[To “Voices from 19th-Century America”]

The Token, for 1837

The Token, edited by Samuel Goodrich, was one of many gift annuals available to early 19th-century readers. These lavishly bound, lushly illustrated collections of poetry and prose were intended as Christmas and New Year’s gifts—reminding us that in early 19th-century America, New Year’s was a gift-giving holiday. Gift books were published both for children and for adults, though the audiences often overlapped: some pieces by Goodrich appearing in The Token were reprinted in his works for children, including Robert Merry’s Museum. Goodrich saw in The Token a chance to promote American writers and engravers. He succeeded very well, especially with the writers, who included John Neal, Catharine Sedgwick, N. P. Willis, Lydia Sigourney, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Eliza Leslie, and—in retrospect, most significant—Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume of The Token appeared in 1827; the last was published in 1842. Almost always, it was a decorative volume, with a handsome binding, fulsome end papers, and contents that were—well—decorative. Scenic views and scenic ladies were staples in the poetry; the prose tended to be lightly humorous, slightly sensational, and delicately edifying. Most of what appeared in The Token was innocuous.

This volume of the Token includes works by almost every major American writer of the time. Epes Sargent has two poems, as does Lydia Huntley Sigourney. Hannah F. Gould has five poems. Still forming his career, Oliver Wendell Holmes, sr, has a poem here; Goodrich includes one of his poems. Sarah Helen Power Whitman wrote a poem about communing with nature. Catharine Sedgwick, Theodore S. Fay, and Eliza Leslie contributed stories. The storytelling champion in this volume, however, is Nathaniel Hawthorne, with eight stories of love and humor and gothicness.

Goodrich promoted American writers, but American writers for the Token didn’t always promote American subjects. The volume for 1837 is no different. “A Tale” is a story translated from Danish. “Annette Delarbre” is a retelling of a story from Washington Irving’s Bracebridge Hall, which describes the activities of those living in an English manor; a selection from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy accompanies an engraving of a scene from the novel. Goodrich contrasts the legacies of Bonaparte and Byron in “The Two Shades.” (In 1824 he was among those filing past Byron’s closed coffin in London.) “The Tiara” focuses on an aristocratic French family, but their story is seen through the eyes of a very American visitor. Some stories with European subjects have an American twist. The narrator of “The Tiara” is unimpressed by monarchy or the nobility. “Prophecy of Uiquera” has the illegitimate son of Charles II traveling to North America, there to marry a Penobscot woman; Charles himself is a character in “Katrina Schuyler,” whose namesake character spurns him and flees to New Amsterdam.

Pride and European corruption are themes in several works. An engraving of Thomas Cole’s painting of a Roman aqueduct is accompanied by a poem pointing out that the ruins are no longer of use and that “patient Nature smiles at Fame.” In New Amsterdam, Katrina Schuyler is found by an old suitor, an aristocrat who attempts to win her back; he’s defeated in a sword fight by her non-aristocratic fiancé, who declares, “Back with thee to the corrupt court of England, and tell the royal despot, that our fair land is peopled with women who despise tyrants, and men who can punish them.” The French aristocrats who own the tiara hold onto it even in desperate economic times—and find that the stones in the tiara are fake and that hard work brings a better life than does nobility of birth.

Fashionableness also comes under fire, with a couple stories exalting the humble. A man who becomes famous and wealthy envies the more humble life of his childhood friend, in “All is Not Gold That Glitters.” In “Full Thirty,” a man jilted by his fiancé in favor of a richer and more fashionable man scorns the daughter of a widow obsessed with wealth fashionableness—until the widow loses all her money. Only Eliza Leslie manages to describe a family who raise their standard of living, but stays simple and earnest, in “The Old Farm House.” In “Whirlwind” and “Two Shades,” the violent and the conquering don’t triumph: Napoleon has had a lesser influence than Byron; the all-powerful whirlwind will eventually fade.

As was usual in the Token, most pieces adhere to a generic version of Christianity. Terrified by a storm, a Native American man sees a rainbow afterward and “lifts his free born soul to Heaven in prayer,” implying that he has a passing acquaintance with the Old Testament; “Lines,” by the same poet, explains that physical beauty doesn’t satisfy, because “the world is not our home.” Lydia Sigourney consoles a mother whose baby has died with the thought that this “beauteous clay” is now “[w]ith cherubim and seraphim,” “where sorrows are no more.” Several poems remind the reader that years “glide away” and we must remember the tomb.

As also was usual for the Token, this volume includes a range of prejudices and some unsettling tropes. A constant theme in the volumes is an emphasis on the exaggerated virtues of extremely young women. Katrina Schuyler is sixteen when Charles II attempts to seduce her. The seventeen-year-old illegitimate son of Charles II courts a fourteen-year-old who is described in sumptuous language for half a page, in “Prophecy of Uiquera;” the Native American woman he marries has a “child-like voice” and “the unsuspecting confidence of a child.” A broad range of prejudices are also evident here. Anti-Semitism is a factor in “A Tale,” as a desperate German man decides to rob the tomb of a wealthy woman buried with her jewels when a Jewish moneylender refuses to extend a loan. In “Sunday at Home,” African-American worshippers look forward to heaven because “There we shall be white!” Pharaoh, an African-American character in Eliza Leslie’s “The Old Farm House,” is wincingly slow-witted and speaks in a ghastly amount of dialect; Leslie also includes a racial slur. In a trope that appears in a number of nineteenth-century American works, a Native American religious figure receives a prophecy that “[a] people greater than thine … shall take thy lands, thy power and thy name”; the leader of his people recognizes in a white man “he, to whom the holy prophet, many moons ago, bade me resign my authority, my daughter and my religion, if I would preserve them all” and lays his weapons at the man’s feet.

[Notes: The original of Thomas Cole’s “Roman Aqueduct” was exhibited at the Boston Atheneum as Remains of the Great Roman Aqueduct, 1834 & 1835; it was owned by C. Lyman (The Boston Athenæum Art Exhibition Index, comp. & edited by Robert F. Perkins, jr. & William J. Gavin III. Boston, Massachusetts: Library of the Boston Athenæum, 1980 ; p. 38.) That Mrs. Orme goes bankrupt because she has invested her money in insurance companies (“Full Thirty”) is unsurprising; after the devastating fire in New York City in December 1835, almost all New York insurance companies went bankrupt. The phrase “straws show” in the footnote on page 239 in that story is from the phrase “Straws show which way the wind blows.” When Edward Lindsay sees a fox spring out of the oven in the remains of a farmhouse, he remembers “the often-quoted lines of Ossian,” lines supposedly written by a Gaelic poet created by James MacPherson and the purported author of a cycle of poems published as Fingal and Temora. Leslie is apparently reminding readers of the section in “Carthon” describing the desolate town of Balclutha: “I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls: and the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook there its lonely head: the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina, silence is in the house of her fathers.” (from The Poems of Ossian) The “sowins” that Lindsay remembers is also spelled “sowens,” a porridge made of oatmeal husks.]

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The entire volume is transcribed here, with spelling and punctuation intact. In “Full Thirty,” use of periods after the word “Mrs” is inconsistent; in fact, proofreading on this story is surprisingly poor. Unfortunately, scanning all the illustrations would damage the book, so engravings are quick (and sometimes distorted) snapshots. Reviews are on a separate page.

Readers should be aware that a racist slur appears in “The Old Farm House.”

http://www.merrycoz.org/voices/token/1837/1837Token.xhtml
The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, edited by Samuel Goodrich (Boston: Charles Bowen, 1837)

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[presentation page]

forest landscape with deer drinking; text below
G. L. Brown.      C. A. Jewett.
To [blank space].

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[frontispiece]

a white man and a white woman cling to the hands of a white girl; they are surrounded by other white people
Painted by W. W. West.      Engraved by Jos. Andrews.
ANNETTE DELARBRE.

Printed by D. Stevens.

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[“fancy title page”; engraved title page]

a Native American woman sits on a boulder beside water and looks at a rainbow
Painted by J. G. Chapman.      Engraved by E. Gallaudet.
THE
TOKEN
AND
ATLANTIC SOUVENIR
BOSTON
CHARLES BOWEN
MDCCCXXXVII

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[printed title page]

THE TOKEN
AND
ATLANTIC SOUVENIR.
A
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENT.

EDITED BY S. G. GOODRICH.

BOSTON.
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES BOWEN.
MDCCCXXXVII.

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[copyright page]

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty six, by Charles Bowen, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

hand pointing right All letters of a mere business nature, relating to the Token, should be addressed to C. Bowen, the publisher and proprietor; those relating to the editorial department, may be sent to S. G. Goodrich. It is particularly desirable that all communications be in hand by the first of April.

BOSTON:
Samuel N. Dickinson, Printer,
52, Washington Street.

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[p. 3]

ADVERTISEMENT.

In offering this tenth volume of the Token to the public, we need say little more than that the favorable result of last year’s experiment—that of introducing engravings only from original American pictures, has induced the publisher to persevere in the same plan. It is proper, however, to offer many thanks to our contributors for their aid, with apologies to those whose articles are necessarily deferred. Our particular acknowledgement is also due to B. Wiggin, Esq. of London, for the loan of the fine picture of Annette Delarbre, from which the engraving is made. We are under similar obligations to the Hon. T. H. Perkins, for the privilege of copying Leslie’s picture from Sterne; to C. Lyman Esq., for the use of Cole’s picture of the Roman Aqueduct; to the Boston Atheneum for that of Allston’s painting of the Mother; and to E. Brooks Esq., for that of a Child, by Alexander. These, and other similar favors are the more deeply felt, that, but for such liberal aid, it would be impossible to accomplish our design of giving copies only of original American pictures, of interesting character, as illustrations of this annual.

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EMBELLISHMENTS.

1. Presentation Plate, painted by G. L. Brown [George Loring Brown], engraved by C. A. Jewett [Charles A. Jewett].

2. Title Page, painted by John G. Chapman, engraved by E. Gallaudet [Edward Gallaudet].

3. Katrina Schuyler, painted by W. W. West, engraved by Jos. Andrews. … 11

4. The Lost, Found, painted by Leslie, engraved by J. Cheney [John Cheney]. … 43

5. The Whirlwind, painted by Tho’s Cole, engraved by E. Gallaudet [Edward Gallaudet]. … 65

6. I Went to Gather Flowers, painted by G. L. Brown [George Loring Brown], engraved by V. Balch [Vistus Balch]. … 97

7. Annette Delarbre, painted by W. W. West, engraved by Jos. Andrews. … 129

8. The Mother, painted by W. Allston, engraved by S. W. Cheney [Seth Wells Cheney]. … 145

9. Indian Toilet, painted by J. G. Chapman, engraved by J. B. Neagle [John Neagle]. … 185

10. Pleasant Thoughts, painted by F. Alexander, engraved by J. G. Kellogg [Jarvis Griggs Kellogg]. … 255

11. The Wrecked Mariner, drawn by T. Birch, engraved by J. B. Neagle [John Neagle]. … 315

12. Roman Aqueduct, painted by Tho’s Cole, engraved by Jas. Smillie. … 337

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[p. 7]

CONTENTS.

The Rainbow—by R. C. Waterston … 9

Katrina Schuyler—by the Author of Norman Leslie [Theodore S. Fay] … 11

The Lost Vision … 34

The Two Shades—by S. G. Goodrich … 36

To * * * * *—by J. H. Mifflin … 42

Leslie’s Picture … 43

The Gift of Flowers [Epes Sargent] … 45

To a Nameless One [Epes Sargent] … 46

Monsieur du Miroir—by the Author of Sights from a Steeple [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 49

The Whirlwind … 65

Mrs. Bullfrog—by the Author of Wives of the Dead [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 66

Communion with Nature—by Mrs. S. H. Whitman [Sarah H. Whitman] … 76

A Tale, from the Danish of Oehlenachlæger—by Miss Wheaton … 80

Sunday at Home—by the Author of the Gentle Boy [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 88

I Went to Gather Flowers … 97

The Tiara—by the Author of Wealth and Fashion … 98

Youth … 116

The Man of Adamant [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 119

Annette Delarbre [Washington Irving] … 129

Study and Observation of Nature … 137

Genius of Poetry … 142

The Mother’s Jewel—by H. F. Gould [Hannah F. Gould] … 145

David Swan [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 147

Father, Hear! [Hannah F. Gould] … 155

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p. viii

The Great Carbuncle [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 156

A Name in the Sand—by H. F. Gould [Hannah F. Gould] … 176

Fancy’s Show Box [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 177

Indian Toilet—by H. F. Gould [Hannah F. Gould] … 185

All is not Gold that glitters—by J. Inman … 188

The Ancient Family Clock—by Mrs. Sigourney [Lydia H. Sigourney] … 208

Full Thirty—by Miss Sedgwick [Catharine Maria Sedgwick] … 212

To the American Flag—by I. C. Pray, Jr. … 247

The Dying Phœnix—by H. F. Gould [Hannah F. Gould] … 249

A Word at Parting … 251

A Song—by C. Sherry … 254

To a Child—by R. C. Waterston … 255

The Old Farm House—by Miss Leslie [Eliza Leslie] … 257

The Student’s Rhapsody—by H. Greele … 285

Stanzas in return for a Ring … 287

The Prophetic Pictures [Nathaniel Hawthorne] … 289

The Lean Old Man—by Seba Smith … 308

Death of an Infant—by Mrs. Sigourney [Lydia H. Sigourney] … 311

Lines—by R. C. Waterston … 314

Prophecy of Uiquera—by the Author of Lafitte, &c. … 315

Song of the Sunbeam … 332

The Martyr’s Thirst—by B. B. Thatcher … 334

Roman Aqueduct—by O. W. Holmes [“The Claudian Aqueduct,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes] … 337

The Deserted Church—by I. McLellan, Jr. … 339

The Rose Color … 341

Eternity—by J. H. Clinch … 343

War Song … 346

The Autumn Leaf [S. P. Walker] … 347

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[p. 9]

THE TOKEN.
—

THE RAINBOW.

REFERRING TO THE TITLE PAGE
BY R. C. WATERSTON.

He spreadeth the clouds around him,

The pillars of Heaven tremble,

They are shaken at his reproof,

Lo! these are a part of his ways.

Job.

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.

Genesis

I.

The Indian from his hunting ground,

Gazes upon the darkened sky;

And hears with dread, the solemn sound

Of the Great Spirit from on high,—

While to the earth in fearful ire,

He hurls his shivering bolts of fire.

II.

He cometh down! The mighty one,

Who spake creation into birth,

Now with his garment veils the sun,

And gazes on the trembling earth;—

The hunter in this stormy hour,

Shrinks back before Jehovah’s power.

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III.

The storm rolls on. Each leaf is bent

With glistening drops. The thunder’s roar

Dies on the hills, and through the rent

Of the dense clouds, the sunbeams pour:

All—All is hushed. The very deep

Smiles like an infant in its sleep.

IV.

All nature rests. The winds are still,

The half shut flowers in silence bow,

From ocean coast to towering hill,

There is no voice of discord now—

And gaze above!—before thy sight,

The rainbow spreads its arch of light!

V.

A rainbow—beautiful and fair,

And woven by a hand Divine,

And hung amid the sunny air,

To be an everlasting sign—

A sacred sign in Heaven above,

A Token of Jehovah’s Love.

VI.

The Indian’s fear has vanished now,

He kneels upon the beaten sands;

He raises to the sky hiw brow,

And clasps with joy his hands:—

Love kindles in his heart, and unaware,

he lifts his free born soul to Heaven in prayer!

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a Dutch woman looks at you, her hands clasped underneath her lace apron
Painted by W. E. West.      Engraved by J. Andrews.
KATRINA SCHUYLER.

Printed by D. Stevens.

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[p. 11]

KATRINA SCHUYLER.

A TALE
OF THE TIMES OF CHARLES II.
BY THE AUTHOR OF NORMAN LESLIE.

‘He loves thee not, Kate.’

‘He has sworn it.’

‘And therefore thou believest him?’

‘Anna!’

‘Nay dearest,’ said Anna, smiling, though with tears in her eyes, passing her arm round the neck of her youthful and most lovely companion, and drawing her head to her bosom, ‘There be men who will wear out all the oaths of Earth to such as thou, and yet—’

‘My noble Dudley!’ murmured Kate, as she hid her moistening eyes on the breast of her friend.

‘Nay Kate—nay—these tears distress me. Thou knowest, my own beloved, how infinitely I cherish thy interest above even my own. Do I not, Kate? Have I not ever been to thee an elder sister; or rather a mother? When thou wast left alone in Amsterdam, a bright unconscious child, motherless, fatherless, without brother, without friend, did I not bring thee—thou matchless treasure,—to this, my own native London— Did I not bestow my fortune on thee, as if thou hadst been my own? Have I not ever watched over thee, with unselfish affection, marked thy opening beauties

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as the budding of a rose, admired thee, cherished thee, adored and loved thee; and now, that the time has come, when duty requires me to speak my doubts upon this subject, come I not to thee, Kate, as tenderly as if it were some exquisite nerve of my own, that shrunk from these painful words? Answer me, thou naughty girl, with thy wet lashes, and flushed cheek; and after all, what have I said, but only that thou shouldst be cautious lest this youth—this Morton—’

‘Anna,’ replied the child, for Kate was but sixteen, and had grown, like a very viiolet, in the recesses of domestic life, ‘I feel that I am ungrateful. I ought to receive the lightest intimation of thy thought as a law, and dismiss Dudley Morton forever from my presence. Were it any thing but only Dudley—were it any plan of life—were it wealth, jewels, rank, the pleasures of travel—any thing—any thing, but Dudley Morton, I would abandon all dream of it forever, for my love of thee. But—’

‘Aye, aye,’ replied Anna, with a grave smile, thou art even like all the rest of them, Kate, ever ready to do ‘any thing’—but just what I ask. Thou wilt not then dismiss this Morton?’

‘No, my friend,’ said Kate, with a dignity more serene and self-possessed than had ever before been observed in her, ‘I know that, to thee, I owe every thing but my very being. All except that I would yield at thy command. But should I strive to suspect the pure, the innocent, and the noble, because some erring chance has caused thee to suspect him, I should but undertake a frutiless and unworthy task, and be a hypocrite to thee—a traitress to him.’

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‘And thus, then, in the bosom of a girl,’ said Anna musingly, ‘the smooth locks and artful voice of a gallant, outweigh a life of sisterly truth and love; and show friendship, that seemed built on adamant, only raised on sand. But, Kate, in me thou hast a protector, whom not even thy own waywardness can move. Go on, till sad experience teach thee to thy cost, that which now thou mightest learn for nothing. Wherever and whatever thou mayst be, know me for thy friend. If there be others more attractive, seek them, Kate, and try them. When thou hast discovered their valuelessness, and wouldst return to those who have known thy youth, and who love thy happiness and virtue better even than thyself, I shall welcome thee with open hand and warm heart, and furnish that counsel which now thou wilt not receive. As a matron, however, who knows mroe of mankind than ever entered into thy girlish imagination, let me, ere I leave this subject, once more whisper a farewell admonition. May it strike thy yet unsoiled heart with the force of truth, and the solemnity of parental love and wisdom. Kate, Beware of Dudley Morton! I have watched him, his occupations, his mind, his companions. He is light, false, selfish, artful and base. Whatever he may once have been, he is now corrupted; and I have even reasons to believe him other than he seems. Dudley Morton is a villain, Kate. Mark me, I warn thee. Avoid him as thou wouldst a basilisk.’

With a stern look, and a threatening motion of the finger, the stately admonitress slowly disappeared.

It was a sun-shiny May afternoon. They had stood in a little garden adjoining the humble, yet comfortable

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mansion of the firm, but gentle lady, who, while in reality she performed all the assiduous duties of a mother, still usurped over the innocent creature whom she had undertaken to educate, only the tender authority of sisterly persuasion. The sun was setting, and sent back a warm, mild radiance over earth and sky; the rich masses of foliage threw their long silent shadows upon the turf; the birds were warbling as light-heartedly as if never faithful lover had met aught of difficulty or obstruction; an old wall, reared ages before, a part of the grounds of a magnificent adjoining seat, the property of a great noble, lay soft and rich in the mellow sunlight, breathing forth from its gorgeous drapery of moss, vines and flowers, a thousand sweet and soothing odors. Here and there the butterfly came fluttering on the zephyr, with his great golden wings and happy truant disposition, and the hum of the bee, that epicurean philosopher, ever bent on his sweet duty, rose to her half unconscious ear, blended with the softened sound of a waterfall, and the distant voices of some happy children, pursuing their sports upon the cool grass.

Poor Kate! She stood motionless, as her kind preceptress withdrew, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her mind lost in tender thoughts and dim apprehensions; her hands clasped abstractedly under her apron, and a single rose upon her bosom, placed there by that gentle and loved hand, whose lightest touch was heaven to her trusting heart. As she stood, abandoned to the new ideas which came rolling through her mind, she scarce knew whether most to yield to regret for the unaccountable dislike of Anna against her lover, or to

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indignation that one so noble and dear should be exposed to suspicions so unfounded and absurd. Even while she lingered in the same attitude, a slight noise broke in upon her reflections, and a youth of apparently three or four and twenty, extremely handsome and graceful in face, form and manner, sprang down from the hall, and, in another instant, knelt at her feet.

‘Katrina, my bird of love,’ he exclaimed, ‘my queen of beauty, my very angel of light—’

‘Dearest—dearest Dudley! what opportune spirit hath sent thee at this moment? Welcome— Oh ever—ever welcome!’

‘Knew I not as much, Kate, Dudley Morton would no more visit his woodland dove. In some rude war he would push his fortune, and leave his useless form on the battle field.’

‘Battle field, Dudley? Why, what hath thy peaceful and silent art to do with battles, unless thou go to paint them.’

‘True, my timid fawn, most true. The painter’s pencil would ill become the field of Mars; but, nathless, my Kate, in these times, must all men be prepared, high and low, prince and peasant, crop ear and cavalier, to do battle for the right.’

‘Speak not of battles, my own, my best, my noblest,’ said the fond girl, gazing on his graceful form and features.

‘And wouldst thou love me less, Kate, had fate made me a soldier?’ demanded the youth, caressing his beautiful and trusting companion.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘had fate made thee any other than thou art. And, in truth, Dudley, sometimes, as

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even now, I do start and tremble to mark in thee a manner not thy own, and words not befitting thy humble station.’

‘Why, thou impudent angel, what ails thee? What hath affrighted thy timid heart? thou tremblest—thou art pale—thine eyes fill with tears—what, Kate—my treasure, my gem, my sweet, sweet dove—’

And he passed his arm around her waist, and drew her forehead, and then her half reluctant mouth to his lips.

‘I would not have thee, Dudley, think me a foolish girl for these caprices. Something has occurred to distress me. Something respecting thee.’

‘Me, dear cherub?’ said the gentle youth again pressed her to his bosom, and kissed off the glittering drops from her soft lids.

‘Dost thou really love me, Dudley?’

‘Look I like a deceiver, Kate?’

‘Yes, thou dost, even as deceivers are painted. Beautiful and winning, with thy silken and wavy hair, thy smooth large brow, thine eyes of light, thy cheek so round and pure, thy dazzling teeth, and still more dazzling smile, thy voice that leads me where thou wilt. Yes, Dudley, thou art very like a deceiver’

‘Kate,’ said Dudley, ‘I have somewhat to say to thee. In carrying on our sweet attachment, we have need of a friend.’

‘A friend, dear Dudley?’

‘Aye—for in thy fond love to me, thou hast no confidant.’

‘My sister, Anna—’

‘Nay, she likes me not. I see it in her cold air, and lofty bearing. Perhaps she deems the obscure painter

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too lowly a companion for her lovely Kate. What! no reply? Behold now, how I read the truth in thy artless eyes.’

Kate made no reply but turned away her face. She was too generous to expose, even to her lover, what she conceived the unamiable suspicions of her friend.

‘A malison on her! I never fancied her. Art thou not then in all things thy own mistress?’

‘Surely I am. Except the obedience that my gratitude and love to her—’

‘But,’ interrupted the youth, ‘I know her better than thou. She has a design touching thee, which thou dost little suspect. My life upon it! she hath dissuaded thee from thy attachment to me.’

Again his companion was silent.

‘Out on her! I hate her, and will one day expose to thee that concerning her, which shall make thee hate her too.’

‘Dudley!’

‘Nay, I swear it.’

‘I love my Anna.’

‘So do not I; and so shalt not thou, when hereafter, I shall have told thee all. But at present, mark what I say. I know, Kate, that thou lovest me utterly.’

‘And if I do!’

‘And if thou dost, my own—my priceless angel,—No!—’ cried the youth abruptly, and in a totally changed tone and manner, as if with a sudden shoot of pain. ‘By the Heaven that made me!—never—never—’

The startled girl almost shrieked as the flash of his withering eye fell upon her innocent face, and yet more innocent heart.

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‘What ails thee, Dudley? what terrible fit is on thee?’

A slight noise in the adjoining garden, as of a hasty footstep, seemed to recal [sic] the youth to calmness.

‘Forgive me Kate, my blessed guardian angel,’ he said; ‘I inherit this nervous malady from my father. It has gone, dearest.—Think of it no more.’

‘What wast thou saying, when this pain seized thee?’

‘That we need a friend, a messenger, an aid, an adviser. Am I not right, my lovely wife?’

‘If I am to be thy wife, that which thou deemest best, must be best, and what opinion can I have against thine?’

‘And wilt thou be that true and faithful wife to me, Kate? Remember, in marrying me, thou marryest penury, privation, obscurity and gloom. I have no friends, no rank, no wealth. Thou must yield this fair abode and all thy careless joy, to be the wife of a beggar—a needy artist, who eats when his pencil can purchase food, and, when it cannot, who starves. Thou wilt roll in no stately chariot over the paths of shady parks. Thou must trudge it afoot, my girl, by thy husband’s side. Hast thought of these things, Kate?’

‘Aye, Dudley, but they only strengthen my love for thee, and increase my desire to soothe thy cares, and cher thy gloom.’

‘If I marry thee, England,—our home, our country, we must leave it forever. We must cross the broad seas. The wilds of America must receive us.’

‘And what matters the name of any clime, where I reside with thee?’

‘Kate,—my noble,—my pure—my pefect—’ again exclaimed Morton in a tone of the deepest feeling, ‘may these kisses shield thee from harm. Be magic in

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their warm breath. aid her, ye angels.—Guard her, ye wandering spirits of the air. If she be not true, then farewell woman! By heaven I swear—’

But from an attitude of lofty and dignified grace and grandeur, the youth again appeared to recollect himself, and, with the eyes of his gentle Kate melting away his soul, he once more resumed his usual demeanor.

‘Kate, this friend—you must allow me to procure.’

‘As you will.’

‘Nay, I have procured one.’

‘If you are pleased, so am I.’

‘Shall I present you?’

‘When?’

‘Even now.’

‘What, here?’

‘Even so.’ And Morton inhaled a long breath, like one forcibly mastering some powerful agitation.

‘What is it you mean?’ asked Kate, smiling, ‘as I live, you are as mysterious as an astrologer.’ If your friend, and our trusty go-between, is here concealed among the roses, bring her forth, and make us acquainted.’

‘But it is no ‘her,’ [sic] cried Morton.

‘What, a man? Dudley!’

‘Aye, and a true one,’ cried a strange voice, ‘who, in the sweet pursuit of beauty, breaks through the formalities of custom, and solicits his pardon here.’

The intruder was neither remarkable for youth nor beauty. He was simply arrayed in a dress befitting one of a middling rank; his face rather homely than otherwise; but his air was confident and graceful, his voice well modulated, low and tender, and his language, even in the few words he had already spoken, was marked with

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something charming and superior. As he took the hand of the astonished Kate, Morton stepped back, with an air of constraint, and, with arms folded on his bosom, lips compressed closely together, face somewhat pale, and eyes, that, after stealing one keen look upon the lovely countenance of Katrina, sought the ground with a composure apparently embarrassed and painful. As for the artless and inexperienced girl, she was bewildered with the rapid alternations of the little drama in which she sustained so prominent a part, and scarcely knew what to think, or how to act.

‘Exquisite creature?’ cried the stranger, boldly taking her hand, and respectfully, but firmly raising it to his lips.

‘Dudley!’ exclaimed Kate.

But the youth, in his cold and statue-like attitude, remained motionless and untouched as if he were indeed marble.

‘Nay, angel of light, and lovely beyond compare,’ said the stranger, ‘let your confidence in yon young man pass away.’

She looked again in wonder at her lover. He was yet stirless, and silent.

‘Dudley Morton loves you not,’ continued the new comer. ‘Nay, he loves another. This night he will hasten from you to her arms.’

‘Slanderer! villain!’ exclaimed the girl, with a sudden burst of indignation, ‘Dudley, my beloved, come to this knave, and strike him dead at my feet.’

‘Kate,’ replied Morton, without unfolding his arms, or in any way stirring from the wall against which he leaned, ‘what he tells you is too true. I do love another. I have wantonly trifled with your affections. He has

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long known, and ever loved you; give him your heart, fair girl. He only can make you happy.’

‘I am in a dream,’ muttered Kate with pale face and trembling lips, striving in vain to disengage her hand from that of her kneeling and audacious adorer.

‘No dream, my beauteous madonna!’ exclaimed the stranger, smiling, and not in the least losing the singular serenity of his manner. His words are true, even as he himself tells you. He is beneath your love. I, rarest of earth’s sunny daughters, will prove a more faithful love.’ And, with a gesture of familiarity, he laid his hand upon her shoulder, as if to draw her to his breast.

But the affrighted girl was in no mind to bear such an insult. With a shriek that pierced the heavens, she started away, and would have fled like the wild forest doe, had not her unceremonious admirer held her with a firm grasp. At this moment, Anna, alarmed by the voice of her beloved child, whom she believed all this while ruminating in the garden upon the advice she had given her, darted to the scene of action. Her surprise may be imagined at the bold group which there met her gaze. Kate in the iron grasp of a licentious stranger, and, at the distance of a few feet, Dudley Morton, composedly standing with folded arms, and face half turned away, making no effort to relieve from insult the beautiful and pure object of his sworn love. Her astonishment was still further heightened by the perfect non-chalance with which both the bold intruders disregarded her presence, neither betraying the least alarm or emotion upon being discovered in so inexcusable a dilemma, nor even exhibiting any intention of breaking

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off their insolent design. Kate’s eyes flashing fire, her now flushed and indignant features alone seemed to rescue the whole picture from the appearance of some fantastic illusion. The good Anna, after twice rubbing her eyes, began also to consider herself in a dream. At length the tremulous voice of Kate broke the silence with the sweet severity of youthful virtue.

‘If you be robbers, who have thus broken in upon the solitude of two unprotected females, take these jewels and all the coin you can find, and spare us, we entreat, further fright. If not robbers, but merely gentlemen, amusing yourselves by exciting the blushes and terrors of those too weak to punish you, we beseech you, trespass no longer on our time, but seek your noble and knightly sports in some other quarter, and leave us to our grief and shame.’

‘We trust, my fair young dame,’ replied the unknown, ‘to somewhat reduce the keen anger of that tongue, which shall hereafter syllable, or we mistake us much, less angry thoughts.’

‘Abandoned wretch’ [sic] cried Anna, and the stranger loosening the hand of the weeping Kate, turned with a cool smile to hear the words which, till now, the very extremity of rage had prevented her from uttering, ‘oh for some gentleman’s sword to protect us from these ruffians.’

‘Well done,’ muttered the object of her wrath; ‘if the young chicken be so formidable, we may well expect no better from the old hen! Lovelace—’ he made a gesture of command—‘bid these fair ladies adieu for the present, and let us seek some more auspicious moment for a next visit. Come again I will, and no tears

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shall wet yonder lovely lids, but what these repentant lips shall kiss away.’

‘Sir,’ cried Anna, resuming her anger, at this cool impertinence, ‘you are a coward and a villain. Nature, that made you a knave, hath written your name upon your brow. You may be rich—you may be great, as from your boldness I partly suspect you are; but, high or low, it needs only one glance upon your bestial face to detect a low mind and a vulgar soul. By what infatuation does one so ugly as thou, count on the smile of any woman with eyes?’

The stranger reddened to the very temples, at this keen and fierce rebuke, as unexpected as it seemed successful. He regarded the speaker with a sardonic smile, and a low ‘we shall recollect you, madam.’

[K]ate, with streaming eyes, yet elevated figure, stepped loftily forward as if to confirm the scorn of her friend, when Morton, apparently unable longer to maintain his calmness, stealing quickly round to her ear, whispered, in a voice of the deepest agitation, ‘Silence, on your life! It is his majesty—It is THE KING!!’

—

In a gorgeously furnished apartment of the royal palace, the heartless and ungrateful young monarch stood coldly turned away from a kneeling suppliant. It was Morton, no longer arrayed in the modest garment of a needy artist, but glittering in the gay dress of a proud cavalier.

‘I protest to your grace,’ cried the kneeling youth, ‘that no slave ever served his master with so true and zealous a heart as I have toiled for your majesty. I

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have exhausted argument and entreaty. I have sworn myself forsworn; I have called every oath to my aid that I acted but as your friend, and that my own soul ever has been, and is irrevocably another’s. Vainly I have striven. She is indignant, outraged and invincible. The splendors of a throne have no more dazzle for her heavenly mind than the humblest flower-wreathed cot in England. Against your majesty she pours out such fiery scorn, such scorching contempt, as nought but my own eyes could convince me had ever lurked in the soft bosom of such a dove! I fear your grace has at length found that fabled creature—a woman enthroned in her own virtue, infintely above the reach of avarice, vanity, or ambition.’

‘Colonel Lovelace[,]’ said the sovereign, with a quiet sneer, ‘has rendered himself too attractive in the eyes of beauty. Henceforth, I shall choose more appropriate messengers. Were you, my lord, as successful in enterprizes [sic] of war, as in those of love, your powers would claim our more cordial approbation.’

‘My sovereign,’ cried the youthful soldier, stung to the quick by this allusion to a certain ill-fated attempt for which he was noted before the restoration, and reddening to the top of his ample brow: ‘I can but disclaim the suspicions which your majesty has been pleased to insinuate, and to hope that your majesty will no longer retain in your service one whom you cannot either love or trust.’

‘You are the master, my lord, of your own actions,’ said the king. ‘You may come and go without hindrance from me. It was your own offer to present to me this obstinate Dutch wench, who, by’r lady, might

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deem her dull blood honored by a touch of our hand. As for the insolent dame who guards her, by God’s life, she shall feel our anger, and let the saucy young thing herself beware lest our patience be too sorely tried. For you, Sir, should you fancy other climes more attractive, than our foggy island—a threat which we understand has more than once fallen from your lips, you can seek them at your earliest leisure. The king of England can yet govern his people, and peradventure win the fealty of loyal men, and even the favors of lovely women, though his army and court be unenriched with the presence of colonel Lovelace.’

The youth, lofty as twenty kings, fire gleaming from his dark, large eyes, and crimsoning his manly cheek, his heart bursting with grief, rage, shame, apprehension and smothered love, and the scorching insult of his master felt burningly through all, unbelted the sword from his thigh, and laid it in silence upon the table. At length, with a voice tremulous with deep, yet mastered passion, he found calmness to say:

‘I understand your grace. The sword which has leaped forth gladly to the light in your sacred cause, with the blood of your enemies scarce wiped from its blade, lies before you, masterless and idle.’

‘Better thus,’ said Charles, coldly, ‘than by the side of—.’ He paused; and the youth’s heart felt like ice in his bosom.

‘Enough of this, Sir,’ at length resumed the sovereign; ‘your departure is your own choice, not ours. But hearkye! colonel Lovelace, as to the blue eyed Hollander, I will have no tampering, no plotting with her. Aspire not to her love.—Seek not even her

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presence. We will ourself undertake the task of melting her obduracy. Mark me, Sir. Meet her not. Look not on her—speak not—nay, dream not of her, or,’ and he assumed a sterner air, and made a motion with his finger across his throat—‘that high head of yours my lord, shall be humbled, as those of your betters have been before you. Enough, Sir. Begone—we would be alone.’

