Lydia Howard Sigourney (1791–1865,) born Lydia Howard Huntley, was an American poetaster. Her sentimental and pious verses were immensely popular in the early-to-mid-19th century, winning her the title “the Mrs. Hemans of America.” Also known as “the sweet singer of Hartford,” she was one of the first American women to prosper at a literary career.
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Sigourney worked as a schoolteacher and devoted her life to writing after marriage. She relied on sentimental conventions of moral and religious themes; death and piety were her most popular subjects.
Sigourney wrote some 67 books and a thousand articles, notably Letters to Young Ladies (1833,) Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse (1815,) The Square Table (1819,) The Farmer and the Soldier (1833,) Pocahontas, and Other Poems (1841,) The Voice of Flowers (1846,) The Weeping Willow (1847,) Olive Leaves (1852,) and Past Meridian (1854.)
In addition to editing religious and adolescent publications, she was also a pioneer in the cause of higher education for women. Her popularity did not survive into the 20th century.
Sigourney’s autobiography is Letters of Life (1866.) Gordon Haight wrote the biography Mrs. Sigourney: The Sweet Singer of Hartford (1930.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Lydia H. Sigourney
There can be no persevering industry without a deep sense of the value of time.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Time
We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us?
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Parents
To reveal its complacence by gifts, is one of the native dialects of love.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Gifts
Lost wealth may be restored by industry,—the wreck of health regained by temperance,—forgotten knowledge restored by study,—alienated friendship smoothed into forgetfulness,—even forfeited reputation won by penitence and virtue. But who ever looked upon his vanished hours,—recalled his slighted years,—stamped them with wisdom,—or effaced from Heaven’s record the fearful blot of wasted time?
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Time
The soul of woman lives in love.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Love
Keep aloof from sadness, says an Icelandic writer, “for sadness is a sickness of the soul.” Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Sadness
Observe how soon, and to what a degree, a mother’s influence begins to operate! Her first ministration for her infant is to enter, as it were, the valley of the shadow of death, and win its life at the peril of her own! How different must an affection thus founded be from all others!
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Mother
Whatever you would have your children become, strive to exhibit in your own lives and conversation.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Teaching
Those who are most disinterested, and have the least of selfishness, have best materials for being happy.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Selfishness
One of the principal ingredients in the happiness of childhood is freedom from suspicion—why may it not be combined with a more extensive intercourse with mankind? A disposition to dwell on the bright side of character is like gold to its possessor; but to imagine more evil than meets the eye, betrays affinity for it.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
The true order of learning should be: first, what is necessary; second, what is useful; and third, what is ornamental. To reverse this arrangement is like beginning to build at the top of the edifice.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Education, Learning
The assurance that this is a state of probation, should give vigor to virtue and solemnity to truth. Every hour assumes a fearful responsibility when we view it as the culturer of an immortal harvest.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Responsibility
Prosperity, alas! is often but another name for pride.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Prosperity
Self-control is promoted by humility. Pride is a fruitful source of uneasiness. It keeps the mind in disquiet. Humility is the antidote to this evil.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Self-Control, Pride
It is one proof of a good education, and of a true refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation, and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ou selves, which are above all price.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Knowledge
The glorified spirit of the infant, is as a star to guide the mother to its own blissful clime.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry of idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Habits, Habit
Of what unspeakable importance is her education who pre-occupies the unwritten page of being; who produces impressions which only death can obliterate, and mingles with the cradle-dream what shall be read in eternity!
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Teaching
Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may, in the end, prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Habit
And with a velvet lip, print on his brow such language as tongue hath never spoken.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Kisses
Put it in practice, and all will be charmed with your manners.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Politeness
True politeness requires humility, good sense, and benevolence. To think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, destroys its quickening principle.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Politeness
I do not dislike extreme vivacity in children; but would see enough of it to make an animated character, when the violence of animal spirits shall subside in time. It is easier to restrain excess than to quicken stupidity. Gravity in childhood may become stupidity in old age.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Language is slow; the mastery of wants doth teach it to the infant, drop by drop, as brooklets gather.—Yet there is a love, simple and sure, that asks no discipline of weary years, the language of the soul, told through the eye.—The stammering lip oft mars the perfect thought; but the heart’s lightning hath no obstacle—Quick glances, like the thrilling wires, transfuse the telegraphic look.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well-ordered homes of the people.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Nationalism, Home, Nation, Nations, Nationality
To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualifications is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Society
Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Teaching
He who makes an idol of his self-interest, will often make a martyr of his integrity.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Selfishness
Say to mothers, what a holy charge is theirs; with what a kingly power their love might rule the fountains of the newborn mind.
—Lydia H. Sigourney
Topics: Mother
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