Cacoethes Scribendi/ Catharine Maria Sedgwick
Truly this is not a story that addresses human struggle or social injustice. Sedgwick mentioned nothing about abolition, which was quite an issue at that time. She wrote a little bit about women's effort in asserting their subjectivity through writing but eventually she confirmed the conventional value of family and marriage in this story, lacking the edge manifested in works like Virginia Woolf's.
However, it is still a lovely story, revealing the tranquil side of rural life that had not been tainted with the bustle of industrialism yet. What Sedgwick has done is, as is written Norton introduction, recording "ways of life already gone or rapidly disappearing from New England"(460). But the peculiar aspect she presents here is a delightful one. Undoubtedly, reading this story will have you smile warmly in a sunny morning, when everything appears to be brighter under the light of hopefulness.
To My Dear and Loving Husband/ Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers Cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
1678
面對新世界的原始，妳驚訝卻順從，
妳認為那是神的旨意。
面對舊世界的文明，妳謙遜低下頭
顱，卻仍要歡呼，為女王記下功業。
妳無意與男性爭功，卻穩穩並行於
伴侶身側。
妳用深沈廣闊的愛，抵擋了惡劣的
氣候和艱困的生活，並以孱弱身軀
孕育孩子。
妳將未開拓的荒原，變成了溫馨的
英國莊園。這是值得讚賞的功績。
即使，妳的荒原，一直都是別人的
家園。