The youth bowed so low that his features were hidden from his master’s gaze, and then withdrew. But the veins of Percy never boiled with hotter blood.

‘Not dream of her?’ echoed the panting lover—‘By earth. By Heaven! Is it for this I have been a tool, a slave—a panderer? Accursed be the King. Let lightning strike him! Ever be his false breast the throne of fear and misery. Be tempests around his head, and volcanos beneath his feet. May treachery attend his every step, and torture mark his every hour. Let his fame rest only on his nation’s hatred, and, long ere he run the natural circle of his life, oh may the thirsty blade of some midnight assassin, no baser—no more cruel than himself, drink the foul blood of his envenomed heart, and be the deed hailed and sanctified with the praises of all mankind!’

He paused, and as his high choler subsided, tears, scalding tears, leaped to his eyes and fell upon the turf.

‘Kate too, my gentle, my beautiful, my adored. Villain that I am! What has this Cyprian court made of me! There was a time when I too was pure. Oh, my past boyhood! Had I met thee, celestial being, but a few years ago. Would I have lent myself to the hellish purpose of luring such an angel into the grasp

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of the devil! Curse him! Curse him! I will see her.

[‘]Let my head roll in the dust! Let it! Is it for me to tremble now? Some hope remains. I may repent, confess, explain and sue for pardon. She will spurn me. Right! she should do so. Yet I can aid her escape, reveal her danger, foil the plans of this royal Lucifer, and oh! peradventure, lost though I be myself, a pitying God may make me the instrument of saving this bright innocence, of crushing this serpent’s head—of guarding the paradise of my exquisite Kate, from the wiles of Satan, even although I be forever banished from its Elysian groves. Yes, I will meet her.’

Wrapping, therefore, around him the folds of a cloak, which he had hastily seized ere he rushed forth upon his mad design, he proceeded, scarcely breathing for the tumultuous beating of his heart, to the abode of Katrina. He entered. The very hand of death seemed to strike him as he proceeded. The well known apartments were abandoned. A peasant rudely informed him that the family had disappeared, no one knew whither. Not a letter—not a note—not a word of parting. The flowers she cultivated—the vines she nursed and loved, still bloomed upon the garden wall. But Kate was gone. Whither had she disappeared? Had she fled? Had she perished? The King!—At this dreadful thought, rendered more fiendishly frightful by his perfect knowledge of his cruel and licentious master, the distracted and guilty youth felt his brain reel, and with a ghastly look at the spot where last she had seen her tearful eyes directed reproachfully towards him, he fell senseless upon the ground.

—

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It was several years after the incidents above related, in the month of August, 1664, that three armed vessels, hoisting the flag of England, floated slowly into the harbor of New York, then in possession of the Dutch. Only fifty-five years had rolled away since Hudson had, for the first time, entered the bay, and explored the river. Since that period, the Dutch had once lost and regained possession of this beautiful country, which they now quietly enjoyed under a grant made by the States’ General. Van Twiller, Keift, and Stuyvesant—names (alas! for their stirling virtues,) now consecrated only to the lovers of humor and hearty laughter, had reigned in turn, and the last now guided the affairs of the peaceful and lovely settlement—a tranquil village, a rural retreat, sheltered from the earthquakes of the European world. to this little abode the arm of tyranny seemed scarcely able to reach, and here had fled, from priestly and kingly wrath, many that were noble, brave, and lovely, cheerfully abandoning the great world, for domestic happiness and political safety and liberty. The peaceful citizens, who scarcely knew the meaning of the three warlike intruders, were too soon informed that Charles II., the selfish and dastardly monarch of Great Britain, had sent these messengers of death, to deprive of liberty, even the happy and harmless habitants of this remote corner of the globe. The town surrendered, and New Amsterdam from that time assumed the name of New York. Colonel Nichols, the commander of the expedition, having satisfactorily arranged the preliminaries of the treaty, landed with a party of men, and one confidential officer as a companion. They were respectfully quartered in one of the best mansions of the town,

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and the hospitable family, however coolly disposed to regard the instruments of their unjustifiable subjugation, still extended to the two distinguished officers, every mark of respect and attention. Col. Nichols, absorbed in the importance of his responsibilities, yielded himself up to his official cares and duties, while his companion, a noble and manly youth, whose prepossessing appearance soon won him a welcome, was left at leisure to amuse himself by examining the strange country, to him so contrasted with the luxurious elegance of London. The stranger was of a deportment sad and gentle. An air of melancholy marked him for one thoughtful beyond his years. The opulent citizen of whose hospitality he partook, had awarded to him a large room, leading into a parlor, and thence into a small, but well stocked library, and here he was wont to spend his hours, during the week of his sojourn, when fatigued from his long rambles. One day, seated in this secluded retreat, the master of the dwelling, with a respectful knock, applied for admission, and addressed his guest:

‘You must excuse me, sir. I am a plain man, and an old man; but I mean well. I perceive that you are of a solitary turn of mind, and I have therefore thought you most preferred being left to yourself—otherwise I should have oftener sought your company.’

‘Indeed, my kind friend,’ replied the soldier, ‘I highly appreciate the politeness and delicacy of your motive, and perhaps, I have been selfish and rude in my retirement. In truth, I have scarcely been presented to your family.’

‘Why, no, sir; no—and that was my business here.

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My wife, you must know, has a wedding here to-night, and nothing will serve but you must be invited. I told her the gentleman doubtless cares nothing about us—and our little hopes, and fears, and weddings, and all that. How should you, sir, a great traveller—and they say also, a great lord.’

‘You do my injustice, my kind sir. I will with pleasure attend the festival, and the happy pair will possess no sincerer well-wisher than myself. Your daughter, I presume.’

‘Yes, sir—no, sir—that is,—not exactly. We love her like a daughter, sir. But she is only an adopted one—a kind of ward, your lordship.’

‘Well, in either case, present my best congratulations. I will attend with pleasure.’

‘Ah, I hear her voice—and there is my son, the bridegroom, too. He is coming in.—My son, your lordship.’

The usual obeisances were paid. The garrulous old father withdrew. The bridegroom conversed a few moments, with such calm self-possession, as implied a peaceful and happy mind. He was a plain but fine looking youth, evidently without much refinement of personal manners; but still, about him, there was something which commanded respect. His eye was bold and unflinching, and his manner that of one who feared nothing but doing wrong. As he withdrew, a female voice of musical sweetness, half murmuring a low air, caught the ear of the stranger with a magical effect. He turned quickly. It was repeated. He ceased to breathe, and a paleness, as if he were about to swoon, crossed his features; but he remained firm and erect.

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The door opened. A lovely form darted into the room—a face of sweetness never to be mistaken or forgotten. She started—a glow of joyful surprise flushed the stranger’s cheeks, as he exclaimed, ‘It is—it is Katrine!!’

And those once impassioned lovers, whose arms had been interwreathed, whose lips had met, who had felt the beatings of each other’s hearts, stood now distant, separated, silent. Seas—years had been between them.

At length Lovelace, trembling with a feeling, half agony, half rapture, approached and knelt.

‘Morton,’ cried his once fond mistress, pale, but with a calmness that rung the knell of his hopes, ‘rise—you kneel to the wife of another.’

He clasped his hands. ‘Kate, I still love you. I can explain all. Years of repentance—’

‘Sir,’ said the girl haughtily, and, as she spoke, every vestige of embarrassment disappeared, ‘mistake me not again. Kneel not, nor assume the language of a lover. I am this day to become the bride of another. He and his virtuous father know my past life, even to that frightful peril in which you involved me. Beware, sir, lest they recognize in you the profligate whom I have taught them to hate.’

‘I confess—I tremble—I repent—’ murmured the abashed libertine.

‘Mr. Morton,’ rejoined she, ‘if that be your name, let us quietly understand each other. You met in me an inexperienced and idle girl. I loved you.’

‘Dearest Kate!’

‘But I loved what I thought you were, not what you are! When your true character was betrayed, that

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instant, love perished, and gave place to indignation and horror. With reflection, every partiality for you has utterly passed away. I know you, with all the virtues you fancy you possess, to be full of vices, the worst—the most incurable. No woman can love truly, who loves a libertine. None can continue to love him when his mask is torn off.’

‘Nay, Kate—you do but mock me,’ exclaimed the youth, maddened by the contemplation of charms lovelier than ever, ‘this must not—cannot be’

‘Unhand me, sir.’

‘I will account to your guardian and your would-be-husband, Kate. I am rich, great and powerful. I seek no longer your ruin—I will make you my wife. I will plant your brow with diamonds. You shall be as a queen in England. I am reconciled with my royal master. Beautiful, celestial girl—you must, you shall be mine.’

‘Never—even if you called me to the throne.’

‘Nay, then, enchantress, one heavenly kiss.’

Unaccustomed to restrain the wild impulses of his nature, he clasped her to his bosom, in spite of her screams, when an iron grasp upon his shoulder dragged him violently back, and a rude blow rung upon his forehead. Aghast at the insult, he looked up. The calm face of the sturdy bridegroom was bent sternly on him.

‘Insolent knave—coward—villain—draw!’ cried the enraged cavalier, losing all presence of mind.

‘Certainly,’ said the other, coolly. In an instant their bright blades gleamed in the light, and the clash of a deadly contest rung through the room. Twice the desperate sword of Lovelace passed through the skirt of

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his opponent. But self-possession at length coped successfully with blind fury. The weapon of the frantic Englishman flew from his convulsive grasp, and its exhausted, breathless, and bleeding master, with one knee on the floor, lay utterly exposed to the death he merited, and had striven so arduously to inflict.

‘Spare him!’ cried Katrine, ‘he is unworthy of thy noble hand. Stain not the day of our union with the blood even of a villain.’

‘Take thy life, Englishman. I would have given it unasked. Thee and thy base master we despise alike. Back with thee to the corrupt court of England, and tell the royal despot, that our fair land is peopled with women who despise tyrants, and men who can punish them. May heaven one day grant that that the chains which thou and thy compeers have now laid on us, as a people, be spurned from our independent country, even as I spurn thee from the side of this lovely and beloved girl.’

He touched lightly, with his foot, the breast of his fallen foe, who replied by gnashing his teeth and wiping the drops of sweat from his lip and forehead.

In a few days the three armed vessels sought again the mother isle, and the half reformed cavalier doubtless found means, in love and wine, to forget the merited lesson of Katrina Schuyler.

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[p. 34]

THE LOST VISION.

Nay, lady, nay! I may not string,

As once I might, reluctant rhymes;

No more in idle stanza sing

The faults and follies of the times.

No more I weave my gossamer lines

To velvet lips, or rose-leaf cheeks;

To tell how Mary’s black eye shines,

Or how my Lily’s blue one speaks.

It is not that I cease to feel

The beauties that around me glow;

It is not that my soul is steel—

It is not that my heart is snow.

How then can I forget the muse?

How thus my better spirit wrong?

And in the whirl of Faction lose

The deep and dear delights of song?

Nay! be it chance, or be it fate,

Or be it whatsoe’er you may;

My lot is fixed—Bound, bark of state,

Bound fearless on your glorious way!

I ship for life—and be ye borne

By gentle winds, o’er tranquil seas;

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Or be your swelling canvas torn

By the fierce storm, and raging breeze:

Mine be your lot! Alike to me

To walk in pride your gallant deck;

Or, tost on the tempestuous sea,

Cling, dying, to your shattered wreck!

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[p. 36]

THE TWO SHADES.

BY S. G. GOODRICH.

Along that gloomy river’s brim,

Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,

Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,

Stood lingering on the dismal shore.

Hoarse came the rugged boatman’s call,

And echoing caves enforced the cry—

Yet, ere they severed life’s last thrall,

Each Spirit spoke one parting sigh.

‘Farewell to Earth! I leave a name,

Written in fire, on field and flood—

Wide as the wind, the voice of fame,

Hath borne my fearful tale of blood.

And tho’ across this leaden wave,

Returnless now my spirit haste,

Napoleon’s name shall know no grave,

His mighty deeds be ne’er erased.

The rocky Alp, where once was set

My courser’s hoof, shall keep the seal,

And ne’er the echo there forget

The clangor of my glorious steel.

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Marengo’s field doth flow with wine—

And nature there the olive weaves,

Yet busy memory e’er will twine

The blood stained laurel with its leaves.

The rushing Danube’s stream doth haste

With the black ocean wave to hide—

Yet is my startling story traced,

In every murmur of its tide.

The Pyramid on Giseh’s plain,

Its founder’s fame hath long forgot—

But from its memory, time, in vain

Shall strive Napoleon’s name to blot.

The banner-cloud that flouts the sky,

With God’s red quiver in its fold,

O’er startled realms shall louring fly,

A type of me, till time is told.

That thing of mingled weal and woe,

Of life and death, of peace and power—

That lays the giant forest low,

Yet cheers the bent grass with its shower—

That in its trampled pathway leaves,

The storm-rent roots to bud anew,

And where the past o’er ruin grieves,

Bids fresher beauty spring to view.—

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That emblem-cloud shall speak of me,

And paint mine image on the skies—

Its flash-wreathed wing, my flag shall be,

And trace my glory, as it flies.’

The Spirit passed, and now alone,

The darker Shadow trod the shore—

Deep from his breast the parting tone

Swept with the wind, the landscape o’er.

‘Farewell! I will not speak of deeds,

For these are written but in sand—

The plough’s deep furrow, choaked [sic] with weeds,

Fades from the memory of the land.

The war-plumed chieftain cannot stay,

To guard the gore his blade hath shed—

Time comes to wash the stain away,

And throw a veil o’er glory’s bed.

But tho’ my form must fade from view,

And Byron bow, to fate resigned,—

Undying as the fabled Jew,

Harold’s dark spirit stays behind.

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p. 39

And he who yet in after years,

Shall tread the vine-clad shores of Rhine,

In Chillon’s gloom shall pour his tears,

Or raptured, see blue Leman shine—

He shall not—cannot, go alone—

Harold unseen shall seek his side:

Shall whisper in his ear a tone,

So seeming sweet, he cannot chide.

He cannot chide, and tho’ he feel,

While listening to the magic verse,

A serpent round his bosom steal,

Shall raptured hug the coiling curse.

Or if beneath soft southern skies,

The wanderer’s feet delighted glide,

Harold in merry Juan’s guise,

Shall be his tutor and his guide.

One living essence God hath poured

In every heart—the love of sway—

And tho’ he may not wield the sword,

Each is a despot in his way.

The infant rules by cries and tears—

The maiden with her sunny eyes—

The miser with the hoard of years—

The monarch with his clanking ties.

To me the will—the power were given,

O’er plaything man to weave my spell,

And if I bore him up to heaven,

’Twas but to hurl him down to hell.

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p. 40

And if I chose upon the rack

Of doubt to stretch the tortured mind,

To turn faith’s heavenward footstep back,

Her hope despoiled—her vision, blind—

Or if on virtue’s holy brow,

A wreath of scorn I sought to twine—

And bade her minions mocking bow,

With sweeter vows at pleasure’s shrine—

Or if I mirrored to the thought,

With glorious truth the charms of Earth,

While yet the trusting fool I taught,

To scoff at Him who gave it birth—

Or if I filled the soul with light,

And bore its buoyant wing in air—

To plunge it down in deeper night,

And mock its fearful wanderings there—

I did but wield the wand of power,

That God entrusted to my clasp,

And not the tyrant of an hour,

Will I resign it to death’s grasp.

The despot with his iron chain,

In idle bonds the limbs may bind—

He who would hold a sterner reign,

Must twine the links around the mind.

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p. 41

Thus I have thrown upon my race,

A chain that ages cannot rend—

And mocking Harold stays to trace,

The slaves that to my sceptre bend.’

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[p. 42]

TO ********.

BY J. H. MIFFLIN.

Not in the lighted halls of social mirth,

Not mid the splendors of rejoicing day,

But in the sweetest solitudes of earth

And the cool quiet of the evening’s ray,

Thou comest to me, sweet spirit! like the dew

Descending softly on the drooping flower,

With heaven-refreshing influence to renew

The withered feelings of a holier hour.

Then, all forgetful of a sordid race,

And from my baser self awhile set free,

The paths of purest pleasure I retrace,

And wander by an angel’s side—with thee.

Oh! if I e’er forget thee in the haunts of men,—

Forget myself—my being’s proud design—

In the calm hours return to me again,

And gently lead me to that world of thine!

-----

a white man dressed in 18th-century clothes looks aghast at a piece of paper, while a young white woman and a small dog look on
Painted by C. R. Leslie.      Engraved by J. Cheney.
THE LOST, FOUND.
Boston Published by Charles Bowen

Printed by R. Heale.

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[p. 43]

LESLIE’S PICTURE.

The artist has selected for the exercise of his inimitable pencil, Tristram Shandy’s humorous account of a cross accident that befel the author at Lyons. He is called upon by the commissary to pay the sum of six livres, four sous—a demand which he deems unreasonable. He resists it for a time, but at length pays the money. He determines, however, to note down the imposition upon the spot. In seeking for the paper on which he kept his memoranda, he discovers that it is missing. We give the pith of the story in the author’s own words, only remarking that the annexed engraving will give the reader a good idea of the original picture, which may be ranked among the happiest of Leslie’s productions.

‘Though I was sensible I had said as many clever things to the Commissary as came to six livres four sous, yet I was determined to note down the imposition amongst my remarks before I retired from the place; so putting my hand into my coat pocket for my remarks, (which, by the by, may be a caution to travellers to take a little more care of their remarks for the future,) my remarks were stolen.—Never did sorry traveller make such a pother and racket about his remarks, as I did about mine, upon this occasion.—When the first transport was over, and the registers of the brain were beginning to get a little out of the confusion into which this jumble of cross accidents had cast them, it then presently occurred to me that I had left my remarks in

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the pocket of my chaise—and that in selling my chaise I had sold my remarks along with it to the chaise vamper.—Show me to him this moment, Francois—said I.—The valet de place put on his hat and led the way.—When we arrived at the chaise vamper’s house, both the house and the shop were shut up; it was the eighth of September, the nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God.—Tantarra-ra-tan-tivi—the whole world was going out a May poling, frisking here, capering there, nobody cared a button for me or my remarks; so I sat me down upon a bench by the door, philosophizing upon my condition. By a better fate than usually attends me, I had not waited half an hour, when the mistress came in to take the papillotes from off her hair, before she went to the Maypoles.—The French women, by the bye, love Maypoles, a la folie. The wife of the chaise vamper stepped in, I told you, to take the papillotes from off her hair.—The toilet stands still for no man, so she jerked off her cap to begin with them, as she opened the door; in doing which, one of them fell on the ground:—I instantly saw it was my own writing. O Seigneur! cried I,—you have got all my remarks upon your head, madam! J’en suis bien mortifée, said she.—Tenez, said she: so without any idea of the nature of my suffering, she took them from her curls, and put them one by one into my hat;—one was twisted this way,—another was twisted that.—Aye! by my faith, and when they are published, quoth I,—They will be worse twisted still.’

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[p. 45]

THE GIFT OF FLOWERS.

O, could these drooping flowers—

Thy gift!—survive for me,

Like my remembrance of the hours,

Which I have passed with thee—

How would their loveliness remain

Forever without blight or stain!

The winter’s freezing blast

Should not a charm deface;

The changing seasons as they past,

Should elave no envious trace;

Fair as when blooming on the spray,

These leaflets never should decay.

Time should not dim their hues;

The red rose should look up,

Beauteous as when the morning dews

First glistened in its cup,

And to the sunbeams and the showers,

It blushed a queen among the flowers!

A token it should be,

A lasting emblem dear,

Of one, of whom the memory

Must be forever near,

Blended with all the hopes and schemes,

Ambition forms or Fancy dreams.

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These flowers! each from its stem

Is falling, fading fast;

But that bright memory linked with them

May not be overcast;

Through changing years it will abide,

A fix’d star, which no cloud can hide!

E. S.

TO A NAMELESS ONE.

Lady, we never met before

Within the world’s wide space;

And yet the more I gaze, the more

I recollect thy face!

Each feature to my mind recalls

An image of the past,

Which, where the shade of memory falls,

Is sacred to the last.

But she, whose charms in thine I trace,

Was not, alas! of earth;

And yet of more than human grace,

For Fancy gave her birth:

She haunted me by sun-lit streams,

And burst upon my sight,

When through the pleasant land of dreams,

My spirit roved at night.

Lost idol! why didst thou depart!

O, let thine earnest eyes—

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Abstraction! vision! though thou art—

Once more my soul surprise!

She comes! a fair and laughing girl—

Whom happy, does she seek?—

And raven curls their links unfurl

Adown her blushing cheek.

Her Grecian lineaments are bright

With beauty half divine;

She is ‘a phantom of delight,’

Her dark eyes are—like thine!

Like hers thy form—thy voice of glee,

Which happy thoughts attune,

Sweet as th’ enthralling melody

Of singing birds in June!

I clasp her hands in mine once more—

I am again a boy!

the past shows nothing to deplore,

The future is all joy.

We wander through deserted halls,

We climb the wooded height,

We hear the roar of waterfalls,

And watch the eagle’s flight.

We stand where sunset colors lie

Upon a lake at rest;

And O what clouds of Tyrian die

Are sloping down the west!

And close above the purple pile,

The evening star appears,

While she, who cheered me with her smile,

Now tries to hide her tears.

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p. 48

Enough! the spell is at an end,

The pageant floats away,

And I no more may idly bend

At Memory’s shrine to-day.

I turn to thee, whose beauty first,

That shape of love renewed,

Waking emotions that were nurst

Long since in solitude.

I turn to thee, and start to see

Again that face and mien,

Thine eyes’ expressive brilliancy,

Those curls of glossy sheen.

Two visions have waylaid my heart—

A false one and a true;

And—by the light of truth! thou art

The fairer of the two!

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[p. 49]

MONSIEUR DU MIROIR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE.

Than the gentleman above-named, there is nobody, in the whole circle of my acquaintance, whom I have more attentively studies, yet of whom I have less real knowledge, beneath the surface which it pleases him to present. Being anxious to discover who and what he really is, and how connected with me, and what are to be the results, to him and to myself, of the joint interest, which, without any choice on my part, seems to be permanently established between us—and incited, furthermore, by the propensities of a student of human nature, though doubtful whether M. du Miroir have aught of humanity but the figure—I have determined to place a few of his remarkable points before the pubic, hoping to be favored with some clew to the explanation of his character.—Nor let the reader condemn any part of the narrative as frivolous, since a subject of such grave reflection diffuses its importance through the minutest particulars, and there is no judging, beforehand, what odd little circumstance may do the office of a blind man’s dog, among the perplexities of this dark investigation. And however extraordinary, marvellous, preternatural, and utterly incredible, some of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge my honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact, as if my testimony were given on oath, and involved the dearest interests of the personage in question. Not that there is matter for a criminal accu-

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sation against M. du Miroir; nor am I the man to bring it forwrd, if there were. The chief that I complain of is his impenetrable mystery, which is no better than nonsense, if it conceal anything good, and much worse, in the contrary case.

But, if undue partialities could be supposed to influence me, M. du Miroir might hope to profit, rather than to suffer by them; for, in the whole of our long intercourse, we have seldom had the slightest disagreement; and, moreover, there are reasons for supposing him a near relative of mine, and consequently entitled to the best word that I can give him. He bears, indisputably, a strong personal resemblance to myself, and generally puts on mourning at the funerals of the family. On the other hand, his name would indicate a French descent; in which case, infinitely preferring that my blood should flow from a bold British and pure Puritan source, I beg leave to disclaim all kindred with M. du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his origin to Spain, and dub him a knight of the order of the Caballeros de los Espejos, one of whom was overthrown by Don Quixote. But what says of M. du Miroir, himself, of his paternity and his father-land? Not a word did he ever say about the matter; and herein, perhaps, lies one of his most especial reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery—that he lacks the faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move; his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and anon, he will seem to pause, with as satisfied an air, as if he had been talking excellent sense. Good sense or bad, M. du Miroir is the sole judge of his own

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conversational powers, never having whispered so much as a syllable, that reached the ears of any other auditor. Is he really dumb?—or is all the world deaf?—or is it merely a piece of my friend’s waggery, meant for nothing but to make fools of us? If so, he has the joke all to himself.

This dumb devil, which possesses M. du Miroir, is, I am persuaded, the sole reason that he does not make me the most flattering protestations of friendship. In many particulars—indeed, as to all his cognizable and not preternatural points, except that, once in a great while, I speak a word or two—there exists the greatest apparent sympathy between us. Such is his confidence in my taste, that he goes astray from the general fashion, and copies all his dresses after mine. I never try on a new garment, without expecting to meet M. du Miroir in one of the same pattern. He has duplicates of all my waistcoats and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait, and an old coat for private wear, manufactures, I suspect, by a Chinese tailor, in exact imitation of a beloved old coat of mine, with a facsimile, stitch by stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the singular and minute coincidences that occur, both in the accidents of the passing day and the serious events of our lives, remind me of those doubtful legends of lovers, or twin-children, twins of fate, who have lived, enjoyed, suffered, and died, in unison, each faithfully repeating the least tremor of the other’s breath, though separated by vast tracts of sea and land. Strange to say, my incommodities belong equally to my companion, though the burthen is nowise alleviated by his participation. The other morning, after a night of torment from the toothache,

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I met M. du Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek, that my own pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I might judge by a fresh contortion of his visage. If we chance to meet, when I am pale with midnight study, or haply flushed with a mere sip of silver-top champagne, the poor fellow is sure to exhibit an aspect of worn-out or over excited energy, graduated precisely to my own. All the inequalities of my spirits are communicated to him, causing the unfortunate M. du Miroir to mope and scowl through a whole summer’s day, or to laugh as long, for no better reason than the gay or gloomy crotchets of my brain. Once we were joint sufferers of a three months’ sickness, and et like mutual ghosts in the first days of convalescence. Whenever I have been in love, M. du Miroir has looked passionate and tender, and never did my mistress discard me, but this too susceptible gentleman grew lack-a-daisical. His temper, also, rises to blood-heat, fever-heat, or boiling-water heat, according to the measure of any wrong which might seem to have fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been calmed down, by the sight of my own inordinate wratch, depicted on his frowning brow. Yet, however prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to mind that he ever struck a downright blow in my behalf; nor, in fact, do I perceive that any real and tangible good has resulted from his constant interference in my affairs; so that, in my distrustful moods, I am apt to suspect M. du Miroir’s sympathy to be mere outward show, not a whit better nor worse than other people’s sympathy. Nevertheless, as mortal man must have something in the guise of sympathy, and whether the true metal, or merely copper-

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washed, is of less moment. I choose rather to content myself with M. du Miroir’s, such as it is, than to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps miss even the counterfeit.

Intimate as, in some respects, we may be said to be, the reader will hardly conceive my ignorance in regard to many important points of M. du Miroir’s mode of life. I never yet could discover, nor even guess, what is his business or pastime, in the long space which sometimes elapses without an interview between us. He seldom goes into society, except when introduced by me. Yet, occasionally, I have caught a dim glimpse of M. du Miroir’s well-known countenance, gazing at me from the casement of some aristocratic mansion where I am not a guest; although, quite as often, I grieve to say, he has been imprudent enough to show himself within the dusty panes of the lowest pot-houses, or even more disreputable haunts. In such cases, meeting each other’s eyes, we both look down abashed. It must not be concealed, however, that, while holding my course amid the week-day bustle which flows past a church, I have discerned my friend through the lofty windows, doubtless enjoying a private audience of Religion, who sits six days in her deserted fane, and sees all the world the seventh. With what sect he worships on the Sabbath, indispensable as the point is to a proper judgment of his moral character, I absolutely never knew. When the bells fling out their holy music, I generally see him, in his best black suit, of the same pattern as my own, and wearing a mild solemnity of aspect, that edifies me almost as much as the sound orthodoxy of my reverend pastor. But we meet no more, till the services are ended. Whether he goes to church with the Episcopalians, to

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chapel with the Methodists, or to the synagogue with the Jews—whether perverted to Roman Catholic idolatry, or to Universalist or Unitarian infidelity—is a matter which, being no controversialist, M. du Miroir keeps to himself. Of course, however exemplary in his worldly character, he cannot expect my full confidence, while there remains the slightest ambiguity on this head.

In my age of vanities, I have often seen him in the ball-room, and might again, were I to seek him there. We have encountered each other at the Tremot theatre, where, however, he took his seat neither in the dress-circle, pit, nor upper regions, nor threw a single glance at the stage, though the brightest star, even Fanny Kemble herself, might be culminating there. No; this whimsical friend of mine chose to linger in the saloon, near one of the large looking-glasses which throw back their pictures of the illuminated room. He is so full of these unaccountable eccentricities, that I never like to notice M. du Miroir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with him, in places of public resort. He, however, has no scruple about claiming my acquaintance, even when his common sense, if he had nay, might teach him that I would as willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was but the other day, that he got into a large brass kettle, at the entrance of a hard ware store, and thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a bright new warming-pan, whence he gave me a most merciless look of recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but these childish tricks make decent people rather shy of M. du Miroir, and subject him to more dead cuts than any other gentleman in town.

One of this singular person’s most remarkable pecu-

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liarities is his fondness for water, wherein he excels any temperance-man whatever. His pleasure, it must be owned, is not so much to drink it, (in which respect, a very moderate quantity will answer his occasions,) as to souse himself over head and ears, wherever he may meet with it. Perhaps he is a merman, or born of a mermaid’s marriage with a mortal, and thus amphibious by hereditary right, like the children which the old river deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly love. When no cleaner bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen the foolish fellow in a horse-pond. Sometimes he refreshes himself in the trough of a town-pump, without caring what the people think about him. Often, while carefully picking my way along the street, after a heavy shower, I have been scandalized to see M. du Miroir, in full dress, paddling from one mud-puddle to another, and plunging into the filthy depths of each. Seldom have I peeped into a well, without discerning this ridiculous gentleman at the bottom, whence he gazes up, as through a long telescopic tube, and probably makes discoveries among the stars by daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths, or in pathless forests, when I have come to virgin-fountains, of which I would have been pleasant to deem myself the first discoverer, I have started to find M. du Miroir there before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence. I have leaned from a precipice that frowns over Lake George—which the French called Nature’s font of sacramental water, and used it in their log-churches here, and their cathedrals beyond the sea—and seen him far below, in that pure element. At Niagara, too, where I would gladly have forgotten both myself and him, I could not help observing

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my companion, in the smooth water, on the very verge of the cataract, just above the Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I should expect to meet him there. Unless he be another Lauderlad, whose garments the depths of ocean could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he keeps himself in any decent pickle; though I am bound to confess, that his clothes seem always as dry and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, I could wish that he would not so often expose himself in liquor.

All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little personal oddities which agreeably diversity the surface of society; and, though they may sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily intercourse fresher and livelier than if they were done away. By an occasional hint, however, I have endeavored to pave the way for stranger things to come, which, had they been disclosed at once, M. du Miroir might have been deemed a shadow, and myself a person of no veracity, and this truthful history a fabulous legend. But, now that the reader knows me worthy of his confidence, I will begin to make him stare.

To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs that M. du Miroir is at least a conjuror, if not one of that unearthly tribe with whom conjurors deal. He has inscrutable methods of conveying himself from place to place, with the rapidity of the swiftest steam-boat, or rail-car. Brick walls, and oaken doors, and iron bolts, are no impediment to his passage. Here in my chamber, for instance, as the evening deepens into night, I sit alone—the key turned and withdrawn from the lock—the key-hole stuffed with paper, to keep out a peevish little

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blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I seem, were I to lift one of the lamps and step five paces eastward, M. du Miroir would be sure to meet me, with a lamp also in his hand. And, were I to take the stage coach to-morrow, without giving him the least hint of my design, and post onward till the week’s end, at whatever hotel I might find myself, I should expect to share my private apartment with this inevitable M. du Miroir. Or, out of a mere wayward fantasy, were I to go, by moon light, and stand beside the stone font of the Shaker Spring at Canterbury, M. du Miroir would set forth on the same fool’s errand, and would not fail to meet me there. Shall I heighten the reader’s wonder? While writing these latter sentences, I happened to glance towards the large round globe of one of the brass andirons; and lo!—a miniature apparition of M. du Miroir, with his face widened and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my amazement. But he has played so many of these jokes, that they begin to lose their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the heaven of a young lady’s eyes, so that while I gazed, and was dreaming only of herself, I found him also in my dream. Years have so changed him since, that he need never hope to enter those heavenly orbs again.

From these veritable statements, it will be readily concluded, that, had M. du Miroir played such pranks in old witch times, matters might have gone hard with him at least, if the constable and posse comitatus could have executed a warrant, or the jailor been cunning enough to keep him. But it has often occurred to me as a very singular circumstance, and as betokening either a temperament morbidly suspicious, or some weighty

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cause of apprehension, that he never trusts himself within the grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you step forward to meet him, he readily advances; if you offer him your hand, he extends his own, with an air of the utmost frankness; but though you calculate upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his little finger. Ah, this M. du Miroir is a slippery fellow!

These, truly, are matters of special admiration. After vainly endeavoring, by the strenuous exertion of my own wits, to gain a satisfactory insight into the character of M. du Miroir, I had recourse to certain wise men, and also to books of abstruse philosophy, seeking who it was that haunted me, and why. I heard long lectures, and read huge volumes, with little profit beyond the knowledge that many former instances are recorded, i successive ages, of similar connections between ordinary mortals and beings possessing the attributes of M. du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides myself, have such attendants. Would that M. du Miroir could be persuaded to transfer his attachment to one of those, and allow some other of his race to assume the situation that he now holds in regard to me! If I must needs have so intrusive an intimate, who stares me in the face in my closest privacy, and follows me even to my bed chamber, I should prefeer—scandal apart—the laughing bloom of a young girl, to the dark and bearded gravity of my present companion. But such desires are never to be gratified. Though the members of M. du Miroir’s family have been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends often in splendid halls and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they exhibit a rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment, however unlovely

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in person or unamiable in disposition, however unfortunate, or even infamous, and deserted by all the world besides. So will it be with my associate. Our fates appear inseparably blended. It is my belief, as I find him mingling with my earliest recollections, that we came into existence together, as my shadow follows me into the sunshine, and that, hereafter as heretofore, the brightness or gloom of my fortunes will shine upon, or darken, the face of M. du Miroir. As we have been young together, and as it is now near the summer noon with both of us, so, if long life be granted, shall each count his own wrinkles on the other’s brow, and his white hairs on the other’s head. And when the coffin lid shall have closed over me, and that face and form, which, more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are the sole light of his existence, when they shall be laid in that dark chamber, whither his swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him—then what is to become of poor M. du Miroir! Will he have the fortitude, with my other friends, to take a last look at my pale countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral train? Will he come often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles, and plant flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the letters of my burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to remind the neglectful world of one who staked much to win a name, but will not then care whether he lost or won?

Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. Oh, what terror, if this friend of mine, after our last farewell, should step into the crowded street, or roam along our old frequented path, by the still waters, or sit down in the domestic circle, where our faces are most familiar

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and beloved! No; but when the ray of Heaven shall bless me no more, nor the thoughtful lamp-light gleam upon my studies, nor the cheerful fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his task fulfilled, shall this mysterious being vanish from the earth forever. He will pass to the dark realm of Nothingness, but will not find me there.

There is something fearful in bearing such a relation to a creature so imperfectly known, and in the idea that, to a certain extent, all which concerns myself will be reflected in its consequences upon him. When we feel that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves, we judge more severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from that delusive magic which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness over our own pathway. Of late years, indeed, there has been much to sadden my intercourse with M. du Miroir. Had not our union been a necessary condition of our life, we must have been estranged ere now. In early youth, when my affections were warm and free, I loved him well, and could always spend a pleasant hour in his society, chiefly because it gave me an excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he was, M. du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of calling me a handsome fellow; and I, of course, returned the compliment; so that, the more we kept each other’s company, the greater coxcombs we mutually grew. But neither of us need apprehend any such misfortune now. When we chance to meet—for it is chance oftener than design—each glances sadly at the other’s forehead, dreading wrinkles there, and at our temples, whence the hair is thinning away too early, and at the sunken eyes, which no longer

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shed a gladsome light over the whole face. I involuntarily peruse him as a record of my heavy youth, which has been wasted in sluggishness, for lack of hope and impulse, or equally thrown away in toil, that had no wise motive, and has accomplished no good end. I perceive that the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has darkened through his countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to mingle with the shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated man. Is it too wild a thought, that my fate may have assumed this image of myself, and therefore haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity, originating every act which it appears to imitate, while it deludes me by pretending to share the events, of which it is merely the emblem and the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it will throw too deep an awe round my companion. At our next meeting, especially if it be at midnight or in solitude, I fear that I shall glance aside and shudder; in which case, as M. du Miroir is extremely sensitive to ill-treatment, he also will avert his eyes, and express horror or disgust.

