The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 7

'If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all;' but once resolved to
climb, leave thy caution at the foot. Before you give battle to the enemy,
be cautious, reckon well your chances of winning or losing; above all,
be sure of the justice of your cause; but once flung into the fierce fight,
then with 'Dieu et mon droit!' for your battle-cry, let not 'discretion' be
any 'part of' your 'valor.'
Then your careful, hesitating people are cautious where there is no need
of caution, they feel their way on the highways and by-ways of life, as
you have seen a person when fording a stream with whose bed he was
unacquainted. I'd rather fall down and pick myself up a dozen times a
day, than thus grope my way along.

There is Nancy Primrose. I have good reason to remember her. She was,
in my childhood, always held up to me as a pattern. She used to come
to school with such smooth, clean pantalets, while mine were splashed
with mud, drabbled by the wet grass, or all wrinkles from having been
rolled up. She would go around a rod to avoid a mud-puddle, or if she
availed herself of the board laid down for the benefit of pedestrians, she
never, as I was sure to do, stepped on one end, so the other came down
with a splash. The starch never was taken out of her sun-bonnet by the
rain, for if there was 'a cloud as big as a man's hand,' she took an
umbrella. It was well that she never climbed the mountain-side, for she
would have surely fallen. It was well that she never crossed a foot-log,
unless it was hewn and had a railing, for she would have certainly been
ducked. It was well she never went on thin ice, (she didn't venture till
the other girls had tried it,) she would have broken through. Her caution,
I must say, was of the right kind; it always preceded her undertaking.
She had such a 'wholesome fear of consequences,' that she never played
truant, as one whom I could mention did. Indeed, antecedents and
consequents were always associated in her mind. She never risked any
thing for herself or any one else.... Of course, she is still Miss Nancy, (I
am 'Aunt Molly' to all my friends' children,) though it is said that she
might have been Mrs.----. Mr.----, a widower of some six months'
standing, thinking it time to commence his probation--the engagement
preparatory to being received into the full matrimonial
connection--made some advances toward Miss Nancy, she being the
nearest one verging on 'an uncertain age,' (you know widowers always
go the rounds of the old maids.) Though, in a worldly point of view, he
was an eligible match, she, from her fixed habits of caution,
half-hesitated as to whether it was best to receive his attentions--he got
in a hurry (you know widowers are always in a hurry) and married
some one else.... I don't think Miss Nancy would venture to love any
man before marriage--engagements are as liable to be broken as thin ice,
and it isn't best to throw away love. As for her giving it unasked!...
How peacefully her life flows along--or rather, it hardly flows at all,
about as much as a mill-pond--with such a small bit of heaven and
earth reflected in it. Oh! that placidity!--better have some great, heavy,
splashing sorrow thrown into it than that ever calm surface.... As for
me--it was a good thing that I was a girl--rash, never counting the cost,

without caution, it is well that I have to tread the quiet paths of
domestic life. Had I been a boy, thrown out into the rough, dangerous
world, I'd have rushed over the first precipice, breaking my moral, or
physical neck, or both. As it is, had I been like Miss Nancy, I would
have been spared many an agony, and--many an exquisite joy.
You may be sure that I have well learned all of caution's maxims; they
have, all my life, been dinged into my ears. Now I hate most maxims.
Though generally considered epitomes of wisdom, they should, almost
all of them, be received with a qualification. What is true in one case is
not true in another; what is good for one, is not good for another. You,
as far as you are concerned, in exactly the same manner draw two lines,
one on a plane, the other on a sphere; one line will be straight, the other
curved. So does every truth, even, make a different mark on different
minds. This is one reason that I hate most maxims, they never
accommodate themselves to circumstances or individuals. The maxim
that would make one man a careful economist, would