A Victorian Scrapbook

FIDELITY. – Never forsake a friend. When enemies gather thick and fast around him – when sickness falls heavy on his heart – when the world is dark and cheerless, this is the time to try the friendship. They who turn from the scene of distress or offer reason why they should be excluded from extending their sympathy and aid, betray their hypocrisy, and prove that selfish motives only prompt or move them. If you have a friend who loves you – who has studied for your interest and happiness – defended you when persecuted and troubled, be sure to sustain him in his adversity. Let him feel that his former kindness is appreciated, and that his friendship was not lavished on you for naught.

Real Fidelity may be rare, but it exists in the heart. Who has not seen and felt its power? They only deny its worth and power who have never loved a friend, or labored to make one happy. The good, the kind, the affectionate, and virtuous see and feel this heavenly principle, for heavenly it is; it is the fruit gathered from a sacred germ implanted by heaven.

And true fidelity has its reward. It may be slighted by some, overlooked by others; but pure minded men cultivate and cherish fond and undying love for it.

As the diamond is found in the darkness of the mine, as the lightning shoots with the most vivid flashes from the darkest cloud, so does fidelity proceed from a heart susceptible to the calls of the deepest melancholy, and shows itself brighter and stronger in the adversity of a friend.

THE MOTHER. – Heaven has imprinted on a mothers face something that claims kindred with the skies. The waking, watchful eye, which keeps its tireless vigils over her slumbering child – the tender look, the angelic smile, are objects which neither the pencil nor chisel can reach, and which poetry fails in attempting to portray. Upon the eulogies of the most eloquent tongue we should find Tecke written. It is in the sympathies of the heart alone where lives the lovely picture, and the eye may look abroad in vain for its counterpart in the works of art.