But, no! This is unworthy of me. As, of old, I sought his society for the bewitching dreams of woman’s love which he inspired, and because I fancied a bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I hold daily and long communion with him, for the sake of the stern lessons that he will teach my manhood. With folded arms, we will sit face to face, and lengthen out our silent converse, till a wiser cheerfulness shall have been wrought from the very texture of despondency. He will say, perhaps indignantly, that it befits only him to mourn for the decay of outward grace, which, while he possessed it,

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was his all. But have not you, he will ask, a treasure in reserve, to which every year may add far more value than age, or death itself, can snatch from that miserable clay? He will tell me, that, though the bloom of life has been nipt with a frost, yet the soul must not sit shivering in its cell, but bestir itself manfully, and kindle a genial warmth from its own exercise, against the autumnal and the wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will bid him be of good cheer, nor take it amiss that I must blanch his locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted apple, since it shall be my endeavor so to beautify his face with intellect and mild benevolence, that he shal profit immensely by the change. But here a smile will glimmer somewhat sadly over M. du Miroir’s visage.

When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed, we may take up others as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the attempt to escape him to the hopeless race that men sometimes run with memory, or their own hearts, or their moral selves, which, though burthened with cares enough to crush an elephant, will never be one step behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids me, and mke him the picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my mind may not wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its own shadow through a chaos, and catching only the monsters that abide there. Then will we turn our thoughts to the spiritual world, of the reality of which, my companion shall furnish me an illustration, if not an argument. For, as we have only the testimony of the eye to M. du Miroir’s existence, while all the other senses would fail to inform us that such a figure stands

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within arm’s length, wherefore should there not be beings innumerable, close beside us, and filling heaven and earth with their multitude, yet of whom no corporeal perception can take cognizance? A blind man might as reasonbly deny that M. du Miroir exists, as we, because the Creator has hitherto withheld the spiritual perception, can therefore contend that there are no spirits. Oh, there are! And, at this moment, when the subject of which I write has grown strong within me, and surrounded itself with those solemn and awful associations which might have seemed most alien to it, I could fancy that M. du Miroir is himself a wanderer from the spiritual world, with nothing human, except his illusive garment of visibility. Methinks I should tremble now, were his wizard power, of gliding through all impediments in search of me, to place him suddenly before my eyes.

Ha! What is yonder? Shape of mystery, did the tremor of my heart-strings vibrate to thine own, and call thee from thy home, among the dancers of the Northern Lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and giant spectres that appear on clouds at daybreak, and affright the climber of the Alps? In truth, it startled me, as I threw a wary glance eastward across the chamber, to discern an unbidden guest, with his eyes bent on mine. The identical Monsieur du Miroir! Still, there he sits, and returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity, as if he, too, had spent a solitary evening in fantastic musings, and made me his theme. So inimitably does he counterfeit, that I could almost doubt which of us is the visionary form, or whether each be not the other’s mystery, and both twin brethren of one fate, in mutually reflected spheres. Oh,

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friend, canst thou not hear and answer me? Break down the barrier between us! Grasp my hand! Speak! Listen! A few words, perhaps, might satisfy the feverish yearning of my soul for some master-thought, that should guide me through this labyrinth of life, teaching wherefore I was born, and how to do my task on earth, and what is death. Alas! Even that unreal image should forget to ape me, and smile at these vain questions.—Thus do mortals deify, as it were, a mere shadow of themselves, a spectre of human reason, and ask of that to unveil the mysteries, which Divine Intelligence has revealed so far as needful to our guidance, and hid the rest.

Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir! Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may be doubted whether you are the wiser, though your whole business is Reflection.

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a tree trunk is twisted and broken
Painted by Thomas Cole.      Engraved by E. Gallaudet.
THE WHIRLWIND.
Published by Charles Bowen, Boston.

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[p. 65]

THE WHIRLWIND.

On conqueror, with thy trampling tread!

The banner-cloud waves proudly o’er thee—

The quailing aspen bows its head,

And tottering forests stoop before thee.

On! on! nor heed the groaning cry

Of these crushed victims of thy wrath—

’Tis but the voice of victory

To cheer thee in thy gory path.

On, on! nor spare yon patriot oak,

That lifts on high its haughty brow—

It falls beneath thy giant stroke,

And all is humbled, prostrate, now!

On conqueror, on! with thundering jar,

And bid new realms before thee bend—

Yet on some seagirt rock afar,

A prisoner thou—thy race shall end.

There shall the conqueror gnaw his chain,—

The whirlwind as a zephyr fail—

And the wild seabird’s hollow strain,

Alone shall be thy funeral wail.

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[p. 66]

MRS. BULLFROG.

BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘WIVES OF THE DEAD.’

It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act, in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments by a most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearnce, habits, disposition, and other trifles, which concern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart andhand till both get so old and withered, that no tolerable woman will accept them.—Now, this is the very height of absurdity. A kindProvidence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex, and the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married state. The true rule is, to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a good one, and then to take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be such, will vanish, if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard, as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined what miracles, in the way of reconciling smaller incongruities, connubial love will effect.

For my own part, I freely confess, that, in my bachelorship, I was precisely such an over-curious simpleton, as I now advise the reader not to be. My early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility, and too exquisite refinement.—I was the accomplished graduate of a dry-goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims

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of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, ribbons, chintzes, calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, I grew up a very lady-like sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much, to affirm, that the ladies themselves were hardly so lady-like as Thomas Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and such varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own image in the looking-glass. Besides the fundamental principle, already hinted at, I demanded the fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, glossy ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy of habits and sentiments, a silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin heart. In a word, if a young angel, just from Paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that I should have taken it. There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable old bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, I made a journey into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed, won, and married the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a fortnight. Owing to these extempore measures, I not only gave my bride credit for certain perfections, which have not as yet come to light, but also overlooked a few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my perception, long before the close of the honey-moon. Yet, as there was no mistake about the fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will be seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog’s deficiencies and superfluities at exactly their proper value.

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The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a unit, we took two seats in the stage-coach, and began our journey towards my place of business. There being no other passengers, we were as much alone, and as free to give vent to our raptures, as if I had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked charmingly, in a green silk calash, and riding-habit of pelisse cloth, and whenever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth appeared like an inestimable pearl. Such was my passionate warmth, that—we had rattled out of the village, gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and Eve in Paradise—I plead guilty to no less freedom than a kiss!—The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her indulgence, I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and glossy curls, which realized my day-dreams of rich hair.

‘My love,’ said Mrs. Bullfrog, tenderly, ‘you will disarrange my curls.’

‘Oh, no, my sweet Laura!’ replied I, still playing with the glossy ringlet. ‘Even your fair hand could not manage a curl more delicately than mie.—I propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in papers, every evening, at the same time with my own.’

‘Mr. Bullfrog,’ repeated she, ‘you must not disarrange my curls.’

This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to hear, until then, from my gentlest of all gentle brides. At the same time, she put up her hand and took mine prisoner, but merely drew it away from the forbidden ringlet, and then immediately released it.

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Now, I am a fidgetty little man, and always love to have something in my fingers; so that, being debarred from my wife’s curls, I looked about me for any other plaything. On the front seat of the coach, there was one of those small baskets in which travelling ladies, who are too delicate to appear at a public table, generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits and cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain nature to the journey’s end. Such airy diet will sometimes keep them in pretty good flesh, for a week together. Laying hold of this same little basket, I thrust my hand under the newspaper, with which it was carefully covered.

‘What’s this, my dear?’ cried I; for the black neck of a bottle had popped out of the basket.

‘A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog,’ said my wife, coolly taking the basket from my hands, and replacing it on the front seat.

There was no possibility of doubting my wife’s word; but I never knew genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to smell so much like cherry-brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion would injure her skin, when an accident occurred, which threatened more than a skin-deep injury. Our Jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of gravel, and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air, and our heels where our heads should have been. What became of my wits, I cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of deserting me, just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that, in the confusion of our overthrow, I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. Bullfrog in the world. Like many men’s wives, the good lady served her husband as a stepping-stone. I

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had scrambled out of the coach, and was instinctively settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, and I heard a smart thwack upon the coachman’s ear.

‘Take that, you villain!’ cried a strange, hoarse voice. ‘You have ruined me, you blackguard! I shall never be the woman I have been!’

And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver’s other ear, but which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible effusion of blood. Now, who, or what fearful apparition, was inflicting this punishment on the poor fellow, remained an impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by person of grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but stern, which absolutely made me quiver like a calves-foot jelly. Who could the phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet to be told; for this ogre, or whatever it ws, had a riding-habit like Mrs. Bullfrog’s, and also a green silk calash, dangling down her back by the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind, I could imagine nothing less, than that the Old Nick, at the moent of our overturn, had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed the more probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive, nor, though I looked very sharp about the coach, could I detect any traces of that beloved woman’s dead body. There would have been a comfort in giving her Christian burial!

‘Come, Sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set

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up the coach,’ said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech to three countrymen, at a distance—‘Here, you fellows, an’t you ashamed to stand off, when a poor woman is in distress?’

The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, though a small-sized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too, with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the next blow might break his head. And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. But I cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me.

‘Why, here we are all to rights again!’ exclaimed a sweet voice, behind. ‘Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr. Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don’t take this little accident too much to heart, good driver. We ought to be thankful that none of our necks are broke!’

‘We might have spared one neck out of the three,’ muttered the driver, rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been cuffed or not.—‘Why, the woman’s a witch!’

I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her brow, and two rows of orieent pearls gleaming between her parted lips, which wore a most angelic smile. She had regained her riding-habit

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and calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely woman who had been sitting by my side, at the instant of our overturn. How she had happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and whence did she now return, were problems too knotty for me to solve. There stood my wife. That was the one thing certain among a heap of mysteries. Nothing remained, but to help her into the coach, and plod on, through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as comfortably as we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I heard him whisper to the three countrymen—

‘How do you suppose a fellow feels, shut upin the cage with a she-tiger?’

Of course, this query could have no reference to my situation. Yet, unreasonable, as it may appear, I confess that my feelings were not altogether so ecstatic, as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. true, she was a sweet woman, and an angel of a wife; but what if a gorgon should return, amid the transports of our connubial bliss, and take the angel’s place! I recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woan, and half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and chimeras were flitting across my fancy, I began to look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, almost expecting that the transformation would be wrought before my eyes.

To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach, blushing with a deep-red stain, and emitting a potent spirituous fume, from the contents of the broken bottle of Kalydor. The

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paper was two or three years ld, but contained an article of several columns, in which I soon grew wonderfully interested. It was the report of a trial for breach of promise of marriage, giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts from both the gentleman’s and lady’s amatory correspondence. The deserted damsel had personally aappeared in court, and had borne energetic evidence to her lover’s perfidy, and the strength of her blighted affections.—On the defendant’s part, there had been an attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the plaintiff’s character, and a plea in mitigation of damages, on account of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by the lady’s name.

‘Madam,’ said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog’s eyes—and, though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, I feel assured that I looked very terrific—‘Madam,’ repeated I, through my shut teeth, ‘were you the plaintiff in this cause?’

‘Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog,’ replied my wife, sweetly, ‘I thought all the world knew that!’

‘Horror! horror!’ exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat.

Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike groan, as if my tormented soul were rending me asunder. I, the most exquisitely fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most delicate and refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering on her virgin rosebud of a heart! I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth—I thought of the Kalydor—I thought of the coachman’s bruised ear and bloody nose—I thought of the tender love-secrets, which she had whispered to the judge and jury, and a thousand tittering auditors—and gave another groan!

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‘Mr. Bullfrog,’ said my wife.

As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, removed them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine.

‘Mr. Bullfrog,’ said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of her strong character, ‘let me advise you to overcome this foolish weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a husband as I will be a wife. You have discovered, perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. Well—what did you expect? Women are not angels. If they were, they would go to Heaven for husbands—or, at least, be more difficult in their choice, one earth.’

‘But why conceal those imperfections?’ interposed I, temulously.

‘Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?’ said Mrs. Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. ‘Ought a woman to disclose her frailties earlier than the wedding-day? Few husbands, I assure you, make the discovery in such good season, and still fewer complain that these trifles are concealed too long. Well, what a strange man you are! Poh! you are joking.’

‘But, the suit for breach of promise!’ groaned I.

‘Ah! and is that the rub?’ exclaimed my wife. ‘Is it possible that you view that affair in an objectionable light? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could have dreamt it! Is it an objection, that I have triumphantly defended myself against slander, and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? Or, do you complain, because your wife has shewn the proper spirit of a woman, and punished the villain who trifled with her affections?’

‘But,’ persisted I—shrinking into a corner of the

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coach, however; for I did not know precisely how much contradition the proper spirt of a woman would endure—‘but, my love, would it not have been more dignified to treat the villain with the silent contempt he merited?’

‘That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog,’ said my wife, slily; ‘but, in that case, where would have been the five thousand dollars, which are to stock your dry-goods store?’

‘Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor,’ demanded I, as if my life hung upon her words, ‘is there no mistake about those five thousand dollars?’

‘Upon my word and honor, there is none,’ replied she. [‘]The jury gave me every cent the rascal had—and I have kept it all for my dear Bullfrog!’

‘Then, thou dear woman,’ cried I, with an overwhelming gush of tenderness, ‘let me fold thee to my heart! The basis of matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven. Nay, since the result has been so fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this blessed law-suit. Happy Bullfrog that I am!’

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[p. 76]

COMMUNION WITH NATURE.

BY MRS. S. H. WHITMAN.

—‘All seasons shall be sweet to thee—

Whether the summer clothe the genial earth

With grenness, or the red-breast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow, on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree.’

Coleridge.

Farewell sweet, bowery summer—fare thee well—

Fast fades thy lingering smile on hill and dell,

Thy latest flowers are trembling in the blast,

And all the glories of thy reign o’ercast.

Sweet sang the wild-bird on the waving bough,

Where cold November winds are wailing now.

The chirp of insects on the sunny lea,

And the wild murmur of the wandering bee,

Are silent all—closed is their vesper lay,

Borne by the breeze of Autumn far away.

No more o’er bourne and brake I wander far,

’Till warned of evening by her ‘folding star.’

No more I linger by the fountain’s play

While the long hours glide unperceived away;

Nor by the flower-fringed borders of the stream

Where arching boughs shut out the sultry beam,

Making at noontide hours a dewy gloom

O’er the most marge where weeds and wild flowers bloom;

Nor when the level sunbeams pour a flood

Of arrowy radiance through the twilight wood,

Mark, through the parted boughs, their quivery play,

Flecking the forest gloom with golden ray.

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No longer doth the wild Clematis wear

A zone of stars amid her floating hair,*

But decked in mournful plumes her tresses fall

Rude and neglected o’er the ruined wall.

Yet still the withered heath I love to rove,

The bare, brown meadow and the leafless grove—

Still love to climb the mountain’s rocky side

Where nodding asters wave in purple pride—

Or on the grey cliff lie, while far below

The rushing waters sweep in endless flow,

While through tall pines the loud winds pour a dirge

Hoarse as the roar of Ocean’s stormy surge.

Still through dim tangled paths I love to stray

Where sere and rustling leaves obstruct the way,

To find the last, pale blossom of the year,

That strangely blooms when all is dark and drear,

The wild witch-hazel, fraught with mystic power

To ban or bless as sorcery rules the hour.

Oft mid the dewy damps of twilight grave,

I pause where Dian woos the sleeping wave,

Deep in the fountain’s heart serene and cold

Glassing her glorious image—as of old—

When first she shone upon Endymion’s rest

And his dark dreams with heavenly beauty blest.

*The Clematis in summer is clothed with snow-white starry blossoms—but in the autumn its feathered seeds resemble tufts of downy plumes of a grey and silvery hue.

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Aye, for the heart that seeks its joys aright,

Each page of nature proffers new delight.

To such most welcome e’en thy stern career

‘O Winter, ruler of the inverted year.’

When through thy long dark nights, cold sleet and rain

Patter and plash against the frosty pane,

Warm curtained from the storm I love to lie,

Wakeful and listening to the lullaby

Of fitful winds, that as they rise and fall,

Send hollow murmurs through the echoing hall.

Oft by the blazing hearth at eventide

I love to mark the changing shadows glide

In flickering motion o’er the umber’d wall,

Till slumber’s honey dew my senses thrall.

Then, while in dreamy consciousness I lie,

’Twixt sleep and waking, fairy fantasie

Culls from the golden past a treasured store,

And weaves a dream so sweet, hope could not ask for more.

In the cold splendour of a frosty night,

When blazing stars burn with intenser light

Through the blue vault of heaven—when cold and clear

The air through which yon tall cliffs rise severe—

When sleeps the shrouded earth in solemn trance

Beneath the wan moon’s melancholy glance,

I love to mark earth’s sister planets rise

And in pale beauty tread the midnight skies;

While like lone pilgrims constant as the night

They fill their dark urns from the fount of light—

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I love the Borealis flames that fly

Fitful and wild athwart the northern sky—

The stories constellations—like a page

Fraught with the wonders of a former age,

Where monsters grim, gorgons and hydras rise,

‘And Gods and heroes blaze along the skies.’

Thus nature’s music, various as the hour,

Solemn or sweet hath ever mystic power,

Still to preserve the unperverted heart,

‘Awake to love and beauty,’ and impart

Treasures of thought and feeling pure and deep,

Which aid the troubling soul its heavenward course to keep!

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[p. 80]

A TALE,

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF OEHLENSCHLÆGER
BY MISS WHEATON.

There lived in Cologne, in the year 1571, a rich burgomaster, whose wife Wanda sickened and died.

They had lived very happily together; Wanda was still young, and very beautiful, and her husband Adocht had not left her bedside, during her long illness. It is well known that Cologne is an ancient city, which, with regard to sanctity, was compared to Rome, whence its appellation of Roma Germanica or civitas sancta. It seemed as if it wished to make propitiation, for having been the birthplace of the dreadful Agrippina. You might see in its streets for years, nothing but students, prests and monks. The bells were always ringing, and there were as many churches as the year has days.

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The principal church, the cathedral of St. Peters, is one of the finest buildings in Germany, but is not finished, the choir alone is vaulted. The centre of the church consists of four rows of huge pillars, and is a little longer than the Strasburg minster. The high altar, is of a single piece of black marble, from Namur on the Meuse, and was brought up the Rhine to Cologne. In the sacristy is shewn a staff of ivory, said to have belonged to the Apostle Peter. In the chapel stands a magnificent coffin of silver gilt, with the supposed bodies of the three kings.

In this church was buried Wanda von Adocht. She was attired like a bride, in rich silks, with a wreath of flowers on her head, and costly rings on her fingers. She lay in a little chapel under the choir, in a coffin with glass plates; many of her ancestors were already there.

The noble Adocht, her bereaved husband, had followed her to the grave with slow steps; the immense bell of the cathedral had spread its mournful tones throughout the city; the pious monks, with incense and tapers, had sung a requiem from their folio mass-books. Now she lay there pale and cold, in the garb of death. The hugh clock, which is only wound up once a year, was the only moving thing in this place of silence.

It was a stormy November evening, when Peter Bolt, sexton to the church, returned home from this magnificent burial. He had one little girl, about two years old, and his wife had just borne him a boy. The poor man went with a heavy heart to his home, which was on the damp brink of the river. He found his wife very ill, and was obliged to collect together some money to defray the double expenses of his family, in their present situation. He ran to the Jew Isaac, who had before advanced him some small sums; but Bolt had nothing more to pawn, and was compelled to place his hopes on Isaac’s pity, which was only a poor anchorage. Isaac heard his prayer, but refused him any succor. With a desolate heart, he left the Jew, and went towards his home. He had already often applied to the rich prelates, who had given him stinted alms, and from whom he now had nothing more to expect.

It was a dark night; the first snow fell in large flakes over the great square where was situated the cathedral.

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Being lost in his painful feelings, poor Bolt missed his way across the square, and before he was conscious of it, stood by the steps of the great cathedral. The clock struck a quarter to twelve, a thought crossed his mind with the rapidity of lightning. He saw his little Maria, his suffering wife and the new-born infant,—then the deceased lady, with her splendid ornaments. ‘She has no use for these things, thought he; ‘is it a sin to rob the dead to help the living?’—With these thoughts he hurried home, and although he altered his mind a thousand times, on the way, still the silent and secret sufferings of his wife, brought him at last to his final resolution. He took his lantern, and his keys, and went to the church; ascended the steps, put the key in the lock, turned it with his usual care, and found himself alone in the immense cathedral.

With what fear he went through the long nave of the church! He trembled so that he was afraid of losing his hold on the lantern. It seemed to him as if the sculptured cherubims stretched out their arms to grasp him. He tried to calm his feverish imagination, but in vain, and his pater nosters were of no avail. But still he went on, reached the choir, descended the steps, went through the narrow galleries, opened the door of the little chapel and stood directly opposite to the coffin of the deceased Wanda. The golden ornaments on her hair shone strangely by the pale light of the lantern. He tried to open the coffin, but started back, for it seemed to him as if the corpse moved its face. ‘If I only had time,’ thought he, ‘I would rather take something from the other coffins; time will have destroyed every thing human about them.’ But as this one seemed the easiest

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to open, he tried that. He would have forced one of the panes of glass, but they were too small to admit the hand, and were covered inside with wire. He had to split the wood, in doing which he was so conscience-stricken, as well nigh to have given up his purpose. But, touching by accident a spring, the lid flew open, and he fell on his knees to ask forgiveness. He rose, took hold of the hand of the corpse, and was about pulling off a ring, when—who can paint his horror?—the corpse seized his hand between hers, and held him fast. With a stifled scream, Bolt loosened her hold, forgot his light, ran through the long aisle, and stumbled over the so called ‘Tempelstein,’ which lay in the middle of the church. He fell senseless, and remained so for some time. Upon recovering himself, he hurried out and ran directly to the burgomaster’s house.

He knocked long before he received any answer. The whole house lay in a deep sleep, except the sorrowing Adocht, who sat on a canopy, where he had so often been accompanied by his beloved Wanda, meditating on past days. Bolt’s continued knocks roused him from his reverie; he opened the window, and called out: ‘Who is there?’—‘Ah, might lord Burgomaster, it is me?’—‘Who?’—‘Peter Bolt, sexton at St. Peter’s Church. I have a matter of great importance to communicate to you.’

A natural association of ideas, caused by the mention of the sexton of the church in which his wife lay, and the important secret he had to communicate, caused Adocht to hurry himself, and open the door to the trembling Bolt, who directly fell on his knees and confessed the whole affair. Adocht listened in astonishment and anger,

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softened by pity. He ordered Bolt to keep the secret, gave him money to help him in his present distress, and sent him home.

Adrocht now called his old house servant Hans, who came from his bed at his master’s call. ‘Do you fear the dead, Hans?’—‘No, most worthy lord burgomaster, they are not near so much to be feared as the living.’—‘Would you dare go into the cathedral, in the night?’—‘If it was my duty; not otherwise; we must not mock that which is sacred.’—‘Do you believe in spirits, Hans?’—‘Yes, my lord.’—‘Do you fear them?’—‘No!’—‘Will you go with me to the cathedral; I have had a wonderful dream. I seemed to me as if my wife called to me from the church tower.’—‘Now, Peter Bolt has certainly disturbed your worship with his ghost stories,’ said Hans.—‘Light your horn lantern, and follow me, Hans; I command you!’—‘If you command me, most worthy burgomaster, I obey; for you are not only my household master, but my sovereign ruler.’

Hans now lighted his lantern, and followed his master. Adocht entered the church with rapid steps, but Hans constantly interrupted him with some remark. At the entrance of the cathedral, he stopped to look at the golden staves over the door, to which is added one every year, to denote how long the reigning Elector lived. ‘That is a very good arrangement, my lord,’ said Hans, ‘we only need count these staves, and we can see, how long the gracious Elector has reigned over us sinful people.’—He made many more observations, and behaved like a traveller, who had never visited the place before. Adocht, who well knew that it availed nothing to remonstrate, let his old servant talk on, and only

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answered his questions as briefly as possible. As they advanced nearer to the high altar, Hans stopped short, and was not to be moved. ‘Make haste,’ cried Adocht, who began to lose all patience. ‘Alle gute Geister loben den Harn!’ murmured Hans between his teeth, at the same time feeling for his rosary. ‘What is the matter?’ said Adocht. ‘Do you not see who sits there, my lord?’—‘Where?’—‘God forgive me, but there sits my gracious lady in a long black mantle, drinking out of a silver cup.’ Hans lifted the lantern towards the apparition, and it was really so. Her sat the pale form of Wanda, in a dark garment, lifting the silver chalice to her lips. Adocht somewhat dismayed, cried out: ‘Wanda! In the name of Heaven, I conjure you, is it you or your shade?’—‘Ah!’ answered a faint voice, ‘you had buried me alive. I was almost gone, but these drops of wine refreshed me: Come up to me, dear Adocht! I am not dead!’—Adocht flew to the altar, and clasped his beloved wife in his arms.

After Bolt’s flight, Wanda had passed several dreadful moments in the vault. Before she was quite awake, she overturned the lantern, by a movement of her arm, and was left in utter darkness. She opened her eyes, but knew not where she was; she groped around her, but instead of warm covering, she found herself wrapped in thin silks. She felt her head and discovered the golden ornaments; it was midnight dark and she could see nothing, until the fleecy clouds, parting, allowed a beam of moonlight to penetrate the dismal abode. Wanda now saw, to her dismay, where she was. She filled the vault with her screams. The most dreadful thoughts occupied her mind; they almost drove her to madness.

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The door of the vault was shut, the alarmed sexton had closed it after him. She knew that no one could hear her cries from the choir. The only window was very high, and opened to a lonely spot, where no one came. The unhappy lady wrung her hands. With horror she gazed on the white, tin coffins, the dark, frowning walls. On these sheets she was to write the history of her sufferings, the only comfort and relief she could expect before her dreadful death. Despair sat on her wan visage, she trembled with cold. In her distress she found the black pall which had been used to bear her to the grave. It seemed as if the warmth revived her strength. The moon shone bright. In her dark mantle she knelt before the window, and cried: ‘Holy Virgin! who standest over the altar in the church above me; I cannot now kneel before thy sacred image. But thy countenance is bright and serene as the moon. I seem to behold thee looking down to me from Heaven. Holy Maria! save me!’—After this short, but fervent prayer, Wanda turned towards the door, and essayed with her utmost strength to turn the rusty lock. what was her joy on finding that the door was not latched. She rushed out, with hurried steps, but could go no farther than to the high altar. Her strength failed her entirely, and she felt chills shooting through her limbs. Fortunately she remembered that the parish always put the sacramental chalice behind the altar; she found in it a few drops of wine, which revived her failing strength. In this situation she was found by her husband, who had her conveyed home as quickly as possible. It was easy for him to conceal the real cause of the deliverance of his wife, and what was his joy to hear the physicians declare that the dangerous

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crisis was passed, and that he had nothing more to fear for his beloved Wanda. It was impossible for him to be angry with Bolt, whose offence was connected with such a touching and joyful event. But Bolt was a more severe judge to himself; he laid down his little office, and would no longer be sexton to the church. Wanda took care of his wife and became godmother to his child. With what feelings did she not, fourteen days after deliverance, hold the laughing boy over the baptismal font, on a bright day, accompanied with the sound of the organ, the psalms of the priests, and surrounded by the inhabitants of the city. Adocht offered thanks to God, and promised, together with his wife, never to neglect the child, whose needy birth alone had saved Wanda from so dreadful a death. In this manner the mournful funeral procession was changed into a joyful baptism, and the wealthy burgomaster spared not his store of delicious wines, whole pipes of which were opened in the market place, to the great joy of the people, who drank his own and his wife’s health, with reiterated congratulations.

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[p. 88]

SUNDAY AT HOME.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GENTLE BOY.

Every Sabbath morning, in the summer time, I thrust back the curtain, to watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple, which stands opposite my chamber window. First, the weathercock begins to flash; then, a fainter lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower, and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold, as it points to the gilded figure of the hour. Now, the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower. The carved frame-work of the portal is marked strongly out. At length, the morning glory, in its descent from Heaven, comes down the stone steps, one by one; and there stands the steeple, glowing with fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks, though the same sun brightens it, every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the Sabbath.

By dwelling near a church, a person soon contracts an attachment for the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massive walls, and its dim emptiness, to be instinct with a calm, and meditative, and somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost, in our thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant, with a mind comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and small concerns of all the town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of

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their separate and most secret affairs. It is the steeple, too, that flings abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither have gladness and festivity found a better utterance, than by its tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of this connection with human interests, what a moral loneliness, on week days, broods round about its stately height! It has no kindred with the houses above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare, the lonelier, because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. A glance at the body of the church deepens this impression. Within, by the light of distant windows, amid refracted shadows, we discern the vacant pews and empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit, and the clock, which tells to solitude how time is passing. Time—where man lives not—what is it but eternity? And in the church, we might suppose, are garnered up, throughout the week, all thoughts and feelings that have reference to eternity, until the holy day comes round again, to let them forth. Might not, then, its more appropriate site be in the outskirts of the town, with space for old trees to wave around it, and throw their solemn shadows over a quiet green? We will say more of this, hereafter.

But, on the Sabbath, I watch the earliest sunshine, and fancy that a holier brightness marks the day, when there shall be no buzz of voices on the Exchange, nor traffit in the shops, nor crowd, nor business, anwhere but at church. Many have fancied so. For my own part, whether I see it scattered down among tangled woods, or beaming broad across the fields, or hemmed in

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between brick buildings, or tracing out the figure of the casement on my chamber floor, still I recognize the Sabbath sunshine.—And ever let me recognize it! Some illusions, and this among them, are the shadows of great truths. Doubts may flit around me, or seem to close their evil wings, and settle down; but, so long as I imagine that the earth is hallowed, and the light of heaven retains its sanctity, on the Sabbath—while that blessed sunshine lives within me—never can my soul have lost the instinct of its faith. If it have gone astray, it will return again.

I love to spend such pleasant Sabbaths, from morning till night, behind the curtain of my open window. Are they spent amiss? Every spot, so near the church as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple, should be deemed consecrated ground, to-day. With stronger truth be it said, that a devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil one may convert a temple to the same. My heart, perhaps, has not such holy, nor, I would fain trust, such impious potency. It must suffice, that, though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to church, while many, whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats, have left their souls at home. But I am there, even before my friend, the sexton. At length, he comes—a man of kindly, but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and hair of the same mixture—he comes, and applies his key to the wide portal. Now, my thoughts may go in among the dusty pews, or ascend the pulpit without sacrilege, but soon come forth again, to enjoy the music of the bell. How glad, yet solemn too! All the steeples in town are talking together, aloft in the sunny air, and rejoicing among themselves, while their

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spires point heavenward. Meantime, here are the children assembling to the Sabbath-school, which is kept somewhere within the church. Often, while looking at the arched portal, I have been gladdened by the sight of a score of these little girls and boys, in pink, blue, yellow, and crimson frocks, bursting suddenly forth into the sunshine, like a swarm of gay butterflies that had been shut up in the solemn gloom. Or I might compare them to cherubs, haunting that holy place.

About a quarter of an hour before the second ringing of the bell, individuals of the congregation begin to appear. The earliest is invariably an old woman in black, whose bent frame and rounded shoulders are evidently laden with some heavy affliction, which she is eager to rest upon the altar. Would that the Sabbath came twice as often, for the sake of that sorrowful old soul! There is an elderly man, also, who arrives in good season, and leans against the corner of the tower, just within the line of its shadow, looking downward with a darksome brow. I sometimes fancy that the old woman is the happier of the two. After these, others drop in singly, and by twos and threes, either disappearing through the door-way, or taking their stand in its vicinity. At last, and always with an unexpected sensation, the bell turns in the steeple overhead, and throws out an irregular clangor, jarring the tower to its foundation. As if there were magic in the sound, the sidewalks of the street, both up and down along, are immediately thronged with two long lines of people, all converging hitherward, and streaming into the church. Perhaps the far-off roar of a coach draws nearer—a deeper thunder by its contrast with the surrounding stillness—until it

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sets down the wealthy worshippers at the portal, among their humblest brethren. Beyond that entrance, in theory at least, there are no distinctions of earthly rank; nor, indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in the sun, would there seem to be such, on the hither side. Those pretty girls! Why will they disturb my pious meditations! Of all days in the week, they should strive to look least fascinating on the Sabbath, instead of heightening their mortal loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels, and keep our thoughts from heaven. Were I the minister himself, I must needs look. One girl is white muslin from the waist upward, and black silk downward to her slippers; a second blushes from top-knot to shoe-tie, one universal scarlet; another shines of a pervading yellow, as if she had made a garment of the sunshine. The greater part, however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of hue. Their veils, especially when the wind raises them, give a lightness to the general effect, and make them appear like airy phantoms, as they flit up the steps, and vanish into the sombre door-way. Nearly all—though it is very strange that I should know it—wear white stockings, white as snow, and neat slippers, laced crosswise with black ribbon, pretty high above the ankles. A white stocking is infinitely more effective than a black one.

Here comes the clergyman, slow and solemn, in severe simplicity, needing no black silk gown to denote his office. His aspect claims my reverence, but cannot win my love. Were I to picture Saint Peter, keeping fast the gate of Heaven, and frowning, more stern than pitiful, on the wretched applicants, that face should be my study. By middle age, or sooner, the creed has generally wrought

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upon the heart, or been attempered by it. As the minister passes into the church, the bell holds its iron tongue, and all the low murmur of the congregation dies away. The gray sexton looks up and down the street, and then at my window curtain, where, through the small peep-hole, I half fancy that he has caught my eye. Now, every loiterer has gone in, and the street lies asleep in the quiet sun, while a feeling of loneliness comes over me, and brings also an uneasy sense of neglected privileges and duties. Oh, I ought to have gone to church! The bustle of the rising congregation reaches my ears. They are standing up to pray. Could I bring my heart into unison with those who are praying in yonder church, and lift it heavenward, with a fervor of supplication, but no distinct request, would not that be the safest kind f prayer? ‘Lord, look down upon me in mercy!’ With that sentiment gushing from my soul, might I not leave all the rest to Him?

Hark! the hymn. This, at least, is a portion of the service which I can enjoy better than if I sat within the walls, where the full choir, and the massive melody of the organ, would fall with a weight upon me. At this distance, it thrills through my frame, and plays upon my heart-strings, with a pleasure both of the sense and spirit. Heaven be praised, I know nothing of music, as a science; and the most elaborate harmonies, if they please me, please as simply as a nurse’ lullaby. The strain has ceased, but prolongs itself in my mind, with fanciful echoes, till I start from my reverie, and find that the sermon has commenced. It is my misfortune seldom to fructify, in a regular way, by any but printed sermons. The first strong idea, which the preacher utters, gives

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birth to a train of thought, and leads me onward, step by step, quite out of hearing of the good man’s voice, unless he be indeed a son of thunder. At my open window, catching now and then a sentence of the ‘parson’s saw,’ I am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit stairs. The broken and scattered fragments of this one discourse will be the texts of many sermons, preached by those colleague pastors—colleagues, but often disputants—my Mind and Heart. The former pretends to be a scholar, and perplexes me with doctrinal points; the latter takes me on the score of feeling; and both, like several other preachers, spend their strength to very little purpose. I, their sole auditor, cannot always understand them.

Suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold me still behind my curtain, just before the close of the afternoon service. The hour hand on the dial has passed beyond four o’clock. The declining sun is hidden behind the steeple, and throws its shadow straight across the street, so that my chamber is darkened, as with a cloud. Around the church door, all is solitude, and an impenetrable obscurity, beyond the threshold. A commotion is heard. The seats are slammed down, and the pew doors thrown back—a multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles—and the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal. Foremost, scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and lastly, a crowd of females, with young children, and a few scattered husbands. This instantaneous out-break of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day. Some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been wrapt,

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as it were, in a sort of holy trance, by the fervor of their devotion. There is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief, and brush the seat of a tight pair of black siilk pantaloons, which shine as if varnished. They must have been made of the stuff called ‘everlasting,’ or perhaps of the same piece as Christian’s garments, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, for he put them on two summers ago, and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But, now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takesher husband’s arm, and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away, after arranging sunset walks with their favored bachelors. The Sabbath eve is the eve of love. At length, the whole congregation is dispersed. No; here, with faces as glossy as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in their rear, the minister, who softens his severe visage, and bestows a kind word on each. Poor souls! To them, the most captivating picture of bliss in Heaven, is—‘There we shall be white!’

All is solitude again. But, hark!—a broken warbling of voices, and now, attuning its grandeur to their sweetness, a stately peal of the organ. who are the choristers? Let me dream, that the angels, who came down from Heaven, this blessed morn, to blend themselves with the worship of the truly good, are playing and singing their farewell to the earth.—On the wings of that rich melody, they were borne upward.

This, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry. A few of the singing men and singing women had lingered behind their fellows, and rasied their voices fitfully, and

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blew a careless note upon the organ. Yet, it lifted my soul higher than all their former strains. They are gone—the sons and daughters of music—and the gray sexton is just closing the portal. For six days more, there will be no face of man in the pews, and aisles, and galleries, nor a voice in the pulpit, nor music in the choir. Was it worth while to rear this massive edifice, to be a desert in the heart of the town, and populous only for a few hours of each seventh day? Oh! but the church is a symbol of religion. May its site, which was consecrated on the day when the first tree was felled, be kept holy forever, a spot of solitude and peace, amid the trouble and vanity of our week-day world! There is a moral, and a religion too, even in the silent walls. And, may the steeple still point heavenward, and be decked with the hallowed sunshine of the Sabbath morn!

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a young white girl sits weeping near a grave
Painted by G. I. Brown.      Engraved by V. Balch.
“I WENT TO GATHER FLOWERS”

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[p. 97]

I WENT TO GATHER FLOWERS.

’Twas morn—I went to gather flowers—

’Twas June, and gems were all around me;

And there for many happy hours,

My playmate blossoms, smiling, found me.

I wandered on, and thought of them,

Stooping, as oft they reared their head,

Wooing my hand to pluck their stem—

’Till on the threshold of the dead,

My foot was set—and then I wept,

For many thoughts came thronging o’er me;

And all my morning dreams were swept,

Like winter leaves away before me.

I wept that such a path of bloom,

Must lead at length to this cold stone;

That flowers could wile me to the Tomb,

And leave me there, alone—alone!

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[p. 98]

THE TIARA.

BY THE AUTHOR OF WEALTH AND FASHION.

To an American in Paris, no resort can be more delightful than the gardens of the Tuilleries—their prodigious size, filled with parterres of beautiful plants—superb statues and elegantly wrought vases—the fountains throwing their water to the skies, and reflecting a thousand tints of light. Then the groups which assemble, are so perfectly national that you see Paris at a coup d’œil. On Sunday afternoon, it is in its glory—women with their fanciful head-dresses and gaudy drapery, are relieved by others with the neatest costume and most quiet demeanor. Children frolicking round with their nurses—families seated in groups among the trees—and now and then a solitary reader with a book or newspaper in his hand. The beauty of all this is, that every body seems at home. Every man who pays a few sous for his chair, feels as perfectly located, as if it were for life. This is one reason why such an air of contentment prevails; in all the public walks of our American cities, there is an air of restlessness or watchfulness in those who are occasionally seen there—they take a few turns and are off—but in Paris they live in their public walks; they carry their occupations there. The nurses find it an easy way of taking care of their children—and the children get health and activity by playing in the open air. I used to pass every Sunday afternoon in the gardens of the Tuilleries,

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and always found some group that particularly interested me. There was one, however, that finally engrossed all my attention. It was a gentleman and lady with their family—seven formed the group, and a more lovely one I never beheld. The Pere du famille was a fine, frank, business-looking man—the mother had something more distinguished, somethen that might be termed l’air noble—then were two little girls about the ages of nine and ten, who devoted themselves to a boy and a girl much younger—the girl just beginning to go alone; to complete this group was a woman more advanced in age than any of the party—her costume was that of a femme de chambre—but the deference paid to her by the children, and the attention of the parents, led me to suppose there must be some history attached to her. There is no doubt but that we Americans carry our curiosity, and our faculty of guessing across the Atlantic. I had various guesses about this group, and it was some time before I got any information on the subject. At length I saw a gentleman who boarded at the same hotel with us, join them familiarly, and enter into conversation. I immediately conjectures that he would be to me the open sesamé for which I was seeking, and I found it so. He told me that the gentleman was le Docteur Renard—a physician of considerable note—but less remarkable for his science than his benevolence. ‘He is active,’ said he, ‘in all our charitable institutions, and a real benefactor to the poor.’

‘And his lady?’ said I inquisitively.

‘The counterpart of himself. They have a most delightful residence about a mile from the city—embellished with choice flowers and rare plants—they have given it the fanciful name of The Tiara.’

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‘That is a singular name for a country residence.’

‘Yes, but you know it is no matter what—if it identifies the place; now I think of it—it is situated just at the head of a little river, and forms a kind of crescent round it.’

‘How I should like to be acquainted with them!’

‘Well, you have only to fall desperately sick, and send for Dr. Renard; I can give you his direction.’

‘That would be paying too dearly,’ I replied—‘nevertheless I will take his address.’

Several weeks passed, and I continued to visit the Tuilleries every Sunday afternoon, and always met the same group—the time drew near for my departure, and I ceased to desire an introduction, determined to spend my last Sunday at St. Cloud, where there was a féte.—The grounds of the palace are very beautiful, and after enjoying the sight of gaily dressed people, of booths, shops, and all the accompaniments of a fair—after being well sprinkled by the jets d’eau—I determined to stay a little while in the evening, and see the ball rooms lighted up in the open air. I was wholly engaged in this brilliant scene—admiring the colored lamps wreathed among the trees, and the gay and happy dancers, when I was roused from my enjoyment by a warning from my husband that it was growing late, and rather unwillingly I left the place. The next morning I awoke with a violent sore throat and pains all over me—towards noon I was apparently in a high fever. My husband decided to send for a physician. I very honestly told him that I believed my attack was nothing more than a violent cold, but he was resolute—I then only asked the privilege of sending for whom I pleased. This was readily granted

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—and Dr. Renard was sent for. My cold settled into a regular fever—and he attended me several weeks; during that time, my husband and myself became his intimate friends—when I began to recover, he brought his wife to see me, and they gave me a most pressing invitation to pass a few days at their residence. In this delightful family I recovered my health. I one day said to Madame Renard, perhaps with a little spice of Yankee curiosity,—‘May I ask why you have given the name of the Tiara to your little paradise?’

‘Certainly,’ said she, smiling, ‘I will tell you, what I seldom have done to any one, the whole story.’—We repaired to a paviliion in the garden, fitted up with true French taste. I observed before we left the house she went to a secretary and took a casket from it, which she put in her reticule. Seated in the pavilion, soothed by the gentle murmuring of the stream, and regaled by the odour of a thousand flowers, Madame Renard related to me the following little history. It is out of my power to repeat it with the grace, naivetè, and feeling with which she recited it—but I must give it in my own language, and translation.

‘It is difficult,’ she began, ‘to make you, who are born in a republican country, who must feel almost a contempt for the aristocratic distinctions of a monarchy, comprehend my story—it will appear to you unnatural and extravagant. I can only leave you however to draw your own inferences.

‘The earliest recollection of my youth, is seeing my mother contemplate with a sort of extasy, [sic] a casket of glittering stones wrought into one beautiful ornament. Sometimes as I stood by the side of her, I was permitted

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to hold the case in my hand for a few minutes. TThere shone the clear sparkling rays of the diamond—the ruby with its blaze of red light—the opal reflecting the colors of the prism in their undulating forms—the emerald with its brilliant green—the sapphire with its celestial blue—the topaz with its golden yellow—the amethyst with its royal purple! What dazzling rays they sent forth!

‘ ‘What is it, mother?’ I asked.—‘It is a Tiara.’—‘Pray give it to me?’ She smiled—‘you shall look at it when you are good.’ Henceforth this was my reward—to hold the case in my hand, and to turn it from side to side as it reflected the multiplied rays of light. If I was unusually studious, I was allowed to gaze upon the Tiara—if I was amiable and obliging, a look at the Tiara was my reward; imperceptibly it took the highest place in my mind, and embodied forth all the virtues. Once, and only once, I saw it upon my mother’s head; she was dressed for a ball—I think she told me it was given in honor of the Bourbons. I always loved her, but that evening I perfectly worshipped her; she seemed to me like the adorable Marie, the Queen of Heaven. My mother traced her ancestry some how and other to the Bourbons, and always said she went out of fashion with them. She still tenaciously claimed the title of Countess and held her soirèes. She gave tea after the English fashion to two or three ladies and gentlemen of the old regime, seating herself at a gilded and rose-wood table at one corner of the room, while Lucile, our faithful domestic, handed it round on a tarnished gilt waiter. I remember to this day how grimly the sphinxes looked that supported the table—their visages formed a striking

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contrast to the smiles and bows by which they were surrounded. By degrees, poverty began to stare us in the face—tea was given up and l’eau sucrè supplied its place. Poor Lucile, she was the most devoted creature in the world; she would sit up the whole night to prepare and wash my mother’s dresses for the next day—her service was that of perfect self-annihilation—she never seemed to feel hunger, cold or fatigue, if my mother was guarded from these evils. Then the air with which she would usher visiters up to the fifth story, and inform them that Madame la Comtesse saw company in her salle a manger! alas, it was the only one we had; it was our bed-room at night, and answered every other purpose by day. Even this attempt at style we were at last obliged to relinquish. Then came entire seclusion, and Lucile said, ‘Madame la Comtesse was too indisposed to see company.’ We wanted all the luxuries of life, but still my mother possessed the Tiara, and for a long time it comforted her under many privations. She parted with one article after another—we lived on her mechlin lace canezou for three months—then went her dress of cloth of gold—finally we came to articles of furniture, and even the tea-table and the sphinxes with their grim visages were obliged to contribute to our support. My mother’s health began to fail—the excitement of company and style was essential to her, she had nothing of her former rank remaining but the Tiara. That to be sure did wonders, but even the comforts of life were now wanting. Lucile once suggested to her the idea of parting with the Tiara—never shall I forget the indignation that flashed from her eyes! The poor girl crept into a corner and hid her face—but I, her only

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child, had more courage. ‘Could you, mamma, get ten louis d’ors for it?’ said I.

‘ ‘Poor simpleton,’ replied she, ‘ten thousand could not purchase it from me. Listen to me my child,’ continued she with solemnity; ‘in your mother’s veins flows a portion of the royal blood of France. This Tiara is all that remains of our ancient grandeur—princes have coveted it—even queens gazed upon it with longing eyes—there is no doubt but the sale of it would make us affluent—but I reject the thought with scorn.’—‘Dear, dear lady,’ said Lucile, whose affection overcame her first emotions of terror—‘for your own sake—for the sake of your beloved child, part with some of the precious stones. Let Devaux (the jeweller) have at least one of them at a fair price.’

‘ ‘Lucile,’ said my mother with dignity, ‘I forgive you, because I appreciate your attachment, and because we must act according to our birth and station. You are low born—’ ‘Yes madame,’ said Lucile, meekly curtesying. ‘Your veins are filled with base blood.’—‘Yes madame,’ again repeated the soubrette. ‘I cannot therefore expect noble resolution from you; but Frederica, my daughter, you will understand me.’ ‘Yes mamma.’ ‘Listen to me. At my death this Tiara will become yours.’ ‘Is it possible!’ I exclaimed, looking the delight I felt, ‘what, all my own, to do with as I please?’ I remember my mother seemed a little shocked, but she had wonderful self-command. ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘it will be yours, but before that time comes, I shall be no more—I shall sleep as my royal ancestors have done, beneath the clods of the valley.’

‘ ‘You will have no mother then!’ said the affectionate

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Lucile, her eyes streaming with tears, ‘she will be dead!’ This little explanation spoke to my heart. ‘O dear mamma,’ said I, ‘I do not want the Tiara, if you must die before you can give it to me.’

‘ ‘It is a happiness to me,’ replied she, ‘that I shall leave you such an inheritance! and yet,’ added she, sighing, ‘there are penalties attached to its possession. How often when I lay my head upon my pillow, I tremble lest before morning some daring robber may wrest it from me!’

‘ ‘But you know, mamma,’ said I with childish simplicity, ‘he could not get it from under your pillow without waking you up!’

‘ ‘True my child, my life would be the forfeit.’ ‘But I think, mamma, he would not take it when he knew how much you valued it. Do get Father McKenny to sprinkle it with holy water, and then the robber will not dare to touch it.’

‘The Tiara however remained safe, and reposed quietly under my mother’s pillow—much more quietly than the owner, for often at midnight I have seen her start up and hunt for the casket; and sometimes, when it had accidentally slipped from its position, she would search for it with frantic eagerness.

‘As I advanced in years, my reason began to exert itself. My veneration for the Tiara did not diminish; it was still in my eyes a sacred relic—it was evidently more precious to my mother than her life—she had said as much. It seemed to me like the solar system. I compared the diamond, which was the centre, to the sun, the opal to the moon, the sapphire to Venus, the ruby to Mars, the topaz to Jupiter, the emerald to Mercury, and

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the amethyst to Saturn. All this veneration and more, I had imbibed from my mother—but as I grew older, it sometimes occurred to me, that it was a merchantable article. Lucile would now and then throw in a word—‘Here is madame le Comtesse,’ she would say, ‘actually wanting the necessaries of life, with thousands at her command—do dear ma’m’selle Frederica persuade her to part with only one of those precious stones, and we shall be rich.’

‘These representations aided by my own sense of right, operated upon my mind, and I at last ventured to suggest the subject to my mother. She looked at me with astonishment. ‘Can it be possible,’ said she, ‘that one of a royal race, however remote, can be low souled and mercenary?’ ‘My dearest mother,’ said I, ‘you have often told me the Tiara would finally be mine, and I doubt not that it is for me you are preserving it in its pristine glory—dispose of one stone after another and leave me the beautiful form in which they are set—I will still sacredly preserve it as a type of our noble origin.’—‘Yes,’ said she, indignantly, ‘and it would also remain a type of ignominy for one of the race. No,’ added she, gazing on it with enthusiasm, ‘to me thou has descended unimpaired in value, and from me thou shalt thus descend. Frederica, a horrible thought has entered my mind—perhaps when I am no more, thou mayest be tempted to despoil this inheritance, or even part with it—in so doing, dread lest a mother’s curse should fall upon thee!’

‘I threw myself on my knees before her—she was extremely fond of my taking this attitude, and always softened by it. ‘Rest easy, dear mamma,’ said I, ‘never

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will I despoil the Tiara or lay a finger upon it but by your permission.’ From this time neither Lucile or myself ever hinted at the subject. The Countess, (she taught me always to give her this title when I spoke of her to anotheer,) had often said she would not leave me without a genealogical tree. In drawing this she devoted her last days—amidst sickness and poverty my noble mother patiently pursued her object; her whole soul seemed engrossed in the labour—it was meat and drink to her, and alas! it often took the place of her devotions. At length it was completed, and I was permitted to see it. It was a beautiful piece of work; my mother had a fine taste in drawing. It began with Henri quatre, the first Bourbon of the Capetian line—then it ascended tolerably distinct for a little way—but at last it began to branch out into a thousand ramifications—finally the Tiara, beautifully delineated, made its appearance among a heap of foliage—it was soon lost, however, and popped out again on the opposite side—another parcel of foliage denoted the reign of Louis XIII, and among this, the Tiara again peeped forth—but it was during the reign of Louis XIV, surnamed le Grand, that my mother exerted her talents to introduce the Tiara. Heaven bless her, I believe she was sadly puzzled to give that, or herself, any direct line, and at last gave up the attempt, only hanging it on the remote branches at the end of every reign—it was conspicuous in that of Louis XV—and many a tear my mother shed as she again pointed it out to me, suspended to the branches, which denoted the royal family of the unfortunate Louis XVI. Then the trunks ran up naked and barren, and that, my mother told me denoted the French

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revolution—and she pointed out a corner of the Tiara which she said marked the spot where she was born. Once again it was visible at the restoration of the Bourbons, and it seemed as if here my mother’s strength or spirits failed—for a blighted little twig shot off on one side, scraggling and ungraceful, and at the end of it hung the Tiara. ‘This,’ said she, tenderly embracing me, ‘denotes you, Frederica.’

‘ ‘Yes mamma,’ said I, with a feeling of mortification. ‘You perceive now my child that you have reason to be proud of your royal ancestors—you here clearly trace your origin from Henri quatre, and you see that the Tiara has regularly proceeded from one generation to another.’ I confess I had not a much clearer idea of my own origin, or that of the Tiara, from the genealogical tree—but it was very long, sheet after sheet stitched together, and I reverenced it as the work of my mother’s own trembling hand. Alas, how many hours of suffering and sorrow marked her last days—famine came rapidly upon us—I, of the Bourbon race, took in work to provide such comforts as were indispensable to sickness—Lucile served us for love, not money, and denied herself the smallest indulgence. How hard, how unjust it must have seemed to her, when she knew we had the value of thousands in our possession—but like myself, she was trained to obedience, and we never murmured. At length, my mother was confined to her bed—it took all my time to nurse her, while Lucile performed the more menial offices—we could no longer earn even a poor pittance—we gave up our soup-maigre, and lived on bread and water. Thank Heaven, we were able to make her comfortable by our privations. I had watched with

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her one night alone, that Lucile might get sleep and strength for the next day’s work. As the morning dawned, she desired me to open the shutter, that she might see me once more. I did as she desired, and mechanically felt for the casket and offered it to her. For the first time, she repulsed it, and motioned for the crucifix that stood on the table; she pressed it to her lips, then suddenly turning her eyes upon me, she exclaimed, ‘Frederica, you are sick—how thin and pale you look—I perceive it all, you are spending your life for me—God forgive me if I have sinned!’ ‘Dear mother,’ said I, ‘I am well, very well; here is the casket—’ ‘Remove the bauble,’ said she, ‘from my sight.’ Bauble! I would sooner have died than called it a bauble!

‘ ‘O Frederica, would to God I had better realized the glory of the unseen world, and thought less of the idle distinctions of this. My poor child, I must leave you, my hour is come—I no longer wish you to preserve the Tiara, dispose of it as you best can. Lucile has shared our poverty, let her share your affluence! Send for the priest.’ He came, extreme unction was administered, and before noon my dear mother was a corpse.

‘Who shall say the impressions of childhood are of little importance? Dare I even confess to myself that after the first agony of sorrow was over, a secret thought stole into my mind, the Tiara is mine to do with as I lease. I did not feel less grief, at this idea, for my mother’s death—but I felt according to her teachings. I am not apt to moralize, and yet I cannot help stopping to throw in a few reflections. My mother, on her death bed, no doubt deeply regretted that she had given so

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much of her time, of her thoughts, to what then appeared to her worthless—this idea she wished to convey to me; but oculd a few words of compunction at the closing scene have power to do away a life’s influence? Mothers, your children will imbibe the tenor of your principles and thoughts—what you think important, they will think so; you are daily and hourly impressing their young minds with what fills your own. Talk not of warning, or of precept, your example is their education.

‘The Tiara had become mine, and now was an opportunity to act according to reason; by parting with what was of no use to us, I could make Lucile and myself comfortable—but my mother’s lessons had taken too deep root. The Tiara became to me what it had been to her; like her I gazed upon it with rapture, slept with it under my pillow, and like her, at any sudden noise, awoke in an agony of terror and felt for my treasure. Unmoved I beheld Lucile wasting with famine; it seemed as if the humanity of my nature had become extinct. My own debility increased, a nervous tremor came over me, and it seemed literally as if a curse had come with the Tiara. I watched over it with trembling anxiety—sleep no longer refreshed me—I was in constant dread of plunder Even Lucile, at last, became an object of suspicion—and I feared she might secretly despoil the jewel. To have parted with a single stone would have been like taking my heart’s blood. When poor Lucile saw that my infatuation even exceeded my mother’s, she seemed to resign herself to hopeless despair; she no longer struggled with adversity. Never was there a more disinterested creature. I have no doubt that she would willingly have spent her life for me; but when she saw

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herself an object of suspicion, she was cut to the heart. Probably, too, her moral sense of right and wrong was shocked; at any rate she gave up entirely, and took to her bed. I loved her truly. ‘Lucile,’ said I, ‘what can I do for you?’ ‘Nothing, nothing,’ replied she, ‘my dear young lady, it is better I should die, I am now only a trouble to you.’ I went for a physician who lived not far from us—he came, and said Lucile was dying for want of proper nourishment. He looked at us both with an expression of the deepest compassion—I said but little, and he too made no remarks. An hour after his departure, a basket came, containing nourishing provisions, wine, and soup. He was right, Lucile was dying with famine—nd when properly sustained, her nature revived; she rapidly recovered. Three days after the first visit, the doctor came again. He seemed gratified with the change in us both, and said, ‘I will send you another basket.’ ‘Doctor,’ said I, a little proudly, ‘you think us poor—let me convince you to the contrary’—and I took the casket from my pocket, where I now always carried it, and opened it. He looked astonished. ‘Are they real?’ said he, as he examined the stones. ‘All,’ said I. He soon began to comprehend my infatuation, from sentences I let fall. His aspect became changed from benevolence to severity. ‘This is indeed poverty,’ said he, ‘the most deplorable kind of poverty—you are perishing for want, in the midst of affluence. May Heaven aid and enlighten you.’ When he left us, I was sad and humbled. Surely, thought I, it is more degrading to receive alms, than to part with the Tiara. I determined to raise a small sum upon it. I hastened to one of the most celebrated jewellers, and requested to

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speak with him in private. When we were alone, I drew forth the casket and placed it in his hands. Few will appreciate the effort or the struggle that preceded it—I was about to relinquish the object of my later and my earlier thoughts, and I felt as if the glory were departing from my house.

[‘] ‘I wish,’ said I, in a tremulous voice, ‘to raise a sum upon this, sufficient for my present demands—you will keep it in your hands, and from time to time I will call on you for a few Napoleons—it is possible I may one day redeem it, but more probable that you may become the final possessor of it.’ While I was speaking, the man opened the casket, he examined it, and then looked earnestly at me. ‘I doubt not, madam,’ said he, ‘this ornament has great value in your eyes, but it is obsolete.’ ‘It may well be obsolete,’ said I, rather haughtily, ‘it has descended to me through the first families that France can boast.’ There was an evident disposition in the man to smile, but he checked it. ‘I am aware that the form is not modern,’ I continued, ‘but I only wish you to advance the value of one or two of the stones—the ruby if you please.’

‘ ‘Indeed madam,’ said he, ‘you labor under some great mistake; the ornament altogether is worth little or nothing. There are not real stones, they are counterfeit!’

‘For a moment, I doubted the truth of the assertion—it was only for a moment. I knew his respectability as a jeweller too well. A strange sickness came over me, my head grew dizzy, a thousand noises rung in my ears, I fainted and fell. Every assistance was rendered me, and in a short time I recovered my senses. The jeweller did not seem to comprehend the cause of my distress, for

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he again adverted to the subject. ‘It is surprising,’ said he, ‘what impositions are now practised—I have seldom seen a better imitation of stones than these.’

‘ ‘Perhaps,’ said I, gaining courage, ‘some of them may be real.’ ‘Not one,’ replied he, ‘I will convince you.’ He hastily inserted a little instrument under the ruby—a piece of colorless glass fell out, and only the red foil remained. ‘You see what I told you is true.’ He immediately replaced it. ‘It is a pretty piece of antiquity—even if you could get a few francs for it, I would not advise you to part with it; you might wear it a hundred times, and none but a practised eye would detect the imposition. It is extremely well done,’ added he, ‘and is undoubtedly a piece of Dutch finery.’

‘I took the casket and returned home. My first emotion was thankfulness that my mother had never been undeceived. I knew by my own feelings the agony it would have cost her.

‘I found Lucile at her work as usual—the doctor’s wine and soup had restored her. ‘I have been,’ said I, ‘to dispose of the Tiara.’ ‘Merciful Heaven!’ she exclaimed. ‘Prepare yourself for a cruel disappointment; we have all our lives been deceived, the stones are—counterfeit!’

‘Lucile was all agitation; she burst into tears and wrung her hands.

‘There are æras in our lives that are well worth noting; forgive me if I dwell for a moment on this. Providence leads us by events to new thoughts and resolutions. A few short hours had given me the maturity of years. I beheld at a glance the folly of which I had been guilty.

‘ ‘Lucile,’ said I, calmly, ‘why distress yourself?—

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Here is the Tiara, it is still mine, and as brilliant as ever; it is just what it was when we worshipped it. It is true we have discovered that it is worthless, but the grandeur of this world is equally so; where is now the Capetian race of Bourbons? where the emperor of France—the all-conquering Napoleon?’

‘Lucile began to be comforted, when she saw how calmlly I received the disappointment.

‘ ‘What shall we do now?’ said she despairingly.

‘ ‘Earn an honest, independent living. This ‘bauble,’ as my mother justly termed it, has hitherto palsied my exertions. It shall do so no logner—the spell is broken. I will embroider for Madam Girard—she will pay me well. You will recover your strength; and I shall not be tormented with the fear of robbers, or what is yet worse, with the reproaches of my own conscience.’

‘We immediately commenced a new course of life. I disposed of the few articles of faded finery that yet remained, and dressed in a neat, plain manner. I found constant employment with my needle, and grew almost affluent. I thought no more of my ancestors, nor of the Tiara. My mother, long before her death, was forgotten by her titled friends. Nobody came to inquire after the blighted little twig that projected so ungracefully from the Bourbon tree. Lucile and I were all the world to each other—no, not all the world—our kind physician still occasionally called to see us. The sequel of my story you will easily conjecture. He lost his wife, and in due time selected me to fill her place. I became the mother of his two children and a son and daughter of my own.’

‘After all,’ said I, when Madam Renard had done

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speaking, ‘the Tiara was the best legacy your mother could have left you, for it became the means of rousing the energy of your mind and character. I have been thinking that the honors and distinctions of this world may well be likened to it; they dazzle us awhile by their glare, and delude us by their seeming value, but in the end we discover that they are counterfeit.’

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[p. 116]

YOUTH.

‘Tutte l’eta son belle:

E la Saggezza vera

Gode, benche’ sul crine

Biancheggino le brine

Gioconda Primavera.’

Pindemonte.

The morning was bright,

The flowers were blooming,

The grass waved light

The air perfuming.

May had come down,

With her robe of green;

And sat on her throne

Like beauty’s fair queen.

Around and above the foliage was waving,

The wild rushing stream the bank was laving.

A bright form was there

Beneath the thick grove,

And through her fair hair

Wild roses were wove.

Their colour was shed

O’er her dimpled cheek,

And her beaming eye

Of love seemed to speak.

The peace of her heart on her smooth brow shone

And gave to the gazer a joy like her own.

She turned, with grace,

On me fo[r] awhile

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Her beautiful face,

And said, with a smile,

‘My visit is o’er,

Believe me in truth,

Thou ’lt see me no more

For my name is Youth.’

And then, as it seemed, on purpose intent,

O’er hills, through valleyes, and forests she went.

I followed in vain,

For she turned no more,

And I felt with pain

That her visit was o’er.

Then sadly I said,

‘The May flowers bloom,

Their sweetness to shed

On my lonely tomb.

Spring is around, but its joys are dead,

Since the bright form of youth has rapidly fled.

O, Reason, how vain

The boast of thy power!

It adds to the pain

Of the parting hour.

The bird gaily sings,

For he has no fear

That his glossy wings

Will close with the year.

He feels no regret for joys that have flown—

In others’ changed faces he sees not his own.’—

Thus in low murmurs I breathed my complaint,

My mind was all gloom, my reason all faint,

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When lo! in my path a maiden appeared—

Methought at her glance my bosom was cheered.

‘If Youth thou wilt have,’ she smilingly cried,

‘Thou must take the companions that wait at her side.

Behold at a glance Inconstancy there,

And Levity too with a visage as fair—

Full oft in gay sport and bright seeming truth

They lead into error, fond, trusting Youth.

Let thine IDOL depart, and cease to complain,

Lest when she is gone her companions remain.

But turn thou to me—I come from above—

Truth Wisdom my name, my errand is love.

Youth may desert thee and riches take wing,

With me thou shalt find an Immortal Spring.

A. R.

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[p. 119]

THE MAN OF ADAMANT;
AN APOLOGUE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GENTLE BOY.

In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance, lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant of a stern brotherhood. His plan of salvation was so narrow, that, like a plank in a tempestuous sea, it could avail no sinner but himself, who bestrode it triumphantly, and hurled anathemas against the wretches whom he saw struggling with the billows of eternal death. In his view of the matter, it was a most abominable crime—as, indeed, it is a great folly—for men to trust to their own strength, or even to grapple to any other fragment of the wreck, save this narrow plank, which, moreover, he took special care to keep out of their reach. In other words, as his creed was like no man’s else, and being well pleased that Providence had entrusted him, alone of mortals, with the treasure of a true faith, Richard Digby determined to seclude himself to the sole and constant enjoyment of his happy fortune.

‘And verily,’ thought he, ‘I deem it a chief condition of Heaven’s mercy to myself, that I hold no communion with those abominable myriads which it hath cast off to perish. Peradventure, were I to tarry longer in the tents of Kedar, the gracious boon would be revoked, and I also be swallowed up in the deluge of wrath, or consumed in the storm of fire and brimstone, or involved in whatever

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new kind of ruin is ordained for the horrible perversity of this generation.’

So Richard Digby took an axe, to hew space enough for a tabernacle in the wilderness, and some few other necessaries, especially a sword and gun, to smite and slay any intruder upon his hallowed seclusion; and plunged into the dreariest depths of the forest. On its verge, however, he paused a moment, to shake off the dust of his feet against the village where he had dwelt, and to invoke a curse on the meeting-house, which he regarded as a temple of heathen idolatry. He felt a curiosity, also, to see whether the fire and brimstone would not rush down from Heaven at once, now that the one righteous man had provided for his own safety. But, as the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the cottages and fields, and the husbandmen labored and children played, and as there were many tokens of present happiness, and nothing ominous of a speedy judgment, he turned away, somewhat disappointed. The further he went, however, and the lonelier he felt himself, and the thicker the trees stood along his path, and the darker the shadow overhead, so much the more did Richard Digby exult. He talked to himself, as he strode onward; he read his Bible to himself, as he sat beneath the trees; and, as the gloom of the forest hid the blessed sky, I had almost added, that, at morning, noon, and eventide, he prayed to himself. So congenial was this mode of life to his disposition, that he often laughed to himself, but was displeased when an echo tossed him back the long, loud roar.

In this manner, he journeyed onward three days and two nights, and came, on the third evening, to the mouth

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of a cave, which, at first sight, reminded him of Elijah’s cave at Horeb, though perhaps it more resembled Abraham’s sepulchral cave, at Machpelah. It entered into the heart of a rocky hill. There was so dense a veil of tangled foliage about it, that none but a sworn lover of gloomy recesses would have discovered the low arch of its entrance, or have dared to step within its vaulted chamber, where the burning eyes of a panther might encounter him. If Nature meant this remote and dismal cavern for the use of man, it could only be, to bury in its gloom the victims of a pestilence, and then to block up its mouth with stones, and avoid the spot forever after. There was nothing bright nor cheerful near it, except a bubbling fountain, some twenty paces off, at which Richard Digby hardly threw away a glance. But he thrust his head into the cave, shivered, and congratulated himself.

‘The finger of Providence hath pointed my way!’ cried he, aloud, while the tomb-like den returned a strange echo, as if some one within were mocking him. ‘Here my soul will be at peace; for the wicked will not find me. Here I can read the Scriptures, and be no more provoked with lying interpretations. Here I can offer up acceptable prayers, because my voice will not be mingled with the sinful supplications of the multitude. Of a truth, the only way to Heaven leadeth through the narrow entrance of this cave—and I alone have found it!’

In regard to this cave, it was observable that the roof, so far as the imperfect light permitted it to be seen, was hung with substances resembling opaque icicles; for the damps of unknown centuries, dripping down continually,

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had become as hard as adamant; and wherever that moisture fell, it seemed to possess the power of converting what it bathed to stone. The fallen leaves and sprigs of foliage, which the wind had swept into the cave, and the little feathery shrubs, rooted near the threshold, were not wet with a natural dew, but had been embalmed by this wondrous process. And here I am put in mind, that Richard Digby, before he withdrew himself from the world, was supposed by skilful physicians to have contracted a disease, for which no remedy was written in their medical books. It was a deposition of calculous particles within his heart, caused by an obstructed circulation of the blood, and unless a miracle should be wrought for him, there was danger that the malady might act on the entire substance of the organ, and change his fleshly heart to stone. Many, indeed, affirmed that the process was already near its consummation. Richard Digby, however, could never be convinced that any such direful work was going on within him; nor when he saw the sprigs of marble foliage, did his heart even throb the quicker, at the similitude suggested by these once tender herbs. It may be that this same insensibility was a syptom of the desease.

Be that as it might, Richard Digby was well contented with his sepulchral cave. So dearly did he love this congenial spot, that, instead of going a few paces to the bubbling spring for water, he allayed his thirst with now and then a drop of moisture from the roof, which, had it fallen any where but on his tongue, would have been congealed into a pebble. For a man predisposed to stoniness of the heart, this surely was unwholesome liquor. But there he dwelt, for three days more, eating herbs

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and roots, drinking his own destruction, sleeping, as it were, in a tomb, and awaking to the solitude of death, yet esteeming this horrible mode of life as hardly inferior to celestial bliss. Perhaps superior; for, above the sky, there would be angels to disturb him. At the close of the third day, he sat in the portal of his mansion, reading the Bible aloud, because no other ear could profit by it, and reading it amiss, because the rays of the setting sun did not penetrate the dismal depth of shadow round about him, nor fall upon the sacred page. Suddenly, however, a faint gleam of light was thrown over the volume, and raising his eyes, Richard Digby saw that a young woman stood before the mouth of the cave, and that the sunbeams bathed her white garment, which thus seemed to possess a radiance of its own.

‘Good evening, Richard,’ said the girl, ‘I have come from afar to find thee.’

The slender grace and gentle loveliness of this young female were at once recognized by Richard Digby. Her name was Mary Goffe. She had been a convert to his preaching of the word in England, before he yielded himself to that exclusive bigotry, which now enfolded him with such an iron grasp, that no other sentiment could reach his bosom. When he came a pilgrim to America, she had remained in her father’s hall, but now, as it appeared, had crossed the ocean after him, impelled by the same faith that led other exiles hither, and perhaps by love almost as holy. What else but faith and love united could have sustained so delicate a creature, wandering thus far into the forest, with her golden hair dishevelled by the boughs, and her feet wounded by the thorns! Yet, weary and faint though she must have

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been, and affrighted at the dreariness of the cave, she looked on the lonely man with a mild and pitying expression, such as might beam from an angel’s eyes, towards an afflicted mortal. But the recluse, frowning sternly upon her, and keeping his finger between the leaves of his half closed Bible, motioned her away with his hand.

‘Off!’ cried he. ‘I am sanctified, and thou art sinful. Away!’

‘Oh, Richard,’ said she, earnestly, ‘I have come this weary way, because I heard that a grievous distemper had seized upon thy heart; and a great Physician hath given me the skill to cure it. There is no other remedy than this which I have brought thee. Turn me not away, therefore, nor refuse my medicine; for then must this dismal cave be thy sepulchre.’

