- Project Runeberg -  Life, letters, and posthumous works of Fredrika Bremer /
203

(1868) [MARC] Author: Fredrika Bremer Translator: Emily Nonnen With: Charlotte Bremer
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LETTERS. 208

The chrysalis — this body of earth’s dust, which envelops
and fetters Psyche’s wings — that it is which binds, which
impedes, which burdens you and me and most people.
The chrysalides of home are the household cares with
all their concomitant difficulties and hardships. JI know
many married women, who, like yourself, endure and man- ~
age these against their inclination, from a mere sense of
duty and necessity; but to you, as well as to them, the
thought must be very encouraging and consolatory under
all the moments devoted, to all appearance uselessly, to
speculations about eating and other household duties, that
it is only under this chrysalis that hoime’s Psyche can de-
velop herself. But I hope meanwhile that in future
this machinery of life may be simplified and made more
easy. This would be especially desirable for our mothers
of families here in the North. Be this as it may, our soul
becomes materialized from too much occupation with the
niatertal.

18th May, 1839.

True it is that a mother, a housewife in Sweden, is
obliged, more than in southern countries, to devote herself
to practical life in her house and in her home — provided
she wishes to fulfill her duties — and that she must deny
herself, comparatively, many of the enjoyments of intel-
lectual life and of the fine arts. And if human worth
consisted in these, or if they essentially contributed to the
development of our eternal nature, then it would be a hard
fate to be a wife and a mother in Sweden. But it is not
so. That which really constitutes human worth is moral
virtue and an*exalted mind; it is only this which unites
man with God; which gives the rank of citizen in His
kingdom here on earth and in heaven. Oh! my dear
Frances, this was always a delightful thought to me, and
this doctrine of Christianity, which equalizes all ranks on
earth, which weakens the power of all external contingen-

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