[6] "Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise, that has survived the fall!
Thou art the nurse of virtue--In thine arms
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,
Heav'n-born, and destin'd to the skies again.
Thou art not known, where pleasure is ador'd,
That reeling goddess, with a zoneless waist
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm
Of Novelty, her fickle, frail support;
For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding, in the calm of truth-tried love,
Joys, that her stormy raptures never yield.
Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made
Of honour, dignity, and fair renown!"
[Footnote 6: COWPER.]
But if the Quakers have been accustomed to place one of the sources of
their pleasures in domestic happiness, they may be supposed to be
jealous of every thing that appears to them to be likely to interrupt
it. But they consider dramatic exhibitions, as having this tendency.
These exhibitions, under the influence of plot, dialogue, dress, music,
action, and scenery, particularly fascinate. They excite the person, who
has once seen them, to desire them again. But in proportion as this
desire is gratified, or in proportion as people leave their homes for
the amusements of the stage, they lose their relish, and weaken their
powers, of the enjoyment of domestic society: that is, the Quakers mean
to say, that domestic enjoyments, and those of the theatre, may become,
in time, incompatible in the same persons; and that the theatre ought,
therefore, to be particularly avoided, as an enemy, that may steal them,
and rob them of those pleasures, which experience has taught them to
value, as I have observed before, next to the pleasures of religion.
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