‘Away!’ replied Richard Digby, still with a dark frown. ‘My heart is in better condition than thine own. Leave me, earthly one; for the sun is almost set; and when no light reaches the door of the cave, then is myprayer time!’

Now, great as was her need, Mary Goffe did not plead with this stony hearted man for shelter and protection, nor ask any thing whatever for her own sake. All her zeal was for his welfare.

‘Come back with me!’ she exclaimed, clasping her hands—‘Come back to thy fellow men; for they need thee, Richard; and thou hast tenfold need of them. Stay not in this evil den; for the air is chill, and the damps are fatal; nor will any, that perish within it, ever find the path to Heaven. Hasten hence, I entreat thee, for thine own soul’s sake; for either the roof will fall

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upon thy head, or some other speedy destruction is at hand.’

‘Perverse woman!’ answered Richard Digby, laughing aloud; for he was moved to bitter mirth by her foolish vehemence. ‘I tell thee that the path to Heaven leadeth straight through this narrow portal, where I sit. And, moreover, the destruction thou speakest of, is ordained, not for this blessed cave, but for all other habitations of mankind, throughout the earth. Get thee hence speedily, that thou may’st have thy share!’

So saying, he opened his Bible again, and fixed his eyes intently on the page, being resolved to withdraw his thoughts from this child of sin and wrath, and to waste no more of his holy breath upon her. The shadow had now grown so deep, where he was sitting, that he made continual mistakes in what he read, converting all that was gracious and merciful, to denunciations of vengeance and unutterable woe, on every created being but himself. Mary Goffe, meanwhile, was leaning against a tree, beside the supulchral cave, very sad, yet with something heavenly and ethereal in her unselfish sorrow. The light from the setting sun still glorified her form, and was reflected a little way still glorified hr form, and was reflected a little way within the darksome den, discovering so terrible a gloom, that the maiden shuddered for its self-doomed inhabitant. Espying the bright fountain near at hand, she hastened thither, and scooped up a portion of its water, in a cup or birchen bark. A few tears mingled with the draught, and perhaps gave it all its efficacy. She then returned to the mouth of the cave, and knelt down at Richard Digby’s feet.

‘Richard,’ she said, with passionate fervor, yet a

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gentleness in all her passion, ‘I pray thee, by thy hope of Heaven, and as thou wouldst not dwell in this tomb forever, drink of this hallowed water, be it but a single drop! Then, make room for me by thy side, and let us read together one page of that blessed volume—and, lastly, kneel down with me and pray! Do this; and thy stony heart shall become softer than a babe’s, and all be well.’

But Richard Digby, in utter abhorrence of the proposal, cast the Bible at his feet, and eyed her with such a fixed and evil frown, that he looked less like a living man than a marble statue, wrought by some dark imagined sculptor to express the most repulsive mood that human features could assume. And, as his look grew even devilish, so, with an equal change, did Marry Goffe become more sad, more mild, more pitiful, more like a sorrowing angel. But, the more heavenly she was, the more hateful did she seem to Richard Digby, who at length raised his hand, and smote down the cup of hallowed water upon the threshold of the cave, thus rejecting the only medicine that could have cured his stony heart. A sweet perfume lingered in the air for a moment, and then was gone.

‘Tempt me no more, accursed woman,’ exclaimed he, still with his marble frown, ‘lest I smite thee down also! What hast thou to do with my Bible?—what with my prayers?—what with my Heaven?’

No sooner had he spoken these dreadful words, than Richard Digby’s heart ceased to beat; while—so the legend says—the form of Mary Goffe melted into the last sunbeams, and returned from the sepulchral cave to Heaven. For Mary Goffe had been buried in an English

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churchyard, months before; and either it was her ghost that haunted the wild forest, or else a dreamlike spirit, typifying pure Religion.

Above a century afterwards, when the trackless forest of Richard Digby’s day had long been interspersed with settlements, the children of a neighbouring farmer were playing at the foot of a hill. The trees, on account of the rude and broken surface of this acclivity, had never been felled, and were crowded so densely together, as to hite all but a few rocky prominences, wherever their roots could grapple with the soil. A little boy and girl, to conceal themselves from their playmates, had crept into the deepest shade, where not only the darksome pines, but a thick veil of creeping plants suspended from an overhanging rock, combined to make a twilight at noonday, and almost a midnight at all other seasons. There the children hid themselves, and shouted, repeating the cry at intervals, till the whole party of pursuers were drawn thither, and pulling aside the matted foliage, let in a doubtful glimpse of daylight. But scarcely was this accomplished, when the little group uttered a simultaneous shriek and tumbled headlong down the hill, making the best of their way homeward, without a second glance into the gloomy recess. Their father, unable to comprehend what had so startled them, took his axe, and by felling one or two trees, and tearing away the creeping plants, laid the mystery open to the day. He had discovered the entrance of a cave, closly resembling the mouth of a sepulchre, within which sat the figure of a man, whose gesture and attitude warned the father and children to stand back, while his visage wore a most forbidding frown. This repulsive personage seemed to have been carved in the same gray stone that

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formed the walls and portal of the cave. On minuter inspection, indeed, such blemishes were observed, as made it doubtful whether the figure were really a statue, chiselled by huan art, and somewhat worn and defaced by the lapse of ages, or a freak of Nature, who might have chosen to imitate, in stone, her usual handiwork of flesh. Perhaps it was the least unreasonable idea, suggested by this strange spectacle, that the moisture of the cave possessed a petrifying quality, which had thus awfully embalmed a human corpse.

There was something so frightful in the aspect of this Man of Adamant, that the farmer, the moment that he recovered from the fascination of his first gaze, began to heap stones into the mouth of the cavern. His wife, who had followed him to the hill, assisted her husband’s efforts. The children, also, approached as near as they durst, with their little hands full of pebbles, and cast them on the pile. Earth was then thrown into the crevices, and the whole fabric overlaid with sods. Thus all traces of the discovery were obliterated, leaving only a marvellous legend, which grew wilder from one generation to another, as the children told it to their grand children, and they to their posterity, till few believed that there had ever been a cavern or a statue, where now they saw but a grassy patch on the shadowy hill-side. Yet, grown people avoid the spot, nor do children play there. Friendship, and Love, and Piety, all human and celestial sympathies, should keep aloof from that hidden cave; for there still sits, and, unless an earthquake crumble down the roof upon his head, shall sit forever, the shape of Richard Digby, in the attitude of repelling the whole race of mortals—not from Heaven—but from the horrible loneliness of his dark, cold sepulchre.

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[p. 129]

ANNETTE DELARBRE.

Annette Delarbre, as the reader will recollect, is the heroine of a tender little love tale in Bracebridge Hall. Her story is supposed to be read from a ‘manuscript, daintily written on gilt edge vellum paper, and stitched with a light blue riband.’ Its author, if we may credit Lady Lillycraft, is a clergyman—‘a thin, elderly man of delicate constitution, but positively one of the most charming men that ever lived’—in short, one of those sensitive and sentimental humorists, who are often seen in company with Geoffrey Crayon. they roam about the world, and find greener lanes, and gentler sunshine, and prettier village maids, than ever bless the eyes of ordinary travellers. And wherever they happen to put up for the night, there do they hear some tale of the present time, or legend of old, and straightway write it down, in crow-quill characters, which are destined to endure longer than the traces of an iron pen. Such is the tale of Annette Delarbre. We cannot help fancying that the original manuscript of this story exhaled a perfume, nearly resembling that of wild flowers on a summer breeze, yet, in truth, as elaborate a production of art as any of the essences on Lady Lillycraft’s toilet table.

The narrator, in the course of a tour through Lower Normandy, visits the old town of Honfleur, near the mouth of the Seine. ‘It was the time of a fête[,]’ he observes, ‘and all the world was thronging in the evening to dance at the fair, held before the chapel of our

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Lady of Grace. As I like all kinds of innocent merry making, I joined the throng.’ The scene of the fête is picturesquely described; and then ensues the following passage, in which Annette Delarbre is made to glide like a phantom through the midst of the mirthful throng, as represented in the annexed engraving.

‘The scene before me was perfectly enchanting; the assemblage of so many fresh and blooming faces; the gay groups in fanciful dresses; some dancing on the green, others strolling about, or seated on the grass; the fine clumps of trees in the foreground, bordering the brow of this airy height, and the broad green sea, sleeping in summer tranquillity, in the distance.

‘Whilst I was regarded this animated picture, I was struck by the appearance of a beautiful girl, who passed through the crowd without seeming to take any interest in their amusements. She was slender and delicate in her form; she had not the bloom upon her cheek that is usual among the peasantry of Normandy, and her blue eyes had a singular and melancholy expression. She was accompanied by a venerable looking man, whom I presumed to be her father. There was a whisper among the bystanders, and a wistful look after her as she passed; the young men touched their hats, and some of the children followed her at a little distance, watching her movements. She approached the edge of the hill, where there is a little platform from whence the people of Honfleur look out for the approach of vessels. Here she stood for some time waving her handkerchief, though there was nothing to be seen but two or three fishing boats, like mere specks on the bosom of the distant ocean.’

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The traveller’s curiosity being excited by these circumstances, he makes inquiries, and learns Annette Delarbre’s story from the priest of Our Lady’s Chapel. Annette was a rural belle and a rural heiress, and there had been an early attachment between her and Eugene La Forgue, the only son of a widow in the neighbourhood. But Annette had likewise a spice of rural coquetry, and being conscious of her power over Eugene, delighted in treating him with petulant caprice, and alarming his jealousy by an affected preference for one or other of his rivals. After many little quarrels, a more serious one took place, and Eugene, in the heat of his resentment, shipped on board a vessel that was fitting out at the port of Honfleur, and went to sea the very next morning. Annette, in the mean time, had bitterly repented of her folly. ‘She looked back with remorse and self-upbraiding at her past caprices; she turned with distaste from the adulation of her admirers, and had no longer any relish for the amusements of the village.’ At the period when the ship’s return was expected, the weather became very tempestuous, and caused the strongest fears for her safety; but she was at length descried standing into the mouth of the Seine, though sadly shattered, and crippled by a gale. Annette stood on the pier head to welcome her lover; a boat put off from the ship: as it neared the shore, inquiries were made respecting the welfare of the crew, and the name of Eugene La Forgue was mentioned. ‘There was a moment’s pause: the reply was brief but awful. He had been washed from the deck, with two of the crew, in the midst of a stormy night, when it was impossible to render any assistance. A piercing shriek broke from

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among the crowd; and Annette had nearly fallen into the waves.’

The poor girl’s mind became affected with a taint of insanity, which must be touched by no less delicate pen than that of the author.

‘Her life was for some time despaired of, and it was months before she recovered her health; but she had never perfectly recovered her mind; it still remained unsettled with respect to her lover’s fate. The subject is never mentioned in her hearing; but she sometimes speaks of it herself, and it seems as though there were some vague train of impressions in her mind, in which hope and fear are strangely mingled—some imperfect idea of her lover’s shipwreck, and yet some expectation of his return.

‘Her parents have tried every means to cheer her, and to banish these gloomy images of her thoughts. They assemble round her the young companions in whose society she used to delight; and they will work, and chat, and sing, and laugh, as formerly; but she will sit silently among them, and will sometimes weep in the midst of their gaiety; and if spoken to, will make no reply, but look up with streaming eyes, and sing a dismal little song, which she has learned somewhere, about a shipwreck. It makes every one’s heart ache to see her in this way, for she used to be the happiest creature in the village.

‘She passes the greater part of the time with Eugene’s mother; whose only consolation is in her society, and who dotes on her with a mother’s tenderness. She is the only one that has perfect influence over Annette in every mood. The poor girl seems, as formerly, to make

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an effort to be cheerful in her company; but will sometimes gaze upon her with the most piteous look, and then kiss her gray hairs, and fall on her neck, and weep.

‘She is not always melancholy, however; she has occasional intervals when she will be bright and animated for days together; but there is a degree of wildness attending these fits of gaiety, that prevents their yielding any satisfaction to her friends. at such times, she will arrange her room, which is all covered with pictures of ships, and legends of saints; and will wreathe a white chaplet, as if for a wedding, and prepare the wedding ornaments. She will listen anxiously at the door, and look frequently out at the window, as if she expected some one’s arrival. It is supposed that at such times she is looking for her lover’s return; but, as no one touches on the theme, nor mentions his name in her presence, the current of her thoughts is mere matter of conjecture. Now and then she will make a pilgrimage to the chapel of Nôtre Dame de Grâce; where she will pray for hours at the altar, and decorate the images with wreaths that she has woven; or will wave her handkerchief from the terrace, as you have seen, if there is any vessel in the distance.’

Deeply imbued with the tender melancholy of thislittle story, the traveller departs, comforting himself with the idea, that ‘the very delusion, in which the poor girls walks, may be one of those mists kindly diffused by Providence over the regions of thought, when they become too fruitful of misery.’ About a year afterwards, on his return from Paris, he turns off from the beaten route, to revisit some of the most striking scenes of

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Lower Normandy. Arriving at Honfleur, he strolls up the hill to the chapel of our Lady of Grace, and inquires of the priest respecting Annette Delarbre. A most unlooked for event had occurred. Eugene La Forgue had not been drowned. By clinging to a spar, he had preserved his life, and had been taken on board a ship bound to India, whence he was now returned to his native village. Annette’s friends dreaded the shock which his re-appearance might produce on her broken mind and languid frame; they dared not tell her that he had come back, lest sudden joy should finish what grief had begun. The manner of the disclosure must not be described in other words than Washington Irving’s.

‘At length the winter was gone; the trees put forth their leaves; the swallow began to build in the eaves of the house, and the robin and wren piped all day beneath the window. Annette’s spirits gradually revived. She began to deck her person with unusual care; and bringing forth a basket of artificial flowers, she went to work to w[r]eathe a bridal chaplet of wite roses. her companions asked her why she prepared the chaplet. ‘What!’ said she with a smile, ‘have you not noticed the trees putting on their wedding dresses of blossoms? Has not the swallow flown back over the sea? Do you not know that the time is come for Eugene to return? that he will be home to-morrow, and that on Sunday we are to be married?

‘Her words were repeated to the physician, and he seized on them at once. He directed that her idea should be encouraged and acted upon. Her words were echoed through the house. Every one talked of the

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return of Eugene, as a matter of course; they congratulated her upon her approaching happiness, and assisted her in her preparations. The next morning, the same theme was resumed. She was dressed out to receive her lover. Every bosom fluttered with anxiety. A cabriolet drove into the village. ‘Eugene is coming!’ was the cry. She saw him alight at the door, and rushed with a shriek into his arms.

‘Her friends trembled for the result of this critical experiment; but she did not sink under it, for her fancy had prepared her for his return. She was as one in a dream, to whom the tide of unlooked for prosperity, that would have overwhelmed his waking reason, seems but the natural current of circumstances. Her conversation however, showed that her senses were wandering. There was an absolute forgetfulness of all past sorrow—a wild and feverish gaiety, that at times was incoherent.’

Annette’s mind subsequently passes through various states of derangement, and at length settles down into a ‘stagnant and almost deathlike calm.’ From this condition she awakes, and beholding Eugene by her side, remembers all the past as a ‘long and dismal dream,’ but soon becomes conscious that her intellect has been dreaming among realities. All that now remained, was to keep her quiet, till her health was re-established. ‘The wedding took place,’ concluded the good priest, ‘but a short time since; they were here at the last fête during their honeymoon, and a handsomer or a happier couple was not to be seen, as they danced under yonder trees.’

This tender and beautiful story is conceived in the same spirit with the pastorals, that were in vogue some centuries ago. Cervantes, in his tenderer mood, has

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written little tales which very much resemble Annette Delarbre; not, indeed, in their mechanism, but in their essence. Nature is here copied with more fidelity than in almost any of those productions; but still, neither the sunshine nor the shade of the picture, nor the figures, nor even the scenery, are precisely those of real life. Such people must have existed, if at all, and such events must have occurred, in a poet’s world, created by the shadow of our own grosser sphere, among sunset clouds.

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[p. 137]

STUDY AND OBSERVATION OF NATURE.

We all know, and some of us have experienced, that there is a time when life no longer appears to us under those false and brilliant hues with which the young imagination delights to invest it, when the veil of romance is withdrawn from the stern features of reality, and they are exhibited in all their rigid sharpness of outline and soberness of coloring. Moore has poetically alluded to the regret occasioned by this disenchantment from the golden dreams of youth, in the following lines from one of his beautiful melodies:

‘As travellers oft look back at eve

When eastward darkly going,

To gaze upon that light they leave

Still faint behind them glowing—

So when the close of pleasure’s day

To gloom has near consigned us,

We turn to catch one fading ray

Of joy that’s left behind us.’

This, though fine poetry, is bad practical philosophy. Instead of fondly lingering over ‘the joys we leave behind us,’ over the last fading rays of youthful pleasures—we ought rather to endeavour, in that evening twilight of the heart that succeeds the dispersing illusions of imagination, to store the mind with resources, that will enable us to pass the sober hours of maturity in serene enjoyment.

Perhaps, nothing is better adapted to fill the void created by the declining excitabilities and fading illusions

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of youth, than an interest in the study of nature, which is productive of the calmest, and at the same time, of the most exquisite species of enjoyment which the mind is capable of experiencing.

It is in a peculiar degree essential to the interests of women, that they should cultivate pursuits which have a tendency to render them independent of the casualties of life, and, what is of more importance, to free them from the narrowing influence of conventional opinion, by which their naturally fine and subtle intellects are too often trammelled and enslaved. A pursuit, in which the object proposed may be attained without any reference to the opinions of society, is therefore particularly necessary to give women that independence of thought, that modest, yet firm self-reliance, which is so essential to the formation of a consistent character. It is the absence of this graceful self-reliance—this noble steadfastness and independence of purpose, combined with a timid anxiety respecting the opinions of the world, and an habitual conformity to its prejudices, which imparts to most women that appearance of inferiority which is often mistaken for intellectual weakness. There may be some however, who think, with Madame de Stael, or rather with Rousseau, who was, we believe, the original author of the sentiment, that ‘men should learn to brave the opinion of the world—women to submit to it.’ To such, I would reply in the words of the Editor of the London Quarterly, that, ‘supposing the public opinion to be correct, man is equally with woman bound to conform to it—if false, woman is bound as resolutely to brave it.’ ‘This boasted precept,’ continues the English critic, ‘enforces attention to mere

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conventional proprieties, and a paramount regard to the cold lessons of worldly expediency.’ It is to free the minds of women from such a degrading subjection to opinion, that I would recommend to them pursuits which elevate them above the sphere of its influence, and call into play successively all the intellectual faculties. An interest in any branch of natural science exercises the powers of observation in a remarkable degree. The attention is quickened, and the senses acquire an unwonted acuteness. A lover of nature cannot traverse the most barren heath, or wander on the bleakest sea-shore, without discovering at every step, something to delight and attract. Every sense is awake and each conveys to the mind a succession of lively and distinct impressions; the eye discovers the most insignificant plant and the smallest sea shell; the ear is alive to the faintest warble of birds or the lightest hum of insects. He remarks every peculiarity of sound or motion, of form or color, and his mind, being thus stored with materials, is led in the next place to trace the affinities and varieties of nature—to investigate its delicate and remote analogies, and finally to generalize the result of his observations, and to refer individual truths to simple and comprehensive principles. Nor is even this the ultimate aim of these dlightful studies. Notwithstanding the assertion of the late venerable authoress, Miss Hannah More, that the religion of the gospel has no connexion whatever with the love and contemplation of nature, I must still think with Madame de Stael, that material objects have a destination which is not bounded by man’s contracted existence on earth; but that they are spread out around him to assist in the

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developement [sic] of his nature, for a moral and spiritual existence.

To persons of great susceptibility of temperament, and force of imagination, the study and observation of nature are peculiarly adapted. It not only soothes and tranquilizes those turbulent emotions which are called forth by the conflicting passions and interests of life, but in its varying scenery may be found the realization of those conceptions of ideal beauty, which are so often dissipated by the dull common places of human intercourse.

When in the lonely silence of night, the lover of nature raises his eyes to the serene and starry heavens, what a world of glorious beauty, what a field of inexhaustible contemplation is unfolded to his view! He gazes with intense abstraction on the gorgeous constellations which roll in silent grandeur over his head, while each individual star and each familiar planet is recognized with joy, like the face of a well known and beloved friend, and even their classic names are fraught with thrilling associations, and traditions of the olden time.

Another consideration in favour of this study, which should not be overlooked, is, that it leads to a nicer perception of the beauties of art, since art is but the mirror of nature, and must ever owe its chief excellence to a faithful representation of its original. It is this intimate acquaintance with his subject that has rendered Wordsworth so unrivalled in his proud vocation.

The writings of this great poet, though once so unsparingly ridiculed, have always possessed for us a sweet and peculiar charm, which, now in the days of his celebrity, we are proud to acknowledge, and which in

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the darkest hours of his fame, we did not blush to confess. The richness of his imagination, and the plaintive pathos of his language, lend a charm to the humblest scenes, and shed a mild halo over his descriptions of suffering, poverty, and crime. He calls forth a thousand sources of beauty and sweetness from the barren rock, and like a sunbeam penetrating the abodes of poverty and death, his genius seems to cheer and irradiate the misery it reveals. His conceptions of character are remarkable for their individuality, simplicity, and truth; and his descriptions of nature are so vivid, so lavish of beauty, that, in reading them, the medium of language is forgotten, and we seem to wander with him through the shady vale, to sit in silence on the sunny hill, or to gaze in melancholy abstraction on the sullen tarn that stagnates at our feet.

Wordsworth’s views of nature are so spiritual, so fraught with high and holy associations, that they remind one of that beautiful prodigality of faith, which induced the ancients to behold a type of divinity in every thing around them. The woods and the grottoes, and even the fruits and flowers of earth were to them fraught with celestial influences. They worshipped unconsciously in the storm and the sunbeam, that power who created them, and nature was the beautiful shrine on which they offered up the indefinite emotions of the heart.

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[p. 142]

THE GENIUS OF POETRY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF LIFE BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS.

. . . . .‘A voice said, ‘where shall we seek her?’ And a thousand echoes replied—‘Seek her amongst the bright-eyed daughters of youth!’

ORIENTAL ECOLOGUE.

The Genius of poetry delights to fix her residence among scenes cultivated only by the hand of the Creator—to roam through the pathless forest, to stand on the brink of the precipice, to gaze on the yawning gulph, and listen to the wild roar of the Ocean. From this ‘dread magnificence,’ she turns to the blue sky, with its white clouds heaped one upon another like mountains of snow—to the green earth, that lifts its feeble head. While she surveys the kingdom of nature, she feels that they are her own, and she exclaims to her votaries, ‘all these will I give thee, if thou wilt worship me.’

But hw is she to be worshipped? Not by describing the scenes in which she loves to dwell. Who has not felt how cold and dead is mere description! how little sympathy it excites! The worship that partakes of her spirit must be born of the spirit, and plume its eagle wings for immortality. It must be bright as the beam of the morning, joyous as the mountain stream, when it leaps from rock to rock, raising its voice amidst the stillness of nature, and scattering its diamond drops upon the blossoms around.

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‘Who bade the sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers

Of loveliest hue, spread garlands at your feet?’

Genius of poetry! where wilt thou seek thy votaries? The come to thee from among the fair forms of youth—with the smile of innocence upon the lip, and the blush of purity upon the cheek. Happy beings, who are in the morning of life, it is in your hearts she fixes her empire.

Poetry consists not in words; it is not sound, but sense; it is the breathing of imagination, the perception of all that is exalted and sublime;—the power of searching deep into the mysteries of nature, and reading her numerous volumes. It is creative energy: it rears temples of order and beauty, from materials which common minds regard as wood and stone. It is thought, it is aspiration after something higher and holier than this world can give. In one word it is the religion of the soul.

Come then, ye young, and bind your brows with the wreath of poesy. Be ye candidates for the minstrelsy of Heaven! Cultivate the pure and holy affections; with the morning light raise your hearts on high, and feel that the universe is radiant with God’s presence. When the silent hour of evening advances, and a transparent veil is thrown over every object, with the glittering firmament, the silver moon, the wild flashing light of the Aurora Borealis, join your worship—

‘Till the dilating soul, enwrapt, transfused

Into the mighty vision passing there,

* * * * swells vast to Heaven!’

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The young, with their lightness of heart, their unblighted hopes, their keen emotions, are the personification of poetry.

‘They love all thou lovest,

Spirit of delight!

The fresh earth in new leaves drest,

And the starry night,

Autumn, evening and the morn,

When the golden mists are born.’

Happy are those who ‘remember their Creator in the days of their youth;’ who regard his works as an emanation of himself, and open their hearts to this sublime source of enjoyment.

It will come to them in the pure teachings of Christian truth, in self-consecration, in prayer and praise—‘These are they clothed in white robes, with palms in their hands, who cry holy! holy! holy! before the throne of God.’

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a white woman holds a white baby on her lap
Painted by W. Alston.      Engraved by S. W. Cheney.
THE MOTHER.
Boston Published by Charles Bowen.

R. Neale Print.

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[p. 145]

THE MOTHER’S JEWEL.

BY H. F. GOULD.

Jewel most precious thy mother to deck,

Clinging so fast by the chain on my neck,

Locking thy little white fingers to hold

Closer and closer the circlets of gold—

Stronger than these are the links that confine

Near my fond bosom this treasure of mine!

Gift from thy Maker, so pure and so dear,

Almost I hold thee with trembling and fear!

Whence is this gladness so holy and new,

Felt as I clasp thee, or have thee in view?

What is the noose that slips over my mind,

Drawing it back if I leave thee behind?

Soft is the bondage, but strong is the knot—

O! when the mother her babe has forgot,

Ceasing from joy in so sacred a trust,

Dark should her eye be, and closed for the dust.

Spirit immortal with light from above,

Over this new-opened fountain of love,

Forth from my heart as it gushes so free,

Sparkling, and playing, and leaping to thee,

Painting the rainbow of hopes till they seem

Brighter than reason—too true for a dream!

What shall I call thee? My glory? My sun?

These cannot name thee, thou beautiful one!

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Brilliant celestial! so priceless in worth,

How shall I keep thee unspotted from earth/

How shall I save thee from ruin by crime,

Dimmed not by sorrow, untarnished by time?

Where, from the thief and the robber who stray

Over life’s path, shall I hide thee away?

Fair is the setting; but richer the gem.

Oh! thou ’lt be coveted—sought for by them!

I must devote thee to One who is pure,

Touched by whose brightness thine own will be sure.

Borne in his bosom, no vapour can dim,

Nothing can win, or can pluck thee from him.

Seamless and holy the garment he folds

Over his jewels, that closely he holds.

Hence unto Him be my little one given!

Yea, ‘for of such is the kingdom of Heaven!’

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[p. 147]

DAVID SWAN.

A FANTASY.

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life, and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach, by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of Dvid Swan.

We have nothing to do with David, until we find him at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say, that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton academy. After journeying on foot, from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer’s day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples, with a delightful recess in the midst, and such

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a fresh bubbling spring, that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the road, after the heavy rains of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young an better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky, overhead; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depth, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of.

While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, a-foot, on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bed-chamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way, without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A middle aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in jis sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening’s discourse, as an awful instance of dad drunkenness by the road side. But, censure, praise, merriment, scorn, or indifference, were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan.

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He had slept only a few moments, when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a stand-still, nearly in front of David’s resting place. A linch pin had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espiedd the bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown, lest David should start up, all of a sudden.

‘How soundly he sleeps!’ whispered the old gentleman. ‘From what a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income; for it would suppose health, and an untroubled mind,’

‘And youth, besides,’ said the lady. ‘Healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like his, than our wakefulness.’

The longer they looked, the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the way side and the maple shade were as a secret chamber, with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside, so as to intercept it. And having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him.

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‘Providence seems to have laid him here, whispered she to her husband, ‘and to have brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in our cousin’s son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we waken him?’

‘To what purpose?’ said the merchant, hesitating. ‘We know nothing of the youth’s character.’

‘That open countenance!’ replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly. ‘This innocent sleep!’

While these whispers were passing, the sleeper’s heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest.—Yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burthen of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth, except a distant relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. In such cases, people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician, and awaken a young man to splendor, who fell asleep in poverty.

‘Shall we not waken him?’ repeated the lady, persuasively.

‘The coach is ready, Sir,’ said the servant, behind.

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering, that they should ever have dreamed of doing any thing so very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap.

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty young girl came along, with a

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tripping pace, which shewed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused—is there any harm in saying it?—her garter to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth, if silk it were, was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring! Blushing, as red as any rose, that she should have intruded into a gentleman’s bed chamber, and for such a purpose too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But, there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead—buzz, buzz, buzz—now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As freehearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath the maple shade. How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath, and a deeper blush, she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air.

‘He is handsome!’ thought she, and blushed redder yet.

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him, that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder, and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but

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passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her, only, could he love with a perfect love—him, only, could she receive into the depths of her heart—and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain, by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again.

‘How sound he sleeps!’ murmured the girl.

She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came.

Now, this girl’s father was a thriving country merchant in the neighbourhood, and happened, at that identical time, to be looking out for just such a young man as David swan. Had David formed a way side acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father’s clerk, and all else in natural succession. So here, again, had good fortune—the best of fortunes—stolen so near, that her garments brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the matter.

The girl was hardly out of sight, when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were crawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. These were a couple of rascals, who got thier living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villany [sic] on a game of cards, which was to have been decided here under the trees. But, finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow,

‘Hist!—Do you see that bundle under his head?’

The other villain nodded, winked, and leered.

‘I’ll bet you a horn of brandy,’ said the first, ‘that

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the chap has either a pocket book, or a snug little hoard of small change, stowed away amongst his shirts. And is not there, we shall find it in his pantaloons’ pocket.[’]

‘But how if he wakes,’ said the other.

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk, and nodded.

‘So be it!’ muttered the second villain.

They approached the unconscious David, and, while one pointed the dagger towards his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath his head. Their two faces, grim, wrinkled, and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mistaken for fiends, should he suddenly awake. Nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves, as reflected there. But David Swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother’s breast.

‘I must take away the bundle,’ whispered one.

‘If he stirs, I’ll strike,’ muttered the other.

But, at this moment, a dog, scenting along the ground, came in beneath the maple trees, and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men, and then at the quiet sleeper. He then lapped out of the fountain.

‘Pshaw!’ said one villain. ‘We can do nothing now. The dog’s master must be close behind.’

‘Let’s take a drink, and be off,’ said the other.

The man, with the dagger, thrust back the weapon into his bosom, and drew forth a pocket pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single discharge. It was a flask of liquor, with a block tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth. Each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot, with so many jests, and such laughter at their

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unaccomplished wickedness, that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing. In a few hours, they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls, i letters as durable as eternity. As for David Swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him, nor of the glow of renewed life, when that shadow was withdrawn.

He slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. An hour’s repose had snatched, from his elastic frame, the weariness with which many hours of toil had burthened it. Now, he stirred—now, moved his lips, without a sound—now, talked, in an inward tone, to the noonday spectres of his dream. But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing ist of David’s slumber—and there was the stage coach. He started up, with all his ideas about him.

‘Halloo, driver!—Take a passenger?’ shouted he.

‘Room on top?’ answered the driver.

Up mounted David, and bowled away merrily towards Boston, without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude. He knew not that a phantom of wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters—nor that one of love had sighed softly to their murmur—nor that one of death had threatened to crimson them with his blood—all, in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. Does it not argue a superintending Providence, that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves

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continually athwart our path, there should still be regularity enough, in mortal life, to render foresight even partially available.

FATHER, HEAR!

Thou, whose power assumes the form,

Now, of this wild wintry storm,

Let it still in mercy be

Shown upon the raging sea.

O, for him who tosses there,

Father, hear this midnight prayer!

Solemn darkness shrouds the world.

While with mighty wings unfurled,

Thus the winds with fury sweep

O’er the land and o’er the deep,

Thou, whose thought from death can save,

Guard the life that’s on the wave!

Cold and dreary is the night—

Snow-clouds wrap the beacom light—

Rocks and ices like a host

Armed for battle, bar the coast.

For the coming bark, appear!

Guide her; save her! Father, hear!

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[p. 156]

THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.*
A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE WEDDING KNELL.

At nightfall, once, in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves, after a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come thither, not as friends, nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save one youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for this wondrous gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches, and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had drifted down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank of which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural sympathies, by the absorbing spell of the pursuit, as to acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces, in the remost and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above their heads, was

The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale is founded, is both too wild and too beautiful, to be adequately wrought up, in prose. Sullivan, in his history of Maine, written since the Revolution, remarks, that even then, the existence of the Great Carbuncle was not entirely discredited.

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that bleak verge, where the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest trees, and either robe themselves in clouds, or tower naked into the sky. The roar of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance, if only a solitary man had listened, while the mountain stream talked with the wind.

The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and welcomed one another to the hut, where each man was the host, and all were the guests of the whole company. They spread their individual supplies of food on the flat surface of a rock, and partook of a general repast; at the close of which, a sentiment of good fellowship was perceptible among the party, though repressed by the idea, that the renewed search for the Great Carbuncle must make them strangers again, in the morning. Seven men and one young female, they warmed themselves together at the fire, which extended its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. As they observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage, each man looking like a caricature of himself, in the unsteady light that flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion, that an odder society had never met, in city or wilderness—on mountain or plain.

The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some sixty years of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose fashion of dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf, and the bear, had long been his most intimate companions. He was one of those ill-fated mortals, such as the Indians told of, whom in their early youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness, and became the passionate dream of

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their existence. All, who visited that region, knew him as the Seeker, and by no other name. As none could remember when he first took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco, that for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had been condemned t wander among the mountains till the end of time, still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise—the same despair at eve. Near the miserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage, wearing a high crowned hat, shaped somewhat like a crucible. He was from beyond the sea, a Doctor Cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried himself into a mummy, by continually stooping over charcoal furnaces, and inhaling unwholesome fumes, during his researches in chemistry and alchymy. It was told of him, whether truly or not, that, at the commencement of his studies, he had drained his body of all its richest blood, and wasted it, with other inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment—and had never been a well man since. Another of the adventurers was Master Ichabod Pigsnort, a weighty merchant and selectman of Boston, and an elder of the famous Mr. Norton’s church. His enemies had a ridiculous story, that Master Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour, after prayer time, every morning and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of Massachusetts. The fourth, whom we shall notice, had no name, that his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles, which were supposed to deform and discolor the whole face of nature, to this gentleman’s

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perception. The fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as he appeared to be a poet. He was a bright-eyed man, but wofully pined away, which was no more than natural, if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist, and a slice of the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine, whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the poetry, which flowed from him, had a smack of all these dainties. The sixth of the party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress, and gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend much of his time in the burial vault of his dead progenitors, rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and vain glory, that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line of ancestry.

Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side, a blooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young wife’s affection. Her name was Hannah, and her husband’s Matthew; two homely names, yet well enough adapted to the simple pair, who seemed strangely out of place among the whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the Great Carbuncle.

Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire, sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single object, that, of whatever else

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they began to speak, their closing words were sure to be illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several related the circumstances that brought them thither. One had listened to a traveller’s tale of this marvellous stone, in his own distant country, and had immediately been seized with such a thirs for beholding it, as could only be quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago as when the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years, till now that he took up the search. A third, being encamped on a hunting expedition, full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke at midnight, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meeteor, so that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the innumerable attempts, which had been made to reach the spot, and of the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It was observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other, in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely hidden conviction, that he would himself be the favoured one. As if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditions, that a spirit kept watch about the gem, and bewildered those who sought it, either by removing it from peak to peak of the higher hills, or by calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But these tales were deemed unworthy of credit; all professing to believe, that the search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in the

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adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct the passage to any given point, among the intricacies of forest, valley, and mountain.

In a pause of the conversation, the wearer of the prodigious spectacles looked round upon the party, making each individual, in turn, the object of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance.

