Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/305

Rh that can be sayd or done, but either that or something like it hath been done and sayd before."

Many of the paragraphs written in pain and weakness show how keenly she had watched the course of events, and what power of characterization she had to use, three of them especially holding the quiet sarcasm in which she occasionally indulged, though always with a tacit apology for the possession of such a quality. "Dimne eyes are the concomitants of old age; and short-sightednes in those that are eyes of a Republique, foretells a declineing state."

"Authority without wisdome, is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish."

"Ambitious men are like hops that never rest climbing so long as they have anything to stay upon; but take away their props, and they are of all, the most dejected."

The perpetual dissensions, religious and political, which threatened at times the absolute destruction of the Colony, were all familiar to her, and she draws upon them for illustrations of many points, others being afforded by her own experience with the eight children to whom she proved so devoted and tender a mother. Like other mothers, before and since, their differences in temperament and conduct, seem to have been a perpetual surprise, but that she had tact enough to meet each on his or her own ground, or gently draw them toward hers, seems evident at every point. That they loved her tenderly is equally evident, the diary of her second son mentioning her always as "my dear and honored mother," and all of them, though separated by early marriages for most of them, returning as often as practicable to the old