Never abnegating her
own proper independence, but always genially preserving it, and what
belongs to it--cooking, washing, child-nursing, house-tending--she
beams sunshine out of all these duties, and makes them illustrious.
Physiologically sweet and sound, loving work, practical, she yet knows
that there are intervals, however few, devoted to recreation, music,
leisure, hospitality--and affords such intervals. Whatever she does,
and wherever she is, that charm, that indescribable perfume of genuine
womanhood attends her, goes with her, exhales from her, which belongs
of right to all the sex, and is, or ought to be, the invariable
atmosphere and common aureola of old as well as young.
My dear mother once described to me a resplendent person, down on Long
Island, whom she knew in early days. She was known by the name of the
Peacemaker. She was well toward eighty years old, of happy and sunny
temperament, had always lived on a farm, and was very neighborly,
sensible and discreet, an invariable and welcom'd favorite, especially
with young married women. She had numerous children and grandchildren.
She was uneducated, but possess'd a native dignity. She had come to
be a tacitly agreed upon domestic regulator, judge, settler of
difficulties, shepherdess, and reconciler in the land. She was a
sight to draw near and look upon, with her large figure, her profuse
snow-white hair, (uncoil'd by any head-dress or cap,) dark eyes, clear
complexion, sweet breath, and peculiar personal magnetism.
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