‘So, fellow-pilgrims,’ said he, ‘here we are, seven wise men and one fair damsel—who, doubtless, is as wise as any gray beard of the company: here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise. Methinks now, it were not amiss, that each of us declare what he proposes to do with the Great Carbuncle, provided he have the good hap to clutch it. What says our friend in the bear-skin? How mean you, good Sir, to enjoy the prize which you have been seeking, the Lord knows how long, among the Crystal Hills?’

‘How enjoy it!’ exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. ‘I hope for no enjoyment from it—that folly has past, long ago! I keep up the search for this accursed stone, because the vain ambition of my youth has become a fate upon me, in old age. The pursuit alone is my strength—the energy of my soul—the warmth of my blood, and the pith and marrow of my bones! Were I to turn my back upon it, I should fall down dead, on the hither side of the notch, which is the gate-way of this mountain region. Yet, not to have my wasted life time back again, would I give up my hopes of the Great Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a certain cavern that I wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms, lie down and die, and keep it buried with me forever.[’]

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‘Oh, wretch regardless of the interests of science!’ cried Doctor Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. ‘Thou art not worthy to behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem that ever was concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the sole purpose for which a wise man may desire the possession of the Great Carbuncle. Immediately on obtaining it—for I have the presentiment, good people, that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation—I shall return to Europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. A portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable powder; other parts shall be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents will act upon so admirable a composition; and the remainder I design to melt in the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these various methods, I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow the result of my labours upon the world, in a folio volume.’

‘Excellent!’ quoth the man with the spectacles. ‘Nor need you hesitate, learned Sir, on account of the necessary destruction of the gem; since the perusal of your folio may teach every mother’s son of us to concoct a Great Carbuncle of his own.’

‘But, verily,’ said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, ‘for mine own part, I object to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated to reduce the marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye frankly, Sirs, I have an interest in keeping up the price. Here have I quitted my regular traffit, leaving my warehouse in the care of my clerks, and putting my credit to great hazard, and furthermore, have put myself in peril of death or captivity by the accursed Heathen savages—and all this without

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daring to ask the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for the Great Carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the evil one. Now think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to my soul, body, reputation and estate, without a reasonable chance of profit?’

‘Not I, pious Master Pigsnort,’ said the man with the spectacles.—‘I never laid such a great folly to thy charge.’

‘Truly, I hope not,’ said the merchant. ‘Now, as touching this Great Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it; but be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell, it will surely outvalue the Great Mogul’s best diamond, which he holds at an incalculable sum. Wherefore, I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on ship board, and voyage with it to England, France, Spain, Italy, or into Heathendom, if Providence should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth, that he may place it among his crown jewels. If any of ye have a wider plan, let him expound it.’

‘That have I, thou sordid man!’ exclaimed the poet. ‘Dost thou desire nothing brighter than gold, that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal lustre into such dross, as thou wallowest in already? For myself, hiding the jewel under my cloak, I shall hie me back to my attic chamber, in one of the darksome alleys of London. There, night and day, will I gaze upon it—my soul shall drink its radiance—it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual powers, and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that I indite. Thus, long ages after I am gone,

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the splendor of the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name!’

‘Well said, Master Poet!’ cried he of the spectacles. ‘Hide it under thy cloak, say’st thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes, and make thee look like a Jack o’lanthern!’

‘To think’—ejaculated the Lord de Vere, rather to himself, than his companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his intercourse,—‘to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of conveying the Great Carbuncle to an attic in Grub street! Have not I resolved within myself, that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle? There shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of midnight, glittering on the suits of armor, the banners, and escutcheons, that hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of heroes. Wherefore have all other adventurers sought the prize in vain, but that I might win it, and make it a symbol of the glories of our lofty line? And never, on the diadem of the White Mountains, did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so honored, as if reserved for it in the hall of the de Veres!’

‘It is a noble thought,’ said the Cynic, with an obsequious sneer. ‘Yet, might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare sepulchral lamp, and would display the glories of your lordship’s progenitors more truly in the ancestral vault, than in the castle hall.’

‘Nay forsooth,’ observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand in hand with his bride, ‘the gentleman has bethought himself of a profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are seeking it for a like purpose.’

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‘How, fellow!’ exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. ‘What castle hall hast thou to hang it in?’

‘No castle,’ replied Matthew, ‘but as neat a cottage as any within sight of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that Hannah and I, being wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the Great Carbuncle, because we shall need its light in the long winter evenings; and it will be such a pretty thing to show the neighbors, when they visit us. It will shine through the house, so that we may pick up a pin in any corner, and will set all the windows a-glowing, as if theere were a great fire of pine knots in the chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the night, to be able to see one another’s faces!’

There was a general smile among the adventurers, at the simplicity of the young couple’s project, in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been pround to adorn his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he himself meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.

‘The Great Carbuncle!’ answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn. ‘Why, you blockhead, there is no such thing, in rerum naturâ. I have come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these mountains, and poke my head into every chasm, for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man, one whit less an ass than thyself, that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug!’

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought

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most of the adventurers to the Crystal Hills, but none so vain, so foolish, and so impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He was one of those wretched and evil men, whose yearnings are downward to the darkness, instead of Heavenward, and who, could they but extinguish the lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were startled by a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains, and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent river, with an illumination unlike that of their fire, on the trunks and black boughs of the forest trees. They listened for the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. The stars, those dial-points of Heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the glazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the Great Carbuncle.

The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the furthest corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party by a curtain of curiously woven twigs, such as might have hung, in deep festoons around the bridal bower of Eve. The modest little wife had wrought this piece of tapestry, while the other guests were talking. She and her husband fell asleep with hands tenderly clasped, and awoke, from visions of unearthly radiance, to meet the more blessed light of one another’s eyes. They awoke at the same instant, and with one happy smile beaming over their two faces, which grew brighter, with their consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no sooner did she recollect where they were, than the bride peeped through the

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interstices of the leafy curtain, and saw that the outer room of the hut was deserted.

‘Up, dear Matthew!’ cried she, in haste. ‘The strange folk are all gone! Up, this very minute, or we shall lose the Great Carbuncle!’

In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the mighty prize which had lured them thither, that they had slept peacefully all night, and till the summits of the hills were glittering with sunshine; while the other adventurers had tossed their limbs in feverish wakefulness, or dreamed of climbing precipices, and set off to realise their dreams with the earliest peep of dawn. But Matthew and Hannah, after their calm rest, were as light as two young deer, and merely stopt to say their prayers, and wash themselves in a cold pool of the Amonoosuck, and then to taste a morsel of food, ere they turned their faces to the mountain-side. It was a sweet emblem of conjugal affection, as they toiled up the difficult ascent, gathering strength from the mutual aid which they afforded. After several little accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe, and the entanglement of Hannah’s hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of the forest, and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. The innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto shut in their thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the region of wind, and cloud, and naked rocks, and desolate sunshine, that rose immeasurably above them. They gazed back at the obscure wilderness which they had traversed, and longed to be buried again in its depths, rather than trust themselves to so vast and visible a solitude.

‘Shall w go on?’ said Matthew, throwing his arm

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round Hannah’s waist, both to protect her, and to comfort his heart by drawing her close to it.

But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman’s love of jewels, and could not forego the hope of possessing the very brightest in the world, in spite of the perils with which it must be won.

‘Let us climb a little higher,’ whispered she, yet tremulously, as she turned her face upward to the lonely sky.

‘Come then,’ said Matthew, mustering his manly courage, and drawing her along with him; for she became timid again, the moment that he grew bold.

And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, now treading upon the tops and thickly interwoven branches of dwarf pines, which, by the growth of centuries, though mossy with age, had barely reached three feet in altitude. Next, they came to masses and fragments of naked rock, heaped confusedly together, like a cairn reared by giants, in memory of a giant chief. In this bleak realm of upper air, nothing breathed, nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentred in their two hearts; they had climbed so high, that Nature herself seemed no longer to keep them company. She lingered beneath them, within the verge of the forest trees, and sent a farewell glance after her children, as they strayed where her own green footprints had never been. But soon, they were to be hidden from her eye. Densely and dark, the mists began to gather below, casting black spots of shadow on the vast landscape, and sailing heavily to one centre, as if the loftiest mountain peak had summoned a council of its kindred clouds. Finally, the vapors welded

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themselves, as it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they would vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again, more intensely, alas! than, beneath a clouded sky, they had ever desired a glimpse of Heaven. They even felt it a relief to their desolation, when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated, at least for them, the whole region of visible space. But they drew closer together, with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the universal cloud should snatch them from each other’s sight.

Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as high, between earth and heaven, as they could find foothold, if Hannah’s strength had not begun to fail, and with that, her courage also. Her breath grew short. She refused to burthen her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last, she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity.

‘We are lost, dear Matthew,’ said she, mournfully. ‘We shall never find our way to the earth again. And, Oh, [sic] how happy we might have been in our cottage!’

‘Dear heart!—we will yet be happy there,’ answered Matthew. ‘Look! In this direction, the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist. By its aid, I can direct our course to the passage of the Notch. Let us go back, love, and dream no more of the Great Carbuncle!’

‘The sun cannot be yonder,’ said Hannah, with despondence. ‘By this time, it must be noon. If there

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could ever be any sunshine here, it would come from above our heads.’

‘But, look!’ repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. ‘It is brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?’

Nor could the young bride any longer deny, that a radiance was breaking through the mist, and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after another started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight, with precisely the effect of a new creation, before the indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed up. As the process went on, they saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and found themselves on the very border of a mountain lake, deep, bright, clear, and calmly beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out of the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its surface. The pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid speldnor that glowed from the brow of a cliff, impending over the enchanted lake. For the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery, and found the long sought shrine of the Great Carbuncle!

They threw their arms around each other, and trembled at their own success; for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed thick upon their memory, they felt themselves marked out by fate—and the consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood upward, they

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had seen it shining like a distant star. And now that star was throwing its intensest lustre on their hearts. They seemed changed to one another’s eyes, in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same fire to the lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back before its power. But, with their next glance, they beheld an object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone. At the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle, appeared the figure of a an, with his arms extended in the act of climbing, and his face turned upward, as if to drink the full gush of splendor. But he stirred not, no more than if changed to marble.

‘It is the Seeker,’ whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her husband’s arm. ‘Matthew, he is dead!’

‘The joy of success has killed him,’ replied Matthew, trembling violently.—‘Or perhaps the very light of the Great Carbuncle was death!’

‘The Great Carbuncle,’ cried a peevish voice behind them. ‘The Great Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me.’

They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his prodigious spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light, as if all the scattered clouds were condensed about his person. Through its radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet, as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced that there was the least glimmer there.

‘Where is your Great Humbug?’ he repeated. ‘I challenge you to make me see it!’

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‘There,’ said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. ‘Take off those abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!’

Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic’s sight, in at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people gaze at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them from his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the Great Carbuncle. Cut, scarcely had he encountered it, when, with a deep, shuddering groan, he dropt his head, and pressed both hands across his miserable eyes. Thenceforth there was, in very truth, no light of the Great Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of Heaven itself, for the poor Cynic. So long accustomed to view all objects through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking upon his naked vision, had blinded him forever.

‘Matthew,’ said Hannah, clinging to him, ‘let us go hence!’

Matthew saw that she was faint, and kneeling down, supported her in his arms, while he threw some of the thrillingly cold water of the enchanted lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but could not renovate her courage.

‘Yes, dearest!’ cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his breast,—‘we will go hence, and return to our humble cottage. The blessed sunshine, and the quiet moonlight, shall come through our window. We will kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth, at eventide, and be happy in its light. But never again will we desire more light than all the world may share with us[.]’

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‘No,’ said his bride, ‘for how could we live by day, or sleep by night, in this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle!’

Out of the hollow of their hands, they drank each a draught from the lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by any earthly lip. Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic, who uttered not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own most wretched heart, they began to descend the mountain. Yet, as they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the Spirit’s lake, they threw a farewell glance towards the cliff, and beheld the vapours gathering in dense volumes, through which the gem burned duskily.

As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend goes on to tell, that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon gave up the quest, as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town-dock, in Boston. But, as he passed through the Notch of the mountains, a war party of Indians captured our unlucky merchant, and carried him to Montreal, there holding him in bondage, till, by the payment of a heavy ransom, he had wofully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence, moreover, his affairs had become so disordered, that, for the rest of his life, instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence worth of copper. Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchymist, returned to his laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible, and burnt with the blow-pipe, and published the result of his experiments in one of the biggest folios of the day. And, for all these

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purposes, the gem itself could not have answered better than the granite. The poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a great piece of ice, which he found in the sunless chasm of the mountains, and swore that it corresponded, in all points, with his idea of the Great Carbuncle. The critics say, that, if his poetry lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness of the ice. The Lord de Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled, in due course of time, another coffin in the ancestral vault. As the funeral torches gleamed within that dark receptacle, there was no need of the Great Carbuncle to shew the vanity of earthly pomp.

The Cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the world, a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing desire of light, for the wilful blindness of his former life. The whole night long, he would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the moon and stars; he turned his face eastward, at sunrise, as duly as a Persian idolator; he made a pilgrimage to Rome, to witness the magnificent illumination of Saint Peter’s church; and finally perished in the great fire of London, into the midst of which he had thrust himself, with the desperate idea of catching one feeble ray from the blaze, that was kindling earth and heaven. Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years, and were fond of telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however, towards the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with the full credence that had been accorded to it by those, who remembered the ancient lustre of the gem. For it is affirmed, that, from the hour when two mortals

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had shown themselves so simply wise, as to reject a jewel which would have dimmed all earthly things, its splendor waned. When other pilgrims reached the cliff, they found only an opaque stone, with particles of mica glittering on its surface. There is also a tradition that, as the youthful pair departed, the gem was loosened from the forehead of the cliff, and fell into the enchanted lake, and that, at noon tide, the Seeker’s form may still be seen to bend over its quenchless gleam.

Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing, as of old, and say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of summer lightning, far down the valley of the saco. And be it owned, that, many a mile from the Crystal Hills, I saw a wondrous light around their summits, and was lured, by a faith of poesy, to be the latest pilgrim of the Great Carbuncle.

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[p. 176]

A NAME IN THE SAND.

BY H. F. GOULD.

Alone I walked the ocean strand.

A pearly shell was in my hand.

I stooped and wrote upon the sand

My name, the year, the day.

As onward from the spot Ii passed,

One lingering look behind behind I cast;

A wave came rolling high and fast,

And washed my lines away.

And so, methought, ’twill shortly be

With every mark on earth from me!

A wave of dark oblivion’s sea

Will sweep across the place

Where I have trod the sandy shore

Of time, and been to be no more,

Of me, my day, the name I bore,

To leave no track nor trace.

And yet, with Him who counts the sands,

And holds the waters in his hands,

I know a lasting record stands

Inscribed against my name,

Of all this mortal part has wrought,

Of all this thinking soul has thought,

And from these fleeting moments caught,

For glory, or for shame.

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[p. 177]

FANCY’S SHOW BOX.

A MORALITY.

What is Guilt? A stain upon the soul. And it is a point of vast interest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth and flagrancy, from deeds which have been plotted and resolved upon, but which, physically, have never had existence. Must the fleshly hand, and visible frame of amn, set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give them their entire validity against the sinner? Or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts—of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows—will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence, in the supreme court of eternity? In the solitude of a midnight chamber, or in a desert, afar from men, or in a church, while the body is kneeling, the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes, which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. If this be true, it is a fearful truth.

Let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example. A venerable gentleman, one Mr. Smith, who had long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence, was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of generous wine. His children being gone forth about their worldly business, and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone, in a deep, luxurious arm chair, with his feet beneath a richly carved mahogany table. One old people have a dread of solitude, and when better company may not be

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had, rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe, asleep upon the carpet. But Mr. Smith, whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained, except by such spots as are inseparable from human nature, he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown person, to stand between him and his own soul. Nevertheless, either Manhood must converse with Aage, or Womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares, or Infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts will stray into the misty region of the past, and the old man be chill and sad. Wine will not always cheer him. Such might have been the case with Mr. Smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an ink-horn at her button-hole, and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky antle, which concealed both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience.

How kind of Fancy, Memory, and Conscience, to visit the old gentleman, just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkile, nor so excellent a flavor, as when himself and the liquor were less aged! Through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson curtains muffled the glare of sunshine, and created a rich obscurity, the three guests drew near the silver-haired old man. Memory, with a finger between the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand. Conscience, with her face

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still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station on the left, so as to be next his heart; while Fancy set down her picture-box upon the table, with the magnifying glass convenient to his eye. We can sketch merely the outlines of two or three, out of the many pictures, which, at the pulling of a string, successively peopled the box with the semblances of living scenes.

One was a moonlight picture in the back-ground, a lowly dwelling; and in front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. The young man stood with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a gleam of triumph in his eye, as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. She was almost prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and anguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in supplication. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. He was the personification of triumphant scorn. Now, strange to say, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying glass, which made the objects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to recognize the farm house, the tree, and both the figures of the picture. The young man, in times long past, had often met his gaze within the looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love—his cottage-love—his Martha Burroughs! Mr. Smith was scandalized. ‘Oh, vile and slanderous picture!’ he exclaims. ‘When have I triumphed over ruined innocence? Was not Martha wedded, in her teens, to David

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Tomkins, who won her girlish love, and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And ever since his death, she has lived a reputable widow!’ Meantime, Memory was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with uncertain fingers, until, among the earlier pages, she found one which had reference to this picture. She reads it, close to the old gentleman’s ear; it is a record merely of sinful thought, which never was embodied in an act; but, while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her face, and strikes a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith. Though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme.

The exhibition proceeded. One after another, Fancy displayed her pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious artist, on purpose to vex Mr. Smith. Not a shadow of proof could have been adduced, in any earthly court, that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face. In one scene, there was a table set out, with several bottles, and glasses half filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp. There had been mirth and revelry, until the hand of the clock stood just at midnight, when Murder stept between the boon-companions. A young man had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead, with a ghastly wound crushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium of mingled rage and horror in his countenance, stood the youthful likeness of Mr. Smith. The murdered youth wore the features of Edward Spencer! ‘What does this rascal of a painter mean?’ cries Mr. Smith, provoked beyond all patience. ‘Edward Spencer was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as I to

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him, through more than half a century. Neither I, nor any other, ever murdered him. Was he not alive within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane, and a mourning ring?’ Again had Memory been turning over her volume, and fixed at length upon so confused a page, that she surely must have scribbled it when she was tipsy. The purport was, however, that, while Mr. Smith and Edward Spencer were heating their young blood with wine, a quarrel had flashed up between them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a bottle at Spencer’s head. True, it missed its aim, and merely smashed a looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh. Yet, again, while Memory was reading, Conscience unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith, and quelled his remonstrance with her iron frown. The pain was quite excruciating.

Some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in colors so faint and pale that the subjects could brely be conjectured. A dull, semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish, while the eye sought most earnestly to fix them. But, in every scene, however dubiously portrayed, Mr. Smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments, at various ages, as in a dusty mirror. After poring several minutes over one of these blurred and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to see, that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved children. ‘Really,

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this puzzles me!’ quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony of conscious rectitude. ‘Asking pardon of the painter, I pronounce him a fool, as well as a scandalous knave. A man of my standing in the world, to be robbing little children of their clothes! Ridiculous!’—But while he spoke, Memory had searched her fatal volume, and found a page, which, with her sad, calm voice, she poured into his ear. It was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been grievously tempted, by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a law-suit against three orphan children, joint heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law, as justice. As Memory ceased to read, Conscience agains thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger, only that he struggled, and clasped his hands before his heart. Even then, however, he sustained an ugly gash.

Why should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful pictures? Painted by an artist of wondrous power, and terrible acquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the never perpetrated sins, that had glided through the life-time of Mr. Smith. And could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid evidence against him, at the day of judgment? Be that the case or not, there is reason to believe, that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture, and left the canvas white as snow. But Mr. Smith, at a prick of Conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed aloud, with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his

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three guests had gone. There he sat alone, a silver-haired and highly venerated old man, in the rich gloom of the crimson-curtained room, with no box of pictures on the table, but only a decanter of most excellent Madeira. Yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom of the dagger.

Nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter with Conscience, and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not smite him so pitilessly. Were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat in the following fashion. A scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution, greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale. The latter, in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader’s mind, must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem, in the glow of fancy, more like truth, past, present, or to come, than purely fiction. The prospective sinner, on the other hnd, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed. There is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow into his victim’s heart, and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand. Thus a novel-writer, or a dramatist, in creating a villain of romance, and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life, in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other, half way between reality and fancy. It is not until the crime is accomplished, that guilt clenches its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for its own. Then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousand fold more virulent by its self-

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consciousness. Be it considered, also, that men often over-estimate their capacity for evil. At a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not press upon their notice, and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to contemplate it. They may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction, at the final moment. They knew not what deed it was, that they deemed themselves resolved to do. In truth, there is no such thing in man’s nature, as aa settled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. Let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred, unless the act have set its seal upon the thought.

Yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and awful truths are interwoven. Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. He must feel, that, when he shall knock at the gate of Heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. Penitence must kneel, and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open!

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a Native American woman admires her image in a pool of water
Painted by Chapman.      Engraved by R. B. Neagle.
THE INDIAN TOILETTE

Printed by D. Stevens.

Boston Published by Charles Bowen.

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[p. 185]

THE INDIAN TOILET.

BY H. F. GOULD.

Her young form looked bright

In the morn’s early light;

Her feet she was bathing in the silver dew.

Their slight traces lay

Along the leafy way,

That led where the evergren and sweetbriar grew.

A fresh branch she took,

And she went to the brook,

To weave it in the locks of her raven hair.

With her eye on the stream,

And her soul in a dream,

She poured out her voice on the wandering air.

The clear mirror shone,

But the face was her own!

There still was another that she longed to see;

For that had an eye

The color of the sky,

And a cheek like the bloom on her wild rose tree.

Its brow too was fair;

And the locks that were there

Were chestnut, and sunny, and turned in the curl.

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And this was the face,

That in all time and place,

Was painted on the heart of the woodland girl.

She wished she could hear

But the bound of the deer,

To tell the young hunter’s foot was close behind.

She wished she but knew

That his soft eye of blue

Could see her glossy hair with the green wreath twined.

A wild plaint she sung,

But the rocks only flung

Her voice back in echo as she called his name.

And sadly she sighed

And wooed the glassy tide

To bring back the skiff, that never, never came!

Then slow flew the hours;

And the gay, blooming flowers,

They took a mournful hue, but she knew not why,

Or what called the tear,

That rolled so warm and clear

To mingle with the stream, from her full black eye.

Her thoughts wildly strayed

From the deep sylvan shade,

Where now she felt prisoned like a wounded bird.

She dreamed past the wood,

That a blest world stood,

Whose songs o’er the forest-top she sometimes heard.

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Her soul pined to know

What that far world could show,

And if its bright beings held her lost one there;

While still morn and eve,

For him she came to weave

The green leaves, or feathers in her raven hair.

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[p. 188]

ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.

A MORALITY FOR THE DAY
BY J. INMAN.

Once upon a time—there is something respectable and honest in that old-fashioned way of beginning a story—once upon a time, then, two lads went to school together, and grew up to manhood in friendship. There was just enough contrast of character between them to ensure mutual regard; just enough opposition of qualities to create and keep up in each that degree of admiration for the other, which secured esteem without affording occasion for rivalship. Both had talent and good dispositions; but the talent of Walter King was more nearly allied to genius than that of Henderson Grey. The quality of his mind was finer, they said; certain it is that he shone more in society, and on short acquaintance made a more pleasant impression. His perceptions were quicker, his emotions more easily excited, and his conversation more varied and brilliant. There was more of the poet in his temperament. But to make up for these advantages, Grey had the clearest head, the strongest native good sense, the greates decision of character. Both were respected and liked; but the liking which Henderson Grey inspired was less warm and affectionate than that which sprang up, indigenous as it were, and like wild flowers, along the path of his childhood’s playmate and youth’s companion.

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The one was that kind of man in whose society you would most delight in hours of social enjoyment; the other would be your resort when aid or advice was needed.

Years rolled away, and the schoolboys became men, with no decrease of regard, but a certain divergence of fortune. Their lines of life ran no longer in parallel. Both married and betook themselves to the indispensable task of ‘getting a living;’ a thing which comes naturally enough to your staid, unambitious, and sober people who have no thought about leaving names behind them, ‘to point a moral or adorn a tale,’ but which often sorely perplexes those who are moulded of what Byron has called ‘finer clay.’ It forms no part of my plan to describe the particular mode in which my heroes addressed themselves to this perilous matter, or to inform the reader how they succeeded; it is enough to make known that being, like the rest of mankind, subject to the necessities of eating, drinking, and paying house rent and tailors’ bills, not to mention the doctor’s and milliner’s, they chose for themselves occupations, or betook themselves to such as were appointed by destiny; and here, for some years, we must leave them.

The reader will have the kindness now to make one with me at a party, given in the winter of 1835, by a lady of high fashion in Boston, or elsewhere; the precise locality is of no moment. The assemblage was numerous, gay and brilliant. A superb suite of rooms was thrown open, blazing with light, and thronged with beauty, wit, elegance and bon ton. In one apartment were harp, organ, piano; costly pictures enriched the walls, and portfolios filled with the choicest engravings

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lay scattered around upon tables, ottomans and divans. Hosts of the freshest annuals were provided to give occupation to such as could not or would not talk, and to help such as would, to subjects of conversation. The arrangements were all in excellent taste, and it was evident at a glance that the Mrs Amphytrion of the night had a name to keep up in the beau monde, which, on that occasion, at least, was destined to suffer no diminution of splendor.

The societé, as the French have it, was numerous, as I have said; and the individuals by whom it was constituted, were all of high caste. The elders, gathered together in knots, after the usual fashion, discussed politics, literature, science, and the events of the day; the younger habitués of the distinguished circles rambled about, flirting, scheming, satirizing, and making display of their qualities. Some tried to amuse themselves, and some of larger benevolence, to amuse others; and in the secret thoughts of each one, the constituents of the supper found and occasional topic of anxious but pleased speculation. Such as had fine teeth courted occasions for laughter; and those who had fine figures lounged through the rooms and practised natural attitudes; and beautiful hands were displayed to advantage in turning over the prints and touching the organ. I myself made discover of no less than seven distinct flirtations, and one serious affaire du cœur, the parties to which flattered themselves with the assurance, that nothing could be more skilfully veiled from the eyes of the world; and twice in the course of the night, being a bachelor, and not out of the pale matrimonial, was I employed as a stalking-horse by two several young ladies, whose

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pleasure it was to afflict their dutiful followers, by an unusual preference for my arm and agreeable conversation. I knew very well, that but for the delight of teasing the gentlemen with a few jealous twinges, my fair friends would scarcely have honored me with a moment’s thought; but that was none of my business, and as I was not in love, either with them or their fortunes, they served to amuse me as well, perhaps, as another. As for the swains, I must do them the justice to say that they bore the infliction exceedingly well, by the help of some pickled oysters and cold Roman punch, the composition of which last, I heard them repeat several times, was magnificent. And here let me record, par parenthese, my warm and hearty approval, of a judicious custom recently brought into vogue by some distinguished givers of parties, among whom is the lady at whose house the reader is now in fancy a visitor; I mean that of having a room set apart for refreshments, and thrown open contemporaneously with the principal suite. Jellies, oysters, confitures, champagne, and other such trifles, keep up one’s spirits amazingly through the fatigues of a long and delightful evening; and someties, when the réunion is large, one ets nothing at all, at the regular supper. I speak with knowledge derived from painful experience.

But as yet I have not mentioned the star of the night: for a particular star there was, and it shone with eminent brilliancy. Walter King was the man. He had just returned from Europe, where he had passed several years, and won for himself a distinguished name as a writer, which made him, of course, a lion of magnitude in his own country, where no prophets have

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honor, but such as come duly freighted therewith from others, of better discernment. I had heard of him often, and read his novels, and tales, in the annuals and the magazines, with great admiration; but until that night, I had never seen him in bodily presence. A first appearance could not have been made to better advantage. Many of the guests were among his early friends, and to all he was invested with the halo of rising fame. Give me credit for not saying that he was the observed of all observers, strong as is the temptation; but the quotation was applicable, to the very letter; he was observed by all, who had not something of more personal interest to engross their attention. There was no pretension about him—no showing off of the travelled gentleman; but the fates had decreed that he should be drawn out that night, and his destiny was accomplished. The lady whose Persian carpets we had the honor of treading, is one of the most skilful of lionizers, and knows perfectly how to show up the animals of her menagerie. She had made the grand tour herself, but a few years before, and had intimate friends in every principal city of Europe; she had a thousand questions to ask touching dukes, and marchesas, and barons and principezzas; and she had taken good care to invite every one of her acquaintance who had a sister, or lover, or brother, or cousin, in Paris, Rome, London, or Constantinople. All these, of course, were eager to make inquiries that could not fail to be useful as key-notes for conversation; and in case of their giving out, there was a corps de reserve of young gentlemen who had also been polished in foreign lands, and had no objection to make display of their familiarity with the wonders of Europe. This

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was attentive and kind on the part of the lady; King had been absent a number of years, and his native soil had become unaccustomed ground to him; he was not au courant du jour; literally a stranger in a strange land, he knew nothing of the liaisons, the flirtations, the matches supposed to be coming on, or known to be going off, the theatrical stars, and the anecdotes tantsoit peu scandaleuses, that make up the debateable land of small talk at mixed parties in high life, all the world over. His habits, his tastes, and his knowledge, were essentially trans-Atlantic; and Mrs S. had done wisely as well as kindly in making provision accordingly.

Certain it is that his ‘at home’ that night was of the most brilliant character. For hours he was the cynosure of all eyes—the centre of a succession of elegant groups, comprising in turns all the wit, beauty, talent and fashion, as well as the opposite qualities, of some three or four hundred people. He was constrained to talk, whether he would or no, and giving himself up to the necessity, talked like a Denon and a Coleridge in one. There was in his manner an evident consciousness of the distinguished part he was expected to play, but that consciousness did not detract in the least from the grace, and ease, and perfect success with which he satisfied all expectation. He was by turns, eloquent in description, piquant in anecdote, subtle in argument, recherché in criticism, lively in repartee, and original in deduction. He discussed pictures and statuary like a royal academician, antiques like a virtuoso, music like an Italian, ruins like an antiquary, or a poet, landscapes like Gainsborough, public affairs (on the other side of the water) like a member of parliament, and cookery like—an Ude or a

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Sefton; and this last, by the way, I consider the trying test of a man’s education, genius and talent. Thousands may shine in politics, science, literature and art, but it is given to only one in a thousand, properly to appreciate even so simple a thing as the cooking of a potato. But to return; he touched lightly, but with the manner of one perfectly au fait, upon glaciers, galleries and great men; criticised the Venus and Taglioni; described Paganini, gave anecdotes of the ‘Three Days’ of Paris, and quoted from conversations with Bulwer, Humboldt, Victor Hugo and Ali Pacha; had seen the fata morgana, and the gigantic spectre of the Brocken, dined at Vevy’s, lost rouleaux at Crockford’s, slept in a Turkish caravanserai, measured fragments of ancient sculpture at Athens, scampered over a desert in company with an Arab sh[ei]kh, and been horribly frightened by wolves in a Russian forest. He described the manner in which the lazzaroni of Naples eat boiled maccaroni [sic] by the yard, imitated the whine of a Spanish mendicant friar, exhibited some curious relics picked up at sundry convents in Italy, and recounted perils and toils of an ascent to the top of Mont Blanc. Nor was it only in these trivial matters that he had brought home the fruits of travel. He had studied the graver and more important features of European existence. His remarks on the political condition of France, for so many years the marvel and the enigma f all other nations, on the progress and consequences of reform in England, the ambitious projects of Russia, and the ‘march of mind’ throughout the kingdoms and empires of the old world, showed discrimination, sound judgment and a habit of close observation. He displayed with clearness and force

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the vast scheme of regeneration so long and ably, and pertinaciously followed by Sultan Mahmoud; elucidated the character of Louis Phillippe, the most sagacious of modern royalties, and the policy of his strong but cautious system of government; described the social improvements of the astute ruler of Egypt; and had much curious information to give touching the establishment of steamboats on the Danube and the Red Sea, of rail-roads in Hungary and Bohemia, the suppression of convents in Spain, and the French manufacture of sugar from beet-roots. In short he had come home with his mind and memory richly stored, and amply provided moreover with that skill and tact in the employment of information, whether to entertain or instruct, which in some men appears to be innate, but is generally acquired only by long intercourse with society in all its forms and gradations. In a word, he was a man highly accomplished, and his accomplishments were so pleasantly and with such good taste applied to the amusement of others, that no suspicion of display or pretension arose for a moment, to cast a shade upon the brightness of the admiration with which he was regarded.

For my own part I was delighted with Walter King. I admired his savoir faire and the graceful ease with which he supported his honors; I marvelled at the extent of his information and envied him the facilities he had enjoyed for gaining it. I made interest with Mrs G. to be specially introduced to him, and took care not to leave him without having elicited an exchange of cards, and an invitation to visit him at his hotel.

The visit was paid, returned, and repeated; and,

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thanks to the courtly facility of my new friend, we soon became agreeably intimate—agreeably, that is, to me. I could offer him no compensation for the pleasure of his society, other than the tribute of my sincere admiration, and the grateful delight with which I drank at the perennial fountain of his multifarious knowledge.

‘Your’s [sic] is a fortunate lot,’ I said to him one day, as we were gossiping over a bottle of claret and a segar, at my bachelor lodgings. ‘You seem to enjoy all the pleasures of life, without enduring any of the troubles and rubs with which they are purchased by others. You have success without enemies, occupation without sameness, amusement without fatigue, knowledge without study, and domestic felicity without children.’ I had been introduced to his wife, and found her both clever and pretty.

‘An exception to your category,’ interrupted my friend. ‘I have as fine a boy as you shall see of a summer’s day, poor fellow.’

‘Indeed! I thought you had no family. Where do you keep your boy? I have never seen him when I called.’

‘No; we found him troublesome in travelling, and he was getting to that perilous age when it is high time that something be done in the matter of education; so we left him in Switzerland—at Hofwyl, where there is an excellent school on the Fellenburg system.’

‘But I suppose you’ll send for him, now you are settled again?’

‘Why no, I think not. The fact is, Mary and I have become so accustomed to rambling, that we cannot make

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up our minds to stay very long in one place, and we shall probably go back to Europe again in the course of next summer—or perhaps in the spring.’

‘Sorry to hear that. I hoped you were planted here for the next forty years. Take another segar, and I’ll ring for a fresh bottle.’

‘Very fair claret this; I’ve tasted worse that was called good, at very well-spoken-of tables in London. I wish I could get such at an hotel.’

‘You can hardly expect that. good wine and dear wine are two things at most of the topping establishments.

‘So I find it. I must say for my own country by the way, that her aubergistes and her maitres-d’hotel have not the tact of making their guests comfortable. The house at which we have planted ourselves is called one of the best, I believe, but I miss the thousand and one little agrémens of the great European houses; the empressement and tact of the servants, who seem born to their business and nothing else—the civility and attention of mine host himself—the prompt obedience—the exquisite neatness—the perfection of all the appointments—the numberless ready appliances to comfort and even luxury, which there are reckoned among the necessaries of life, and here are not to be had even when asked—and paid for.—Certainly there can be nothing more like a home than a good English hotel, or less, than an American.’

‘Why not go into a boarding-house?’

‘And feed every day in company with a ‘rabble-rout,’ half of whom you don’t know, and the other half you

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wouldn’t if you could help it? No, no; bad as the life of an hotel is, that of a boarding-house must be a thousand times worse.’

‘I won’t say nay to your doctrine; it must be wretched enough, until you get used to it. My greatest objection is that the servants are not your own, or in any degree subject to your control. You can’t kick them out when they are lazy or impudent, and if you complain to the higher power, the chance is that you get kicked out yourself. After all, there’s nothing like one’s own home, in one’s own hired house, as St. Paul says, with all the people about him subjects of his absolute dominion, and himself at full liberty to break all the glasses and plates, if he thinks proper.’

