would that our scrupulous sires had dared to leave
less scanty measure of those graceful rites
and usages, whose due return invites
a stir of mind too natural to deceive;
giving the memory help when she would weave
a crown of hope! i dread the boasted lights
that all too often are but fiery blights,
killing the bud o’er which in vain we grieve.
wordsworth.
“i am afraid sir,” continued the old man, as we resumed our walk and our conversation, “that you will begin to think my tale of things gone by both tiresome and unprofitable. to me it is interesting, because, as i tell my story, my mind goes back to the days of my youth, and the early feelings, both of joy and sorrow, return to my heart as my narrative calls them up, almost as freshly as when the scenes were acting before my eyes. but that the task is unprofitable, i cannot help sometimes confessing to myself, however pleasing it may be to my feelings. walker, and all that concerned him, are gone to the grave. the world has marched on with wonderful strides since his day; his clumsy spinning wheel is now rendered useless by machinery; and even in his own little vale, a child’s hand can, in one short week, produce a greater quantity and a much finer quality of well spun yarn than he, poor man, twisted together during the long and laborious years of his whole life! why, then, should one look to him, and not to that child, as a model? i feel that it would be absurd to take the latter rather than the former as an example, yet i confess i cannot assign the reason for it: and thus it is, that when i am told that the present age is in advance of the last, and ought rather to be my guide than the ways of antiquity, i am p. 44often driven into a difficulty, though never convinced;—what think you of the matter?”
“your difficulty,” said i, “seems to arise from confounding progress in arts and sciences with progress in moral and mental power. the one is as different from the other as possible, nor does the existence of the one at all imply the presence of the other. the child you have referred to as being able to spin so much better than walker,—could it reason like walker? would it act and feel like him?—by no means; and so neither may an age, distinguished for mechanical progress, excel one of darkness with regard to such matters, and yet devoted to pursuits and studies which call forth the powers of the mind, and exercise the best qualities of the heart. shakspere and milton might have made sorry cotton-spinners; no farmer now would plough, like elisha, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, yet where is the farmer who would surpass the prophet in zeal, and eloquence, and devotion to his master’s service? never fear, then, my friend, that the example of good mr. walker can grow old and useless; we can easily cut better peats than he did by the help of better tools, but when shall we surpass him in shrewd observation of the face of nature, in industry, in devotion to god, in kindness and good-will to man! hear what is said of him by a great-grandson, who may well be prouder of being a descendant of robert walker, than if he had come of the purest blood in europe:—
“‘his house was a nursery of virtue. all the inmates were industrious, and cleanly, and happy. sobriety, neatness, quietness, characterized the whole family. no railings, no idleness, no indulgence of passion were permitted. every child, however young, had its appointed engagements; every hand was busy. knitting, spinning, reading, writing, mending clothes, making shoes, were by the different children constantly performed. the father himself sitting amongst them and guiding their thoughts, was engaged in the same operations.
