produce a degree of anxiety in the breasts of your parents, such as would, if you knew it, make your very heart bleed for their distress, and cause you to appear as monsters to yourselves if you were to act in any great degree differently from what they wished.

How much, then, is it your duty, my young friends, to treat the advices and wishes of your parents, at this period of life, with respect, knowing, as you do, that the future happiness of those dear and kind beings depends almost solely upon your conducting yourselves properly in your first steps into life! Should you be so unfortunate as to be beguiled into bad company, or to contract a disposition to indulgences which are the very bane of existence, and the ruin of reputation, what must be the agony of those individuals who have hitherto loved and cherished you, and indulged, perhaps, in very different anticipations! On the contrary, should you yield respect, as far as it is in your nature, to the maxims which your father has endeavoured to impress, with what delight does he look forward to your future success—with what happy confidence does he rely upon your virtuous principles! And may there be no happiness to you, in contemplating the happiness which you have given to him? Yes, much, I am sure, and of a purer kind than almost any which earthly things can confer upon you here below.

I have one word to add, and it is addressed to the female part of my juvenile readers. Exactly as parents feel a concern for the first appearance of their sons in the business of life, so do they experience many anxious and fearful thoughts respecting the disposal of their daughters in matrimony. Wedded life, I may inform them, is not the simple matter which it appears prospectively in early and single life. As it involves many serious duties and responsibilities, it must be entered upon with a due regard to the means—above all things, the pecuniary means—of discharging these in a style of respectability, such as may be sufficient to support the dignity of the various connexions of the parties. It is, therefore, necessary that no person of tender years (this is most frequently the lot of the female) should contract the obligations of matrimony, without, if possible, the entire sanction of parents or other protectors. The people of this country happen to entertain, upon this subject, notions of not so strict a kind as are prevalent in most other nations. In almost all continental and all eastern countries, the female is reared by her friends as the destined bride of a particular individual, and till her marriage she is allowed no opportunity of bestowing her affections upon any other. The custom is so ancient and so invariable, that it is submitted to without any feeling of hardship; and as prudence is the governing principle of the relations, the matches are generally as happy as if they were more free. Perhaps such a custom is inapplicable to this country, on account of our different system of domestic life; but I may instance it, to prove to my fair young readers, that the control of parents over their choice of a husband ought to be looked upon as a more tolerable and advantageous thing, than their inclinations might be disposed to allow, or our popular literature represents it to be.