‘Very true.’

‘But then again staying at home all one’s days is but dull fun. There’s no life like yours after all. Travel’s the only state of beatitude in this vale of tears. It’s glorious while you’re about it, and ensures you a brilliant reception when you come home.’

‘It has its drawbacks, however.’

‘Trifles; mere bagatelles. Once more I declare, I know of no man so much to be envied as you.’

My guest smiled at my enthusiasm, but, as I thought, with a shade of sadness in his smile. He gracefully tipped off the ashes from his segar, with a dexterous flirt of his little finger—he had learned the movement, he told me, from Khatte ’Gherri Krim Gherri, sultan of Caucasus, and failing the issue of Sultan Mahmoud, heir to the throne of the padishahs—finished his glass, gave a last deliberate whiff, threw the segar into the fire, and rising to go, said with a look of peculiar

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meaning, ‘Do you know my old friend Henderson Grey? No? Then go with me tomorrow, and we’ll crack a bottle of wine after dinner with a man exceedingly well worth knowing.’

I assented of course, and Mr. King went on his way.

I had just fairly got through my early dinner and afternoon paper, the next day, when my friend, punctual to his appointment, walked into my room, duly enveloped in cloak, and fur cap, and water-proof India rubbers; for there was a deep snow on the ground, and the day was somewhat of the coldest.

Our walk was pleasant, though rather long, and in due season I found myself at the door of a small, but exceedingly ‘nice’ looking house, just on the outer verge of the city. ‘At home’ was the answer to our inquiry, as indeed we had expected with confidence, for the occupation of the gentleman whom we had come to see was also connected with literature, and we knew that most of his time was passed in his library. I must describe the room into which we were shown, somewhat at length, for it struck me as being a model of comfort, and if ever I marry and ‘settle down,’ just such a room shall there be in my house, for my own especial delectation.

It was none of the largest, yet ample enough for its furniture and employment; about fourteen feet square and twelve high, with two doors and as many windows, these last being deeply recessed, with an ottoman fitting nicely in each—the said ottomans being covered with dark purple morocco, and wearing a most luxurious aspect. The windows gave, as the French say, upon a

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small garden, or rather upon a small piece of ground that would be a garden in summer; just now it was merely a platform of snow. A cheerful coal-fire—Liverpool coal, and not anthracite—blazed in the grate with that gentle flickering purr, so suggestive of warmth and coziness, which none but a Liverpool fire can give; the carpet was thick and soft to the tread, and a spaniel lay dozing, with out-stretched nose, on the purple-dyed sheepskin rug. An old-fashioned table, with massive square legs, and an ample cloth of dull crimson, was set out before the fire, in such wise as to receive the full strength of the light from the upper half of each window, the panes of the lower halves being of ground glass, and farther obscured by a curtain of very thin silk—a delicate nuance of purple, lending a mellow and rich, but not gorgeous tone to the atmosphere of the apartment. The table was well provided with the materiel for correspondence or composition; to wit: a capacious standish of bronze, moulded in form of a baronial castle, with ‘turrret, barbazon and portcullis;’ portfolio of Russia leather, ivory folder and steel pens in profusion; and at the side of the table, obliquely fronting the grate, was a large, antique, luxurious elbow chair, deeply cushioned within and without, and covered with crimson morocco. On the mantle-piece hung, in a plain but rich frame, a large and superb engraved portrait of the immortal Corsican—not as he is commonly represented, with the earnest majestic eyes, and the imperial smile of his proudest days, but as he appeared, when last seen, to the little court that adhered to his broken fortunes, on the island-rock that has won glory from his misfortunes—his prison and grave. The

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picture was of the dead Napoleon—the mighty and restless, lying conquered and still, in the mysterious, awful repose of death; with closed eyes, and rigid compressed lips, and features wasted by sickness and sorrow, and it may be, remorse, but still with the grand and expansive brow that had so well become the crown of Europe’s fairest dominion. But one other picture adorned the room, and that was in perfect contrast. It represented a sleeping nymph—Durand’s superb engraving from the Ariadne of Vanderlyn. In this also, the eyes are sealed, and the calm features and limbs relaxed, are stamped with the character of repose, but it is the repose of life and beauty. The two engravings might be selected as emblems of matter and soul; the one, mere inanimate clay, moulded in human form, but cold, inert, motionless; the other, as tranquil, but warm, living, glorious in its congeniality with the divine—mortality breathing of spirit.

The side of the room vis-a-vis to the grate, was one continuous book-case, of time-blackened oak, reaching from door to window, and from ceiling to floor, the volumes rising, tier above tier, like the waist of a beauty immortalized by the poet, ‘fine by degrees, and beautifully less;’ the lower shelves groaning under the weight of the ponderous quartos, which, from their alacrity in sinking, were appropriately consigned thereto, while those nearer the zenith upheld a legion of volatile octodecimos; and the practised eye of a bibliomaniac would detect at a glance, the fact that they were all English editions. The recesses formed by the projection of the fire-place were occupied, one by a second book-case similarly stored, and the other by a table piled high with

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portfolios, pamphlets, magazines and reviews; while in the space between the windows stood a third book case, of smaller dimensions and of lighter and less antiquated form, the shelves of which bore nothing but annuals. There they were, in all their infinite variety of title and binding—Souvenirs, Tokens, Keepsakes, Gems, Wreaths, Offerings, and else, of every name and nation, and all in complete series; and the appropriate Psyche, the butterfly of mythology, in the purest of Parian marble, surmounted their teeming resting-place, as light, ephemeral and graceful as themselves. Save that already described, there was not a chair within the room, but on either side of the fire-place, extending diagonally from it, on the one side toward the window and on the other almost to the door of an adjoining apartment, was a long and low divan, each with its half dozen cushions; and others of varying height and amplitude, filled every space not otherwise occupied, along the wall of this jewel of libraries. On the mantel were a few small busts—a Persian narghilé with its jar of bronze inlaid with arabesque of silver, and its long flexible tube studded with seed pearl and small knobs of gold—and a beautiful model in cork, of the Athenian Parthenon. Such was the apartment, and such were the objects gathered together within it; the description obviates the necessity of any more specific information as to the tastes and habits, at least, if not the character of the proprietor.

But the picture is not yet complete; there are two figures yet to be introduced, which I have reserved for the last touches. One was Henderson Grey himself. In flowered morning gown and real Turkish

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slippers, he occupied the very comfortable chair of which I have made such honorable mention, and upon which, by the way, I could not look without some prohibited risings of envy. At the moment of our entrance he was pleasantly engaged, in examining the numerous and very beautiful plates of a costly work on Egyptian antiquities, in quarto, which I had seen announced a day or two previous, as just received by the last packet from England.

But my attention was quickly diverted from him, to fasten on his companion. Bachelor as I am, I can never look upon a beautiful child without a delicious feeling, more pure and bright than pleasure; and this was one of the loveliest that ever gladdened the eyes or heart of a child-worshipper. A flaxen-haired little girl, about two years old, with bright blue eyes, long arching lashes, a sweet little mouth and cheeks glowing with health’s purest carnation. She was seated on one of the divans, with her fairy feet resting upon the back of the slumbering dog, and busily engaged upon a small volume of colored prints, the leaves of which she turned over with an assumed air of gravity and pleased attention, in exquisite yet laughable mimicry of her father’s. Our entrance startled her from her employment, and with a lovely mingling of shyness and childish affection, she sidled away from her place on the divan and took refuge upon the opposite side of the great luxurious chair, where her beautiful curly head and bright face peeped up, now and then, with an appealing look, which was answered ere long, by the desired removal to the paternal knee—an indulgence she quickly repaid with an unsolicited kiss, worth half a rich bachelor’s income.

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Our reception was, of course, gentlemanlike, friendly and pleasant. Grey evidently admired and loved my companion, and as evidently, without a particle of envy. A salver quickly made its appearance with glasses and two bottles, one of which yielded some of the finest claret—chateau margaux of the first timbre—and the other maedira; no doubt equally good, but I made no experiment of its quality; and mighty agreeable was the sederunt then and there had. There was one defect, it is true; Grey’s ménage did not include segars, but he brought down the narghilé for me, with Shiraz tobacco, and really that notion of getting the smoke cool and pure through a vessel of rose water, is not a thing to be spoken of lightly. Bating the segars, however, nothing could be better arranged or conducted. Grey was skilful in drawing men out, and although untravelled, had made himself so well acquainted with foreign countries by diligent inquiry and reading, that he seemed almost enabled to give information to King, even touching those parts of the world with which he was most familiar. Their converse, seasoned as it was with anecdotes of their earlier days, gay sallies of wit, and sensible observations on all manner of subjects, kept me a pleased and attentive listener until we were summoned to tea; and then my enjoyment was only varied, not interrupted. I found time and means, by the way, in the course of the afternoon, to establish a league with the little beauty, and the dog ate biscuits out of my hand, long before we adjourned to the tea-room.

Our party was here completed by the addition of Mrs. Grey, a lady-like, pretty, accomplished and very agreeable woman—neither blas-bleu nor simpleton—neither

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mere housekeeper nor fashionable (Anglice useless) fine lady—who seemed proud of her husband, and willing, as well as able, to share alike in his intellectual labors and pleasures, yet neither unqualified nor reluctant to pay all proper attention to the good government of her household. Most assuredly it was not in the hand or the soul of any unlooked-after servant, to accomplsh such a toast as was set before us that evening, and toast is one of the tenderest points of good housekeeping. Ninety-nine times in the hundred, it is either too thin, and scorched to a crisp, or too thick, and not done half the way through, or oily from too much butter, or not spread completely to the edges, or finally too cold, which is the ultima thule of horrors. I understand something of these matters, and make very fair toast myself, when I take it in hand.

After tea we had music. King has a sweet though not very strong tenor, Grey made a respectable bass, and his wife’s voice is a rich round contralto; so they could manage some of the finest duets and trios from the Cenerentola, and La Somnambula. As for me, I can read music passably well, so I turned over the leaves. In the intervals of our music, curious books were brought out, and port-folios, and sundry small rarities, such as your moderate virtuosi pick up here and there; a few autographs, but of the choicest description—three or four cases of medals—a dozen beautiful specimens of the mineral kingdom, and others of like sort, neither sufficiently costly nor numerous to be paraded with ostentation, but yet worthy a few minutes’ at[t]ention.

As the night waned toward the small hours, we were

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shown to another room—a little snuggery of a place—where the supper was laid. Supper! that most delightful of meals—that one good thing, for their warfare against which, the modern preachers of meagre diet[—]bran-bread and soup without vegetables or meat—deserve to be punished with a perpetual indigestion. That most cozy, unceremonious, and un-animal-like of all possible seasons and modes for the refreshment of man’s corporeal entity! the very mention of which creates appetite, and at which none but the veriest glutton is ever tempted to eat more than he ought, because, of all the enjoyments to which it gives birth, that of the mere eating is least, and least relished!

Singing is proverbial for making people hungry; so we did all justice to Mrs. Grey’s cold ham, and tongue, and fried oysters, and her husband’s most capital celery, the which, I am free to confess, he dressed with a precision and skill that Albany’s Cruttenden himself would not disdain to commend. A glass or two of watered champagne—drunk out of fair, honest tumblers, and not from those pure tantalizing deceivers of thirsty ment, the tall, narrow-mouthed champagne glasses, improperly used by the multitude for the imbibition of that exquisite beverage—a glass or two of champagne, thus rightfully dealt with, gave the finishing touch to the last scene of our nocte—and very considerably ‘ayont the twal,’ my friend King and I put on our cloaks, and betook ourselves to our several homes—such as they were.

A shrewish north-wester was blowing right in our teeth, as we wended our way by the dim light of the unneighborly gas lamps, and our converse was very

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brief. But as we approached my own door, my companion stopped short, and turning his back to the wind, thus uttered his valedictory.

‘Good night, my young friend. Think over what you have seen and heard; compare the pleasures of which you have been a spectator—that perfect library—loving, beautiful child—excellent wife—those numberless comforts that spring up and bloom round the domestic hearth—that picture of all that is lovely and pleasant in home—compare all these with our wandering, unsettled habits—our comfortless residence in hotels—our restless desire of change—our child separated from us by three thousand miles of ocean, and almost a stranger to our love—and tell me when next we meet, if all these are not an extravagant price to pay for the exciting but most unstable delights of the life you were so ready to envy. Once more good night.’

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[p. 208]

THE ANCIENT FAMILY CLOCK.

BY MRS SIGNOURNEY.

So, here thou art, old friend,

Ready thine aid to lend,

With honest face;

The gilded figures just as bright

Upon thy painted case,

As when I ran with young delight

Thy burnished robe to trace—

Forbidden still, thy garniture to touch,

I gazed with clasped hands, admiring long and much.

But where is she who sate

Near in her elbow-chair,

Teaching with patient care

Life’s young beginner, on thy dial-plate

To count the winged minutes, fleet and fair,

And march each hour with deeds of love,

Lo! she hath broke her league with Time, and found the bliss above.

Thrice welcome, ancient crone!

’Tis sweet to gaze on thee,

And hear thy busy heart beat on.

Come, tell old tales to me,

Old tales such as I love of hoar antiquity.

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Young lips their love have told

Into the thrilling ear,

Till midnight’s witching hour waxed old,

Deeming themselves alone, while thou wert near,

In thy sly corner hid, sublime,

With they ‘tick, tick’—to warn how Time

Outliveth Love, boasting itself divine,

Yet fading like the wreath which its fond votaries twine.

The unuttered hopes and fears,

The deep-drawn rapturous tears

Of young paternity,

Were chronicled by thee.

The nursling’s first faint cry,

Which from a bright-haired girl of dance and song

The idol, incense-fed, of an adoring throng,

Did make a mother, with her quenchless eyes

Of love, and truth, and trust, and holiest memories,

As Death’s sharp ministry,

Doth make an angel, when the mortal dies.

Thy quick vibrations caught

The cradled infant’s ear,

And while it marked thy face with curious fear,

Thou didst awake the new-born thought,

Peering through the humid eye,

Like star-beam in a misty sky;

Tho’ the nurse, standing still more near,

Saw but the body’s growing wealth,

And prais’d that fair machine of clay,

Working in mystery and health

Its wondrous way.

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Thou uttered’st the death-knell,

Chiming in sadness with the funeral-bell,

When stranger-feet came gathering slow

To see the master of the mansion borne

To that last home, the narrow and the low,

From whence is no return.

How slow thy movements to the anxious breast,—

The expecting maiden, or the waiting wife,

‘He comes to-morrow,’—but the day unblest

Still like a wounded snake its length did draw;

Then wert thou watched and blamed, as if the strife

Of wild emotion should have been thy law,

Tho’ thou wert pledged, in amity sublime,

To crystal-breasted Truth, and sky-reporting Time.

Thou hast the signal given

For the gay bridal, when with flower-crowned hair

And glowing brow, the youthful pair

Stood near the priest, with reverent air,

Dreaming that earth means heaven:—

And thou hast heralded with joyance fair

The green-wreathed Christmas, and that other feast,

With which the hard lot of colonial care

The pilgrim-sire besprinkled;—saving well

The luscious pumpkin, and the fatted beast,

And the rich apple, with its luscious swell,

Till the thanksgiving sermon duly o’er,

He greets his children at his humble door,

Bidding them welcome to his plenteous hoard,

While gathering from their distant home

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To knit their gladdened hearts in love they come,

Each with his youngling brood, round the grey father’s board.

Thou hast outlived thy maker, ancient clock!

He in his cold grave sleeps,—but thy slight wheels

Still do his bidding, yet his frailty mock,

While o’er his name, oblivion steals:

Oh Man! so prodigal of pride and praise,

Thy works survive thee,—dead machines perform

Their revolution, while thy scythe-shorn days

Yield thee a powerless prisoner to the worm—

Thou darest to sport with Time,—while he

Consigns thee sternly to Eternity.

Make peace!—make peace with Him, who rules above the storm.

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[p. 212]

FULL THIRTY.

BY MISS SEDGEWICK.

‘In faith Lady, you have a merry heart.’

‘Yea my Lord, I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care.’

The first visit I paid after coming to town this winter, (this, to New York, most disastrous winter of 1836) was to Mrs. Orme, and her daughter Augusta.

Augusta I knew well and loved. She is the very impersonation of the spirit of cheerfulness, if brightness, intelligence, youth and health should be the indicated attributes of that spirit. Mrs. Orme was a stranger to me except by report. She was a southern lady by birth, and had resided with her family for many years at New Orleans, and at her house there, and her plantation in the neighborhood, some of my friends had enjoyed that hospitality which the southern members of our great family so generously and so gracefully extend to their brethren of the north. She had had several children, healthy and promising till they approached the age of maturity, when they were in turn the victims of the bilious diseases of their native climate. The anxiety consequent upon these repeated losses, induced the mother to consent to a proposal that Augusta should go to the North, where a different climate might avert the anticipated danger. Augusta came to Massachusetts, and the separation that was to have been for one year, was, by various circumstances, prolonged to five. At

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the expiration of that period, her mother, having in the mean time lost two younger children, and buried here husband, came to the north with impaired health and a fortune reduced, but still ample for her wants. Here, either from the change of climate or the more potent influence of the re-union with her daughter, she was in a very few months so renovated, that she determined to remain at least till time (“Time, the consoler!”) should render the local association with her sorrows less vivid. She had relatives in the fashionable circles of New York, who she thought would give éclat to Augusta’s introduction to society, and this decided her to fix her residence in this city. No two persons, of the same sex and country, and both amiable and well principled, could be more different than my laughing, singing, self-relying friend Augusta, and her timid, nervous, dependent mother. This difference, in part constitutional, was confirmed by education. Education, though it may bend the tree, does not change its nature. In any classification of the human family, the mother and daughter belong to different orders; but this will, if I mistake not, be manifest in the circumstances I am about to relate.

I found them at one of the fashionable boarding-houses at the lower end of Broadway. Mrs. Orme received me with her usual gentle courtesy, Augusta with her usual animation. My first enquiries were as to their accommodations, fellow-boarders, &c.

‘Accommodations!’ replied Mrs. Orme, shrugging her shoulders, ‘we do as well as we can—you know, of course, that I am obliged to dispense with a private drawing-room.’

‘Yes,’ said Augusta, ‘but then we hve such a delightful room—see what a nice place for my piano.’

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‘A nice place enough,’ said the mother in a sad tone, ‘but what is the use, Augusta, when there is no one to hear you?’

‘Nobody, mama!’ she replied, laughing, and rattling her fingers over the keys, ‘when I have you and myself—where else should I find such admiring, patient listeners?’

‘Dear child!’ said her mother, ‘I believe she would be content in a prison.’

‘Your sound reasons for such faith,, mama?’

Mrs. Orme turned to me, slightly blushing, as if she feared I might think she had overpraised her child. ‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘if you knew how well she bears her rials, you would not think I speak with a mother’s partiality.’

‘Trials! mama,’ echoed Augusta.

‘Yes, my love—it certainly is a trial to be obliged to shut ourselves in our own room, or be liable to mix with any one who chooses to share the common drawing-room with us.’

‘A trial, mama!’

‘You may call it what you please, Augusta—I call it a trial.’

‘Well, I never once thought of it being disagreeable even.’

‘Then,’ continued the mother, still addressing me, ‘it is so very inconvenient not to have a servant of your own.’

‘It seems so to mama, because she has been accustomed to having so many; but the servants of the house, though somewhat resembling those spirits who ‘will not come when you do call them,’ yet, when they do come, they are very civil and kind.’

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‘But they do not belong to me,’ urged Mrs[.] Orme.

‘Bud do I not belong to you, mama?’ replied Augusta, and am I not always ready

‘To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds,’ ’—

‘Thou art a dainty spirit,’ thought I, as I looked on her bright face, sun-lit from the soul; and then to turn my friends’ thoughts from the evident discomforts of a boarding house, I asked if they had any agreeable inmates?

list of them followed, by which it appeared they had the average fortune of persons so domiciliated.

There were gentlemen and their wives, who had private drawing rooms—very kind they were to Augusta; but Mrs. Orme did not like to accept civilities which she could not return on equal terms. Then there were two or three pairs who were very much inclined to be sociable; but they were those sort of persons that one does not care to be intimate with.

‘Very good, kind persons, for all,’ interrupted Augusta.

‘There were some young merchants, very civil,—but—’

‘But merchants,’ said Augusta archly, ‘mama cannot divest herself of her southern prepossessions against all persons engaged in trade.’

‘That is not strange, Augusta, our prejudices are the last infirmities we get rid of.’

‘Just what Mr. Rayson said yesterday, and because, he sid, not having any real foundation, you could not oppose truth to them’

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‘There is a widow here,’ continued Mrs Orme, ‘a convenient sort of chronicler, who knows all the world, in all places and in all their affairs.’

‘And what she does not know,’ said Augusta, ‘she invents. Mamma, did you not overhear Mr. Rayson say to his next neighbour yesterday, when Mrs Wilson finished her long story about that poor man—I forget his name—that committed suicide, but she related every particular of the deed—not only the circumstances that preceded it, but the motives that led to it, and all that his wife said, and his father said, and his friends said, did you not hear Mr. Rayson whisper ‘founded on fact?’

‘Yes, I heard that, but I think there is no love lost between Mrs Wilson and Mr. Rayson.’

‘No, he can’t like her, and of course she wont [sic] like him.’

‘There may have been some reason for her dislike—he is very satirical.’

‘I like such satire,’ said Augusta, ‘it only falls where it is provoked and deserved, for instance, this morning when those Englishmen were finding fault with every thing here, and blustering about every thing in that pattern little island of theirs, how aptly he quited, from their own poet too—no, not theirs, ours—the world’s,

‘Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,

Are they not but in Britain—Pr’ythee, think there’s livers out of Britain.’

‘Who is this Mr. Rayson, Augusta, that seems such a prodigious favorite,’ I asked, and added to my friend Mrs Orme, ‘you must look out—these boarding-house likings are dangerous.’

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Augusta laughed, as is her wont on all occasions, and then said, ‘Even Mamma will not be alarmed at that danger—why dear lady, Mr. Rayson is an old bachelor.’

‘How old, Augusta?’

‘Oh, old as the hills—full thirty.’

I know that ‘full thirty’ seems to eighteen almost the extreme limit of human life, but I had known too, stranger things happen than the approach of these distant points; and so I told my young friend.

August laughed again, and said unless Mr. Clement Rayson was an illustration of the old syllogism ‘I move or I do not move; I do not move, therefore I move,’ she did not see how they were to become acquainted; for he was the only person in the house, that had not, directly or indirectly, sought an introduction to them.

This was true. Clement Rayson, though not soured to the world, (he had no acidulating tendencies in his character,) was shy of it, and particularly distrustful of the fashionable world. He had his reasons, as our chronicling widow had told the Ormes, in a long spun out fiction that had, as is usual in such romances, a substratum of truth. This short and simple truth was, that at the all-believing age he had loved, and had plighted his troth to a beautiful girl who had deserted him for a man full fifty years old, but who was rich and fashionable, neither of which, at that period, was Clement Rayson. He had since acquired a moderate fortune. His lacerated affections were much longer than is usual in such cases, in the process of healing.

In the mean time he withdrew from society, and having no family ties in the city to counteract his disposition to solitude, it grew upon him. He appeared to have

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the peculiarities incident to the single condition—appeared—but never was there a spirit less exclusive, and more unselfish. One class, and one alone, was excluded from his sympathies—the fashionable. He thought them all heartless fainéants, ‘unproductive consumers,’ cumberers of the ground. He knew that Mrs Orme belonged to this class, and he perceived that to her the world had but two phases—the one enlightened, the other unenlightened; the fashionable, and the unfashionable. Of course, his orbit could never cross hers. But with this undeniable infirmity, Mrs Orme had so much gentleness, such feminine softness, so much of the spirit, as well as of the letter of politeness, that it was difficult to sustain a sturdy dislike towards her. At first, Augusta did not impress him agreeably. He admired her Hebe freshness, her well-turned features, and the good humour and animation that almost made her beautiful, but he thought she wanted the timidity and reserve that so becomes a young creature on the threshold of an unknown world, a world veiled in shadow, and beset with danger. But he misjudged my young friend. Her boldness arose from what some philosophers, of the German school, have called the ‘unconscious.’ She did not, if we may use the expression, feel herself, nor was she looking in others’ faces to see her own image reflected there. The present was to her for action and enjoyment, and if the future brought dangers, (she apprehended none,) she had resolution and strength to overcome them. Her most happy temperament seemed a sort of charm, an amulet against the principle of evil, in all its proteus shapes. ‘Miss Orme is not troubled with bashfulness,’ whispered

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Mrs. Wilson to Clement Rayson, as Augusta, at a first request, sat down to the piano, and played with great expression, a Spanish national air.

A similar criticism had clouded the clearer atmosphere of Rayson’s mind; but there are some persons whose touch always produces discord, nd Mrs. Wilson was eminently one of these. ‘Miss Orme is not bashful,’ he replied somewhat testily, ‘but bashfulness as often springs from vanity, and a craving for admiration, as from delicacy and self-distrust.’

‘Bless me! I though you did not admire Miss Orme.’

‘I do not know her.’

‘Of course you would if you admired her. She is not of the thistle order. Every one in the house has observed your distant manner to the Ormes.’

Clement Rayson was, as we have said, reserved: he liked no intruding observers within his own little world of feelings—of likings and dislikings; and towards Mrs. Wilson he had an antipathy, resembling that which is often cherished for the feline race, to which she seemed to him to belong. He was annoyed by her remark, but he did not choose to enter into a defence, or explanation, and therefore he remained silent. The shield of silence is the most effectual defence against a thorough gossip; and if generally resorted to, their offensive weapons would rest for want of use.

‘Of all people on earth,’ said Mrs Wilson, crossing the room and seating herself next Augusta Orme, who had already forgotten her musical triumph, and was absorbed in a book she had taken from the table, ‘of all people on earth, I detest your close-mouthed ones.’

‘Do you, Mrs. Wilson?—I thought we were apt to like our opposites.’

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‘No inuendo, [sic] I trust, Miss Orme?’

‘Certainly not, I merely meant that you were communicative.’

This was so much more flattering a term than that suggested by the lady’s conscience, that she took it as a compliment, and replied that she was naturally frank, and added that she thought Miss Orme and herself much alike.

‘Heaven forefend!’ [sic] thought Augusta, and laughed, a laugh that could not have stirred a feather on the ‘fretful porcupine,’ and therefore it did not ruffle the widow Wilson’s plumes. On the contrary, she gave a proof of her graciousness by whispering—‘How strange it is that Clement Rayson is so prejudiced against you!’

‘Is he? I am sorry for it.’

‘You do not look much disturbed.’ There was something almost provoking to our touchy lady in the serenity she could not cloud.

‘Why should I, Mrs. Wilson? I have done nothing that I am conscious of to create the prejudice, and therefore can do nothing to remove it. But I do sincerely wish the good man would get rid of it, for prejudices must be uncomfortable burdens, and Mr. Rayson seems a very clever and a very agreeable person to those he likes.’

Mrs. Wilson, finding the daughter impracticable, transferred her efforts to the mother, who, as she found, was more facile. It was no difficult achievement to make Mrs. Orme uncomfortable on any given subject, and the next time I saw her, I found her very much puzzled in solving the riddle of ‘that Mr. Clement Rayson’s dislike to her and Augusta.’ Her consolation

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was, that he knew nobody that they knew, and therefore she did not see how it could very well do them any injury; but still it was dangerous to have an enemy, especially for a young lady just ‘coming out.’

All this fabric of Mrs. Wilson’s mischievous brain would have been harmless, but that it augmented Mrs. Orme’s horror of the society of boarding houses; infused a double quantity of coldness into her deportment towards Mr. Rayson; heightened the barriers between herself and the cleverest and best person in the family; confirmed our friend’s prejudices against all fashionable people; and finally gratified widow Wilson’s petty malignity against him. How true it is, that the lesser as well as the greater evils of life, are of our own creation!

In the mean while, Clement Rayson’s eye (doubtless without the consent of his will) often turned towards Augusta’s face, so bright with health and happiness. There is a peculiar charm in this sunny character, to men who have passed the zenith of youth. This may account for the devotion of sexagenarian bachelors to the youngest girls in company. We do not mean to implicate Rayson in any such foible; for, if guilty of the count in the indictment—if ‘full thirty,’ he was not much more. Regarding himself as a fixture in this aforesaid boarding house, he had surrounded himself with those rare comforts in this city, where persons rather alight than abide, provisions for permanence. He had his dressing-room, his sleeping apartments, and his library.* This library adjoined the room occupied by

* Many persons suppose that a library is not a natural appurtenance for a merchant. This is a mistake. Our merchants constitute a cultivated class, and many among them indulge in the refined luxury of

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Mrs. Orme and her daughter, and here, secure from observation, Clement Rayson would lay aside his book, to listen from beginning to end, to songs that he had often wished, with a certain licensed churl, ‘were impossible as well as difficult.’ He even began to entertain a secret fondness for Italian music, which he had deemed all monotonous, and like a certain friend of ours, had affected to believe, and dared to say, there was but one Italian song. Augusta had a collection of fine old English ballads. These she occasionally sung, and he heard them, every word, for her piano was placed against the wall that separated the two rooms. Of course her face was towards him, and often did he wish that this wall, like him who enacted ‘lime [and] roughcast,’ in Pyramus and Thisbe,

‘—having thus its part discharged so,

And being done, this wall away would go.’

that he might have a glimpse of the bright face behind. ‘That face,’ he said to himself, ‘that is like a gleam of sunshine to every thing it looks upon.’

‘I must have my library removed—I can never read a word here,’ thought he, as he smiled in silent response, to the merry peals of laughter that ever and anon came from that apartment over which a ‘dancing star’ seemed to him to preside. And as he listened to the cheerful tones

books, to an extent that would be incredible to those who hve formed their opinion of the body from some of the impotent members. We happen to know that one of our merchants has a fine library at his house, and another, for his leisure moments at his counting house, where there are duplicates of books of reference—expensive editions of such works as Boyle’s Dictionary. This is indeed the luxury of fortune—if that can be called luxury, which, as the political economists say, is reproduced by its consumption.

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that responded to Mrs. Orme’s low monotonous voice, ‘how can she’ thought he, ‘resist such an influence! but she will soon be exposed to worse and more potent influences: to the parrotry, frivolity, and heartlessness of the world, and there this enchanting buoyancy of spirit, the mere virtue, perchance after all, of health of constitution! will soon be dimmed and lost.’ Alas! Augusta’s buoyancy was soon to be tried by a very different pressure from that he anticipated, and a far heavier.

The evening of the sixteenth of December I passed with Mrs. Orme and Augusta. They were both in a state of pleasurable excitement. The floor was strewn with boxes, and the table, sofa, and chairs were covered with dresses, caps, artificial flowers, and curious decorations had been sent out and accepted to parties and balls. Under what circumstances of overwhelming distress these invitations were soon after recalled, will long be remembered in the brilliant circles of our metropolis, where the bridal array was changed for mourning weeds.

Mrs. Orme was in all the flutter of indecision as to the dress to be selected for the coming out evening. She preferred the blue embroidered Seraphine crape which a friend had selected in Paris; she was certain, absolutely certain that it was perfectly new. There is magic in that word which may not convey its true import to the ears of our rustic reader. It does not mean simply that it is unworn, but that it is fresh from the inventive loom of a Paris milliner around whose head ‘such light visions float.’ While I was examining and

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duly admiring the blue Seraphine, Augusta put her veto upon it. She would not come out in a dress that would make her so conspicuous. In vain her mother urged the importance of the first impression—the coup de théatre. Augusta laid the Seraphine crape aside, and was wavering between a silk that her mother pronounced ‘the loveliest pink,’ and a white muslin, when a servant entered with a Camelia Japonica directed to Miss Orme. One pure, stately white flower sat upon the stalk, between two buds, like a queen between her maids of honor. ‘This decides me,’ exclaimed Augusta[,] ‘my white muslin, and this Camelia in my hair.’

‘Who sent it?’ asked the mother. The servant did not know, and all that we could ascertain was that it had been left at the door by man who merely said it was ordered at their green-house, but whether that green-house was Thorburn’s, Smith’s, or Hogg’s, was uncertain, and mrs. Orme concluded her enquiries by saying she was glad on the whole not to know, for she preferred Augusta should come out unshackled by even so slight an obligation as the gift of a flower imposed.

Augusta’s curiosity, as was natural, was more excited than ours, and before the Camelia was deposited in a glass of water, she had run over the list of her gentlemen acquaintance, and in turn guessed all but—the right one.

People who are well advanced in life are prone to look upon its events and circumstances in the light of a shell enclosing a kernel, for their picking, the moral of the tale. And this kernel, like the jewel found by a certain classic bird, is apt to prove sweet or bitter, valueless or priceless, according to the character of the

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finder. This tendency must excuse the moralizing humor I fell into, on seeing my young friend so much engrossed and fluttered by the approach of this grand era of her life—her coming out.

‘If Augusta,’ thought I[,] ‘rational, well educated, with a mind so well balanced that all its motions are harmonious, is thus affected by her advent, what a perilous moment it must be to those who are neither fitted by nature nor education, for the sudden transit from obscurity to notoriety. Inexperienced and unreflecting, what views must they have of the social laws, of their nature, of the objects of society, of the purposes and responsibilities of existence.’

Man has been justly called an imitative animal. Here we are, a young nation, set apart from the families of the old world, with every incitement to, and facility for making a new experiment in the economy of human life, and like the Chinese, who made the new shoes slip-shod, after the pattern, we copy the forms of European society, bad enough where they exist, but as ill adapted to our use as the slip-shod shoes to the wearer—as fantastical for us as a fan for an Iceland belle.

For example, in this working country, where the gentlemen must be at their offices and counting-houses by nine o’clock—where the domestic machine must stop, or the springs be set in motion by the mistress of the family before that hour,—with the pressure of this necessity upon us, because forsooth the fainéants of Europe do so! And for the same sufficient reason, our young ladies must have their comings out!

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But what is to be done? How are their school-days and society compatible? The processes of nature are to be imitated. The dawn preludes the day: the bud slowly unfolds to the sun, gathering strength with every expanding leaf to bear its rays.

We are aware that there are no Quixotes more extravagant than those who preach revolutions in manners and customs; but where, as in our case, they are not the natural result of the condition of the people, may we not hope for modifications and ameliorations? for the dawn of a millennium on our social world, when the drawing-room shall no longer be an arena, where there is a short contest for a single prize, (what are the modes of that contest, and what the prize so obtained?) but shall become the social ground where men and women shall be players, as well as spectators,—where rational christian people may meet without a sacrifice of health or duty; and where young people and children shall come for the formation of their social character, and where all may enjoy on equal terms the very highest pleasure of our gregarious natures?—But we beg pardon, our tale is becoming a homily.

Before the evening closed, I perceived, and with secret satisfaction, that Augusta manifested some weariness at her mother’s endless anxieties upon the details of the coming evening, such as ‘whether they should go at ten or a quarter past?—whether, in case Augusta were asked, she had best sing?—whether there could be any objection to her waltzing, with her cousin?—she waltzed so well! and sundry other momentous questions. When the field of vision is narrow, the objects are magnified. ‘Dear mamma,’ said Augusta, ‘pray leave these trifles to fate.’

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‘Life is made up of such trifles, my child.’

‘Mine shall not be,’ replied Augusta. Little did she think what a seal was soon to be set to this lightly uttered resolution.

The mercury was below zero, and as I walked briskly home I heard the first stroke of the bell that sounded the alarm of that fire which before morning laid so rich a portion of our city in ruins.

The bells rang at first, for the most part, unheeded, for as the Turk moves tranquilly amidst the plague, hardened by use, so we, familiarised to the every-day tocsin, pursue our usual avocations when it sounds throughout the city. But there were some who, on that memorable night, answered from the first with quickened pulses to the boding sound. They knew the firemen were exhausted by a severe labor of the preceding night, that their hose were frozen, and that there was no supply of water in the city. They reflected that the fire had broken out amidst packed warehouses, filled with combustibles; that the perfect dryness of the atmosphere and the extreme cold must accelerate its progress; but reason, fear, imagination, all fell far short in their anticipations of the horrid reality.

