[FROM ELIZA COOK’S JOURNAL.]

A LESSON.

If society ever be wholly corrupted, it will be by the idea that it is already so.  Some cynics believe in virtue, sincerity, and happiness, only as traditions of the past, and by ridicule seek to propagate the notion.  This vain and pedantic philosophy would turn all hearts to stone, and arm every man with suspicion against all others, declaiming against the romance of life, as empty sentimentalism; against the belief in goodness, as youth’s sanguine folly; and the hope of pure happiness, as a fanciful dream, created by a young imagination, to be dissipated by the teaching of a few years’ struggle with the world.

If this be wisdom, I am no philosopher, and I never wish to be one; for sooner would I float upon the giddy current of fancy, to fall among quicksands at last, than travel through a dull and dreary world, without confidence in my companions.  That we may be happy, that we may find sincere friends, that we may meet the good, and enjoy the beautiful on earth, is a creed that will find believers in all hearts unsoured by their own asceticism.  Virtue will sanctify every fireside where we invite her to dwell, and if the clouds of misfortune darken and deform the whole period of our existence, it is a darkness that emanates from ourselves, and a deformity created by us to our own unhappiness.

Yet this is not relating the little story which is the object of my observations.  The axiom which I wish to lay down, to maintain, and to prove correct, is, that married life may be with most people, should be with all, and is with many, a state of happiness.  The reader may smile at my boldness, but the history of the personages I shall introduce to walk their hour on this my little stage, will justify my adopting the maxim.

M. Pierre Lavalles, owner of a vineyard, near a certain village in the south of France, wooed and wedded Mdlle.  Julie Gouchard.  Exactly where they dwelt, and all the precise circumstances of their position, I do not mean to indicate, and if I might offer a hint to my contemporaries, it would be a gentle suggestion that they occupy too much time, paper, and language in geographical and genealogical details, very wearisome, because very unnecessary.  Monsieur Pierre Lavalles then lived in a pretty house, near a certain village in a vine-growing district of the south of France, and when he took his young wife home, he showed her great stores of excellent things, calculated well for the comfortable subsistence of a youthful and worthy couple.  Flowers and blossoming trees shed odor near the lattice windows, verdure soft and green was spread over the garden, and the mantling vine “laid forth the purple grape,” over a rich and sunny plantation near at hand.  The house was small, but neat, and well furnished in the style of the province, and Monsieur and Madame Pierre Lavalles lived very happily in plenty and content.

Here I leave them, and introduce the reader to Monsieur Antoine Perron, notary in the neighboring village.