251 
hopes: her friends should consider her as one more 
treasure laid up for them in heaven; a beloved ob- 
ject secured from all possibility of trouble, doubt, 
or fear; possibly a guardian angel, blest with the 
means of directing their steps, and smoothing their 
path to that abode where minds like theirs shall be 
fully gratified with unembittered love and joy. 
You do me the honour to consult me about 
mental as well as bodily ailments (in gratitude for 
which I only wish you a better adviser). I shall ven- 
ture to encourage you about my dear young friend 
Douglas. Believe me, you have little to fear about 
him ; I say /¢t/e, because a good mother can never 
be without fear, but I know him perhaps as well as 
you do. His feeling affectionate heart, and his 
piety to you, so different from a blind fondness, 
are the best things you could wish in him: firm- 
ness and resolution will come in due time. “ Filial 
piety is of more value than all the incense which 
Persia offers to the sun ;” it is intended by Provi- 
dence to prepare the mind for religion, which is 
only the same feeling ripened, and directed to an 
higher object, which a good parent ought carefully 
and very judiciously to point out. And here I can- 
not but observe, what I believe you do not want 
to have pointed out, that you are in your children 
one of the happiest people I know: and what 
troubles will not such comforts alleviate ? 
I know not what to say to you about Italian 
poetry: without doubt there is plenty of it, but I 
feel myself unequal to recommend any. You guess 
rightly, that I have learned to like Italian music, 