We have no intention to perpetrate such a presumption as an attempt to describe the scene would imply; we can only note the particulars—the spreading of the fire, quicker than thought, windward and leeward from house to house, and from street to street—the pillar of flame that shot up from the lofty dome of the Exchange—the crash of its falling—the calmness, though sublime courage of the men, who, with their casks of gunpowder proceeded through showers of sparks to the

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edifices marked for explosion—the momentary wavering of those edifices when the match was fired—the explosion—and at the very instant the stately pile was a prostrate mass of ruins—the consternation of the citizens—the firemen, the very men who had so often seemed the chartered masters of the devouring element, looking on, mute, paralyzed, impotent spectators—the piles and masses of merchandise moved twice and thrice, and finally consumed. Merchants hurrying from their up-town residences to the scene of action, and coaches bearing ladies to the spectacle!

The appearance to the more distant observer, to whom the flames looked like a solid wall against the clear blue sky, and the gems of Heaven, like celestial witnesses, calmly gazing on this mortal coil—all this will not be forgotten, and cannot be described. But there were instances of self-command, generosity, and heroism, the moral phœnixes which rose from the gross elemental fire that may be recorded by the humblest pen, and will at least live longer on the pages of an annual than in the columns of a forgotten newspaper.

One anecdote was given in the journals of the city, the day after the fire, which we have since heard from unquestionable witnesses, and which we shall repeat unvarnished. Who would try, by coloring, to add beauty or grace to such truth?

A gallant young man belonging to our navy, who a few days before, for some slight misdemeanor hd been ejected from it, was busied with thousands in removing merchandise, when he heard piercing shrieks from a woman. He made his way to her. In the general distress she was little heeded. She seemed like a maniac.

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In answer to his demand of ‘what is the matter?’ she pointed to one of the burning houses and said, ‘my child is there!’ ‘In what part of the house?’ She was calmed by his interposition, and described the room in the third story. He darted towards the house. As he placed his foot on the threshold, the firemen adjured him to come back, and told him if he went on he could not return. They were attempting to force him back, but he sprang beyond their grasp, and unchecked by the flames that were cracking along the beams, he mounted to the apartment and entered it—the fire was glancing around the cornice of the room.—The child, a sturdy infant of some six or seven months, was awake, and holding up its hand before its eyes, and twining it around, delighted with the reflection of the flame, that in another moment would have reduced its little frame to ashes. His preserver caught the boy in his arms, and descended to the last landing place. The bannister was on fire. He hesitated—he had passed an open window—should he return and leap from that?—he might crush the child. So pressing against the wall, he rushed down uninjured, save the scorching of his coat—a scorch that will make it a precious relic.

Those who have never heard the spontaneous gushings from that holy fountain which is never quite dried in any heart, should have heard the shoutings and clappings of hands when the young man reappeared and placed the boy in his mother’s arms—they should have seen how, for a moment, every other interest was suspended in admiration, and how the young hero, finishing his generous act with the only grace that could be added to

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it, modestly shrank from the tribute he had so well earned, and disappeared.[*]

The morning of the 17th found the city in indescribable anxiety, dismay, and bewilderment. No one could calculate the extent of the loss—the direct loss—no one dared to anticipate the loss from the bankruptcy of merchants, the failure of monied institutions, and the suspension of business and payments. All sympathy was directed to the merchants, for to few had it then occurred that the ruin would pass over the palace, and prostrate the cottage.

The first intimation I had of such a result was from a gentleman who said to me, ‘I fear your friend Mrs. Orme has lost every thing. I am told her agent Robert Smith invested all her property in fire insurance stock.’ I knew such ill news as this must have flown to her ears, and I determined immediately to go to her.

The streets were a wild exhibition of the horrible and the ludicrous—the strange motley that human affairs so often wear. Here were militiamen called out as guards, bustling along in all the mock importance of their brief authority, and there were firemen dragging themselves to their homes—looking like ghosts who had outstayed their time.

Here was timid, shivering poverty, stealing stealthily along, amid bales of blankets, and stacks of woolen goods, eyeing them wishfully from beneath the half lifted lid—and there, (a timely admonition!) were

* We have just heard that the President has fitly rewarded his heroism by a restoration to his place in the navy. An opportunity thus offered him, his promotion may be safely left in his own hands.

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police-men dragging detected pilferers to justice. Here the merchant on whose face was written ‘sudden calamity has overtaken me,’ and beside him the bold beggar, her shoulders laden with piles of half consumed blankets, ends of shawls, and bits of silk that yesterday made a part of his countless wealth!

‘Take physic, pomp,

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou may’st spare the superflux to them

And show the Heavens more just.’

I crossed a street, making my way through carts, wagons, and coaches laden with boxes and cases of the richest merchandise, and turned out of my course to a point of view where a group of amateur spectators were gazing at the ruins—not with tearless eyes. We all stood for a few moments in profound silence looking at the standing fragments of walls—the smouldering piles of brick that covered thousands (millions?) of unconsumed and inaccessible property—at the fire still burning unresisted, because irresistible, towards the water’s edge—at the ashes of to-day—the millions of yesterday. ‘This[,]’ said a gentleman next me, ‘is the levelling system with a vengeance!’

‘Yes, but it is a levelling to teach levellers,’ replied another, ‘those ignorant and corrupt persons who would construct barriers between the rich and poor, out of their evil passions, must now acknowledge their mutual dependence—the demonstrated identity of their interests. The working men will realise that the enterprise and industry of the wealthy merchant feeds the channels of their prosperity. Heaven grant they may not long feel it from a loss of the supply.’

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‘The rascals! it’s a good lesson for them.’ This bitter exclamation was made by one of those who look upon themselves as having a chartered right to their accidental prosperity, and who, as far as they can oppose the laws of Providence, obstruct those supplies of Heaven-directed bounty to the poor.

I turned from the idlers and pursued my course, winding as well as I might, along the walks encumbered with the varius merchandise that comes from every explored corner of our globe to this great commercial mart; bales of cotton, piles of domestic goods—hard ware and porcelain—English woolens and Dutch toys—French silks and stacks of German baskets, &c., &c.—a volume might be filled with the specifications indicated by these et cetéras, but I have already abused the curiosity of my readers, if perchance they have any, in the fate of my heroine.

I found my friend Mrs. Orme, as I had feared, plunged into the depths of despair. She was pacing up and down her room. As I entered, she clasped her hands, exclaiming, ‘ruined!—totally ruined!’

‘But my dear friend, your property was not surely all invested in fire insurance stock?’

‘Yes, all. At least, I have no reason to doubt it.—Of course you know, being totally unacquainted with business myself,* I leave my affairs entirely to the discretion of my agent, and Mrs Wilson says she heard him say only last week that he had vested my money—all of it—in six different companies, so that I should be quite safe. I remember, too, he asked me about fire stock, and I told him it would make me uncomfortable

* So are most women. Should they be so?

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whenever the bell rung. But he said something about the companies always making good dividends; and I have not thought of it since, till Mrs. Wilson came into my room at two o’clock, to prepare my mind, as she said. Mrs. Wilson blames Mr. Smith, and so do I.’

I did not controvert this position, for I know it is the most common solace of undisciplined minds, to impute the blame to another. ‘Where,’ I asked, ‘was Augusta?’

Her mother did not know. She believed she had gone out—‘Strange that she could go out, and leave me, at such a moment. She is a dear child, but she has one defect—it is a natural one, and she can not cure it. I do not blame her, but I often feel it. She wants sensibility. I dont [sic] mean to complain of her, but think how I must have felt to see her go, just as usual, about her ordinary avocations this morning. She even, once or twice, while she was putting away the things you saw here last nigh, sang! I suppose it was involuntary—but it is so strange—so unlike me!’

Mrs. Orme is not the only person that measures the qualities of others by her own, as if that were an infallible standard. I ventured to intimate that it was very fortunate for Augusta if she could meet such a reverse with firmness.

‘Firmness—oh, yes! but then do you know she has been trying to convince me that it is not a calamity to weep for? that, I think, as Mrs. Wilson says, is carrying firmness a little too far; but she is a dear child, and, except in this blemish, every thing I could wish. And this perhaps spares her a great deal of suffering.’

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‘Useless suffering,’ thought I, ‘suffering never designed by him who chasteneth because he loveth.’

‘But where,’ continued the mother, ‘can Augusta stay! It is not considerate of her, as Mrs. Wilson says, to leave me this morning.’

Her perplexities were ended by Augusta’s entrance. Her face was beaming. ‘Good news, mama![’] she cried, ‘the last ten thousand remitted from New Orleans, is safe.’ She kissed her mother, and wiped the tears that flowed afresh at this unexpected intelligence.

‘These shall be the last tears this business costs you, mama;[’] then turning round, she saw me, apologized for having overlooked me, and instinctively sought a shelter for the undue grief she knew her mother must have exhibited to me.

‘This horrid fire,’ she said, ‘has kept mama up all night, and made her so nervous!’

‘But are you certain you are rightly informed, Augusta?’ asked the mother, ‘Mrs. Wilson was so sure!’

‘Oh, Mrs. Wilson! I was sure from the moment that trumpery woman said that, it could not be so. Her reports, like dreams, go by contraries. But I was afraid, mama, of inspiring any false hope, so I resolved to go at once to Mr. Smith.’

‘And tht was what you went out for?—Dear child!’

I ventured to say, for I could not help it, ‘there are other manifestations of sensibility than passiveness and tears.’

‘I went first,’ continued Augusta, ‘to Mr. Smith’s house, but, as I ought to have foreseen, he was not at home.’

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‘But surely, my child, you did not go alone down Wall street.’

‘No; fortunately, just as I was turning into Wall street, and thinking what a piece of work I shoud have to make my way, I met Mr. Clement Rayson. He stopped, and asked me where I was going, and begged leave to attend me. It was very kind of him, and amusing too, after we had sat opposite for three weeks, without speaking. Well, I found Mr. Smith with a face as long as my arm; but he seemed quite relieved, when I told him it was so much better than we expected, and assured him, mama, you would not care for the loss, since we had enough left.’

‘Enough!’ sighed the mother, who already began to shift her unhappiness from the total loss of their finances to their reduction.

August did not hear her mother, or else, to turn the current of her thoughts, she said, ‘Oh, mama, Mr. Rayson has told me such a sad piece of news—quite enough to put the loss of property out of one’s head. That beautiful, lovely woman, Mrs. Moreson, whom we saw at Dr. Hayward’s, is dead. She died without a moment’s warning, while her sister was dressing for her cousin’s wedding.’

After the usual exclamations of sympathy and sorrow, Mrs. Orme said she supposed the parties, then, would be given up.

‘Yes, of course,’ replied Augusta, ‘and there is my beautiful Camelia must fade unseen.’

‘Your fit emblem, I fear, my child; for now, you cannot come out’

‘But I can stay in, mama, without drooping. There

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are some hardy plants that do not need sunshine—I think I am one of those’

And so it proved. A few days after, I was again with my friends, anxious to know what their arrangements were to be, for I was well aware that the income of ten thousand dollars could not maintain them in their present style of living—would not even pay their board. I found Mrs. Orme troubled and undecided—Augusta, strong and cheerful in her self-reliance.

‘You have come,’ she said, receiving me affectionately, ‘just in time to aid our deliberations. We find that we can live independently and pleasantly in the country on our present income.’

‘It comes very hard upon me, though,’ said Mrs. Orme, ‘for I have an antipathy to a country life.’

‘And therefore,’ continued Augusta, ‘I wish mama not to think of it. Her income is quite sufficient to secure her an agreeable town residence, and I should be ashamed of myself if I could not earn my own support. I have a double object in this. Mama has grown so nervous about losses, that she is afraid of being stripped of what remains; and I want to convince her, that even in that event we should do well enough.’

‘But how, my dear girl, can you earn your living?’

‘Oh, in twenty ways. I can turn governess.’

‘I utterly object to that,’ said the mother, ‘I have seen too many of them, and I know what dog’s lives they lead’

I ventured to suggest that I had seen some very happy ones.

‘I should have no fears on that score,’ said Augusta, ‘for I believe our own happiness is in our own hands;

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but then any employment that will separate me from mama, is objectionable. I can give music lessons; combine music and singing lessons, which would be very profitable.’

‘Dear child, dont [sic] use such words—they make me so nervous. I cannot consent to your giving music lessons, there is something so degrading in running from house to thouse, and selling your time to other people.’

This is what ninety-nine hundredths of the world do, mama, and I do not wish to be among the exempts. I would,’ she continued, addressing me, ‘open a school, but I am afraid I am too young to have children confided to my care.’

‘Pity you are not ‘full thirty,’ [’] said I.

‘Ah,’ replied Augusta, ‘that reminds me of Clement Rayson. Last night I was speaking of that beautiful camelia, and I do suspect he knows where it came from, but he will not give me the least clew. He merely said it must be from some very young man, for they were addicted to such fooleries! That was a saying, was it not, that marked the sayer ‘full thirty?’—But what were we talking of—my occupation; it is not, like Othello’s ‘gone’—would that it were come!’

‘I have an excellent plan,’ interposed the mother, ‘if we can only persuade Augusta to adopt it. When summer comes, I shall be quite willing to make an experiment of country life. In the mean time, a very slight addition to our income would pay our expenses here without intrenching on our capital. Perhaps you do not know it, but Augusta excels in all sorts of ingenious, lady-like manufactures—worsted work in particu-

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lar. And she is so quick! she net the loveliest purse for Clement Rayson—all of it yesterday.’

‘I trust, Augusta,’ said I, ‘you marked it ‘full thirty,’ for ladies’ favors are sometimes misinterpreted.’

‘Clement Rayson is past the danger of such cox-comberies,’ replied Augusta.

‘Now,’ resumed the mother, ‘Augusta could dispose of her work at the ‘Ladies’ Depository,’ without the slightest exposure. The utmost delicacy is observed there, Mrs. Wilson tells me. By the way, Augusta, it just occurs to me that Mrs. Wilson must work for the Depository, how else could she afford to wear blond capes?—but, as I was saying, she tells me that the names of those who deposite [sic] articles there, are religiously kept secret. Your orders are referred to numbers, not names.’

‘And why all this reserve?’ I innocently asked.

‘My dear friend, the institution is designed for ladies of reduced fortune, to enable them to dispose of their work without it ever being known that they work for their living.’*

I smiled, and Augusta said, ‘you think as I do, I am sure of it.

‘and how is that, Augusta?’

‘Why, that these same reduced ladies might as well

* It is but justice to state that this institution, though originally set on foot for the purpose specified in the text, is no longer limited to that. With the exception of this one very objectionable feature, viz: the facility afforded for the indulgence of a false pride, and sickly sensibility, it is a most creditable institution, and, fro the character of the ladies who manage it, we may hope that this imperfection will not long be permitted in deference to prejudices that should be exploded.

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be ashamed of giving bread to their children, as of earning it for them; and that this very labor of which they are ashamed, is most creditable—perchance the most honorable act of their whole lives.’

‘Pity,’ I ventured to add, ‘it does not occur to them, that working for their living, places them in the same category with the first in the land—the lawyer, the clergyman, the merchant, &c.,—and rescues them from the helplessness and dependence into which misfortune usually casts females of their class.’

[‘]Those little understand the country they live in, who, by such an institution, virtually pronounce labor degrading, and virtually insult those of their sex, who professedly work for their living.’*

‘As you agree with me,’ resumed Augusta, ‘I hope you will persuade mama to let me do something more productive than lady-like work. I have three projects—pray dont [sic] laugh at me—if one failes, another may succeed, you know. When I was at school in Boston, I made some translations from the French and Spanish, for a work a friend of ours was publishing there. He paid me compliments on my success, which, making due allowance for his partiality, and gratitude, &c[.], allow me to aspire to the place of a hack translator to the Harpers, or some other publishing house here.’

I knew my young friend understood French and Spanish well, and wrote her own language with correctness and freedom. I gave my hearty concurrence to the plan.

* I once heard a young lady say of a gentleman,—a teacher of the learned languages—that he was ‘a charming person, but not in society.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Oh, he works for his living, you know’ Straws show,’ &c.

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‘When I can’t get work from a publisher,[’] continued Augusta, ‘I can copy music—I can do that very rapidly. I have oftne copied songs for poor Stefani to sell to her scholars.’

‘Now for your third project, August.’

‘You will think me a great braggart—but you know I must give an inventory of my commodities. When I was staying at Mr. Johnson’s, he had an accumulation of law papers to be copied. Grace Johnson and I assisted him, and he gave me the credit of doing mine in right clerkly style. Mama herself taught me to write, and now, dear mama, I may pay you for the pains you took in forming my hand.’

‘It is the only thing, my child, I ever taught you.’

‘But, my dear Mrs. Orme, you have given her a first-rate education, and she is now going to prove to you that this is the safest investment of capital.’

My friend, propitiated by these agreeable truths, was evidently leaning our way, when a new difficulty occurred to her.

‘But how,’ she asked, ‘is Augusta to get this work? I had rather starve than she should go bustling about to book stores, music shops, and lawyers’ offices.’

‘I have thought of all that, mama, and I mean to get Mr. Rayson to make inquiries for me. I shall ask the favor of him as freely as if he were my father.’

‘Your acquaintance, August,’ said I, ‘with Clement Rayson, has made astonishing progress since the fire.’

‘Yes, our walk down Wall street, that morning, put us on a friendly footing at once, and ever since, he has been as kind to mama and me as possible. He has a very fine library, and he lends us his books, and obliges us in every possible way’

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‘I knew,’ said I, ‘his library occupied the apartment next yours, and to tell you the truth, I was afraid your piano might annoy him—he is not fond of music.’

‘Oh pardon me! indeed he is, for he has asked me again and again to play the songs I had unconsciously sung to him through the wall. I am sure you are wrong, no one seems to relish them as he does.’

I believed I was right, but I had the grace not to persist in saying so, while I admired the rare happiness of Augusta’s mind, in being unsusceptible to small as well as great evils. Mrs. Orme, after a good deal of persuasion, more availing with her than reason, came into our plans, and I was deputed to engage Clement Rayson’s friendly offices.

At my request, I was admitted to his library, where I unfolded my errand. I spoke of Augusta as I felt, and I am sure his heart responded, for never did I see his fine face so lit with animation, till I chanced to quote, as a sort of apology for the trouble we were giving him, the reason Augusta had assigned for the freedom she felt in applying to him. His countenance changed—he repeated y words with a vexed accent, ‘as soon as if I were her father! would she?’ At that moment, fortunately, Augusta commenced one of his favorite songs, and exorcised the evil spirit. He was all ear till she finished, and then reverting to our last words, ‘tell me,’ he asked, ‘honestly, do I look so desperately old?’

‘Oh no! two minutes ago, you might have passed for a gallant lover, who indited sonnets to his mistress’ eye brow, and secretly sent her those orthodox love-tributes—bouquets!’ He blushed, and knocked down half a dozen books by a sudden movement of his arm. While

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he was replacing them, I added, ‘when my friends first came to this house, I confess you looked to me careworn—I might have taken you for full thirty.’

‘I am thirty-one precisely. That, however, is not quite old enough for Miss Augusta’s father. However[,’] he added, wisely shifting the subject to a better point of view, ‘I am content to make any impression that affords me an opportunity of serving her. An admirable creature she is, and most fortunate!’

‘Admirable she certainly is, but I should not select this moment of her life to call her fortunate.’

‘Is she not plucked from the brink of fashionable life, and an opportunity afforded her of using her fine faculties to some purpose?’

Every man has his mania. I was aware of Clement Rayson’s and forbore to oppose it.

Nothing could be more zealous, than was Rayson in procuring employment for Augusta. His zeal might have been stimulated by the certainty that if her earnings were intemitted, she and her mother must seek less expensive lodgings. So never a day passed over her head that she had not that prime blessing—plenty of work; and time to read, to sew, to walk, (how, in spite of the snow-storms, ice, slop, and avalanches of this worse than polar winter, has she daily achieved a two or three mile walk!) to play, and sing, and be agreeable; in short, to do every thing, even ‘lady-like work.’ Best of all was it, in her mother’s opinion, that she found time to accept the civilities of certain fashionable people, whose attentions to her were no wise abated, by their knowledge of the fact that she worked for her living. Superior people are not superior to

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prejudices, but if truth can be fairly brought to bear upon them, it dissolves them as the direct rays of the sun melt away the ice. As a fashionable equipage that had brought visiters [sic] to the Ormes, drove away from the door, ‘there are exceptions to my rule,’ thought Clement Rayson. ‘I was wrong to involve a whole class in the opinion I had conceived of individuals of that class.’ For the first time it occurred to him, that the inconstancy of his early love might have been rather owing to some inherent defect in her, than to the influence of her fashionable associates. ‘After all,’ thus he concluded his mental reverie, ‘there is no character to be relied on but that which, instead of being subdued by circumstances, resists and controls them—a character like Augusta Orme’s.’

When a man—be he full thirty—begins to make a young lady his standard of ideal perfection, the next act of his drama may be anticipated.

I knew my friends were getting on well, that Augusta was turning her industry to good account, often earning by mere copying three dollars a day,* and that Mrs. Orme was enjoying the sense of independence and security naturally inspired by the exercise of her daughter’s power, and satisfied they were happy, and being otherwise occupied, I had not seen them for more than a month when, one fine morning, a ring at the street door was followed by Augusta’s appearance in my room. Her face was full of meaning. I could not guess what

* Lest the example of our favorite should be impotent for want of credibility, we inform our young lady readers that we have known this amount of labour performed in six hours out of the twenty four, day after day, by a girl minus fifteen.

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it meant. She was embarrassed too, the first time I had ever seen her so.

She untied and retied her bonnet, sat down, rose, and sat down again—then after a vain struggle burst into tears, the first I had ever seen flow from her bright eyes; and finally, throwing a letter into my lap, she exclaimed, ‘what a fool I am!’ and laughed.

‘That laugh at any rate, proves you are yourself,’ I said, ‘which I very much doubted.’

I read the letter. It was from Clement Rayson—the very ‘quotidian of love’ was upon him.

‘You find it hard to say no to so ardent a love.’ No reply. ‘There is no evidence here,’ I continued, ‘that the climate of full thirty has chilled his heart.’

‘How can you always remind me of that foolish speech?’

‘Then you do not mean to say no?’

‘I mean to do just what you advise me—if’ she added archly, and in her natural vein, ‘you advise me as I wish. Here is another letter, and this it is that perplexes me.’ The second letter was brief, and not like its precursor, unfit for quite sane readers. Therefore we copy it.

‘The enclosed I wrote two days ago, but had not the courage to send it to you. Necessity now makes me bold. Within the last hour I have received intelligence that obliges me to go to Europe—for two years!—perhaps longer—I must sail next week. I cast all on a single die—happiness or misery is before me. If I go alone, I go the most wretched outcast on earth.’

‘If you invest me with the right, I shall beg Mrs. Orme to go with us. Us! am I not presumptuous?’

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My pencil was in my hand. ‘Shall I cross out this us, August?"

‘First tell me, do you not think it is quite too hasty?’

‘Why, let us see, your acquaintance began on the morning of the 17th of December. January, February, March—three months under the same roof, beginning with paternal protection on the one part, and filial confidence on the other—’

‘Pray—if you love me, pray do not again advert to that, but tell me hostely, do you not think it is quite too short a time to have matured a sentiment to be relied on for life?’

‘Some fruits ripen wonderfully fast in some soils, and under certain influences.’

‘But you do think—I am sure of it from your repeated hints—’ now there was a tremulousness in her voice, as in the patient’s when he discloses his worst symptom to his physician, ‘you do think the difference in age an objection?’

‘An inferior objection to thousands that are every day surmounted.’

Her face brightened. ‘And you think it possible perfectly to recover from a first love—from an attachment so strong as that which Clement confesses in his first foolish letter he long cherished for that jilt?’

‘Possible! every day’s experience proves it to be very easy.’

‘There is no use[,]’ she said, her pretty lips curling into their natural smile, ‘in urging any more objections, for you will certainly obviate them.’

‘Yes, Augusta, just as long as I see you urge them to be obviated. That decides the affair in my opinion.

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This affection which is the staple of life springs up and is matured under every variety of circumstances, character and condition. The only point to be settled, is that it exists in its purity and perfection. In this case, I am quite sure as to that point, so are you, my dear; now run home and write a fit answer to this ‘foolish’ letter.’ She threw her arms around my neck. Love, like a fire kindled for a specific purpose, imparts its warmth to whatever approaches it. One propriety occurred to me that my young friend seemed to have overlooked. ‘Is mama propitious?’ I asked.

‘Not yet consulted, because I feared to tell her while there was the least uncertainty as to which way the scale would turn—Clement is such a prodigious favorite with her nowadays.’

‘Then all is well.’ A few days after, in obedience to a previous summons from Augusta, I joined a male friend, and we, with her mother, were the only witnesses of her marriage vows before the altar of Grace Church.

She was dressed in the white muslin she had selected for her coming out, and a white camelia in her hair, so like the one presented to her for that occasion, that I at once came to the right conclusion—it was the gift of the same donor.

My friends had secured the best boon of human life, and therefore I resigned without a sigh the expectation that Augusta Orme would have gone on to illustrate my favorite theory—that a good education, and a well principled and happily balanced mind, will render a woman independent of the vicissitudes of fortune.

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[p. 247]

TO THE AMERICAN FLAG.

BY ISAAC C. PRAY, JR.

I.

Hail! Standard of the free and bold:

I love thy waving gorgeousness,

Which seems, like changing skies to fold

Thy stars, which fixed, both guide and bless!

They are the emblems true of states

Linked fast in league well known to fame—

Whose souls thy glory emulates

Whose sons shall never read their shame

Till, as a pleiad gone from Heaven’s own blue,

A star be lost from thy holy hue.

II.

Float ever, Flag, as when at first

Our fathers bore thee through the air,

And pledged their lives while on them burst

Thy glorious stars in splendor there—

Ay, pledged their lives and liberty,

While thou their canopy shouldst stand,

To guard, protect, and honor thee—

The emblem of our rising land.

Ay! float as when each soldier in his tent,

Dreamed that his flag was the firmament.

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III.

Thou lofty ensign of the free,

May every land thy glory know,

And every freeman trust in thee

While breezes mid thy folds shall flow:

May hand, and heart, and hopes, and zeal

Be ever by thy form inspired,

And when shall shake the common weal

May every soul by thee be fired—

Each patriot heart discern amid thy form

A beacon-star in the battle-storm!

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[p. 249]

THE DYING PHŒNIX.

BY H. F. GOULD.

I’ve lived long enough! In my grandeur alone,

I’ve ranged the free air and conversed with the spheres,

My bright, starry eyes full of kindness have shone,

But met not their kindred, through hundreds of years.

I’ve looked for my likeness by morn’s early blush,

To find it alone in the lake or the stream—

At noon ’twas but there; and by night’s shady hush

The false water vision stole back in a dream.

How vain were the graces, that played in my crest

And round my proud neck with its collar of gold;

The rish purple plumage that clothed my lone breast,

How worthless, with none like myself to behold!

Though perfect in beauty, O! who would be one

Where earth all around a wide solitude lies?

Unique in creation, I’ve moved like the sun,

In splendor to set ere another can rise.

And thus to the end of my course do I come.

Alone have I built my rich funeral pyre;

On wood of the myrrh-tree, sweet spices and gum

Triumphant I sit as they’re turning to fire!

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My wings fanned the pile till they kindled the flame,

That wraps in its brightness my form as I burn.

From ashes and odours to being I came!

To odours and ashes content I return!

My heart melts with pity in death, for the heir

To all the fair kingdom for nature I’ve known,

With no one its wealth and its glory to share,

The joy is in dying—that’s tasted alone!

The smoke rises sweet as my bosom consumes,

And softly it weaves a dark shade o’er my eyes.

It winds round my head—it is wreathed in my plumes!

My life mounts the cloud rolling off to the skies!

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[p. 251]

A WORD AT PARTING.

How can I say farewell to thee—

how can I say farewell!

When in the compass of that word,

such mournful meanings dwell—

When thoughts that make the cheek turn pale,

and overcloud the heart,

Are wakened by that startling sound,

that tells me, we must part!

Since thou wert here, the hours have lapsed

away like a sweet dream,

As if in some swift pleasure-barge,

I floated down life’s stream,

While sunny banks on either side

detained th’ admiring sight,

And every coming scene was still

more beautiful and bright.

But now the orient sky may flame

with shafts of lambent gold,

As to the sun’s emerging car,

Morn’s purple gates unfold:

The noon may pass—the evening star

may bless the gazer’s eye,

yet I shall think, O, these are fair,

but would that she were nigh!

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The spring may come with wreaths of flowers,

and young buds round her brow,

Her first green footprints on the hills

are shining, even now!

But ah, the tinted flowers may bloom,

the birds sing on the spray,

Thy beauty and thy voice of mirth

are dearer far than they!

O, we shall miss th’ unconscious spell

thy presence round us cast;

Beneath whose magic influence

the hours unheeded past:

And oftentimes a voice will sigh,

regretfully sincere,

‘O, would that she were her to night—

O, would that she were here!’

And could I hope that sometimes thou

when casting back a glance,

Would lavish on thy worshipper

one brief regret perchance,

I should be rich in the belief,

and happy in the thought,

That thou rememberest one, by whom

thou ne’er canst be forgot.

I cannot speak the hopes and fears,

which parting thus, I feel;

And which could I express, perhaps

I might not all reveal,

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But O, how trebly painful were

this moment I deplore,

If fate should whisper in my ear—

‘Ye part—to meet no more!’

Thou goest, and the world so bright

is dark to me again;

And I shall listen for thy voice,

and look for thee in vain;

But though my prayers for thee and thine,

words are too weak to tell—

I cannot say farewell to thee,

I cannot say farewell!

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[p. 254]

A SONG.

BY C. SHERRY.

Come, Lily, dispense with that soul-chilling glance,

And be laughing and happy once more with your friend;

For remember that life, love, is only a dance,

And like other cotillons must soon have an end.

If my fault here so grievous you cannot excuse,

Be it so, my dear girl, without anger we part;

While you take this small bill that I draw on the Muse,

To answer the drafts you have made on my heart.

But as, on reflection you cannot deny

That no trifle should sever a friendship like ours,

Chase the cloud from your brow—the tear from your eye,

Be content with life’s sunshine, and fly from its showers.

There is little enough to be seen of blue sky,

In the arch that bends over our northerly zone;

Then with clouds ready made, in such quantities, why

Should we dim a bright heaven with clouds of our own?

-----

a young white girl in a white dress sits beside a straw hat
Painted by F. Alexander.      Engraved by J. C. Kellogg.
PLEASANT THOUGHTS.
Boston Published by Charles Bowen.

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[p. 255]

TO A CHILD.

BY R. C. WATERSTON.

A dancing shape—an image gay

To haunt—to startle, and waylay;

* * * * * * *

A being breathing thoughtful breath

A traveller between life and death.

Wordsworth.

I.

All your thoughts are thoughts of gladness,

You care nothing for the morrow;

You have never dreamt of sadness,

You have never heard of sorrow,

You are happy in your play,

Singing songs the livelong day.

II.

Bounding in your merry glee,

Full of laughter and of fun—

Like a bright wave on the sea,

Sparkling in the summer sun;

So fair and wild you ever seem

The creature of a blessed dream.

III.

Signs of thought are on thy brow—

Heavenly truths within thee shine:

Faith and Love are strengthening now,

Spiritual joys are thine—

The little bud when first it blows

Has in itself the perfect rose.

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IV.

The very world before thy sight—

So free thou art from thoughts of sin—

Is radiant with that holy light

Which bursteth from within.

The air breathes out with music sweet,

And nature smiles about thy feet.

V.

Infant Angel!—Pilgrim fair!

Joyous spirit bright and free!

Fold thy little hands in prayer,

And ask a blessing upon me.

So pure thou art, I feel more prone,

To gain thy blessing, than bestow my own.

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[p. 257]

THE OLD HOUSE.
A SKETCH.

BY MISS LESLIE.

Her charm around, the enchantress Memory throws … Rogers.

Edward Lindsay had recently returned from Europe, where a long series of years passed in the successful prosecution of a lucrative mercantile business, had gained for him an independence that in his own country would be considered wealth. And continuing in heart and soul an American, it was only in the land of his birth, that he could resolve to settle himself, and enjoy the fruits of well-directed enterprise, and almost uninterrupted good fortune.

Early impressions are lasting; and among the images that frequently recurred to the memory of our hero, were those of a certain old farm-house in the interior of Pennsylvania, and its kind and simple-hearted inhabitants. The farmer, whose name was Abraham Hilliard, had been in the practice of occasionally bringing to Philadelphia a waggon-load [sic] of excellent marketing, and stopping with his team at the doors of several genteel families, his unfailing customers. It was thus that Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay obtained a knowledge of him, which eventually induced them to place in his house, as a boarder, their only surviving child Edward: that during the summer season, the boy, whose constitution was

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naturally delicate, might have a chance of acquiring confirmed health and hardihood, united with habits of self-dependence; it being clearly understood by all parties, that young Lindsay was to be treated, in every respect, like the farmer’s own children. The experiment succeeded: and it was at Oakland Farm that Edward Lindsay’s summers were chiefly spent from the age of eight to eighteen, at which time he was sent to Bordeaux, and placed in the counting house of his maternal uncle. And twice when Philadelphia was visited by the malignant fever which in former years spread such terror through the city, and whose ravages were only checked by the return of cold weather, the anxious parents of our hero made him stay in the country till the winter had fairly set in.

During his long residence in Europe, Edward Lindsay was so unfortunate as to lose both father and mother, and therefore his arrival in his native town was accompanied by many painful feelings. The bustle of the city, and the company into which the hospitality of his friends endeavoured to draw him, were not in accordance with his present state of mind, and he imagined that nothing would be more soothing to him than a visit to the country, and particularly to the place where so much of his boyhood had been passed. While his mother lived, she had frequently sent him tidings of his old friends at Oakland Farm, none of whom were letter writers, but since her death they seemed to be lost sight of, and it was now many years since Edward had heard any thing of them.

Oakland Farm was not on a public road, and it was some miles remote from the route of any public convey-

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ance. As the season was the close of spring, and the weather delightful, Lindsay determined to go thither on a fine horse that he had recently purchased; taking with him only a small valise, as his intention was to remain there but a few days.

He set out in the afternoon, and passed the night at a tavern about ten miles from the city, formerly known as the Black Bear, but now dignified with the title of the Pennsylvania Hotel, expressed in immense gilt letters on a blue board above the door. Lindsay felt something like regret at the ejectment of his old acquaintance Bruin, who, proclaiming ‘Entertainment for Man and Horse[,]’ had swing so many years on a loftly sign-post under the shade of a great button-wood tree, now cut down to make room for four slender Lombardy poplars, which, though out of favour in the city, had become fashionable in the country.

We will pass over many other changes which our hero observed about the new-modelled inn, and accompany him as he pursued his way along the road which had been so familiar to him in his early youth, and which, though it retained many of its original features, had partaken greatly of the all-pervading spirit of improvement. The hills were still there. The beautiful creek which in England would have been termed a river, meandered every where just as before, wide, clear and deep; but its rude log bridges had now given place to substantial structures of masonry and wood-work, and he missed several well known tracts of forest-land, of which the very stumps had long since been dislodged.

His eye, for years accustomed to the small farms and miniature inclosures of Europe, now dwelt with delight

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on immense fields of grain or clover, each of them covering a whole hill, and frequently of such extent that a single glance could not take in their limits. He saw vast orchards that seemed to contain a thousand trees, now white with blossoms that, scattered by the slightest breeze, fell around them like showers of scented snow. He missed, it is true, the hawthorn hedges of England; those beautiful walls of verdure whose only fault is that their impervious foliage shuts out from view the fields they inclose; while the open fences of America allow the stranger to regale his eye, and satisfy his curiosity with a free prospect of the country through which he is travelling.

Oakland Farm, as we have said, lay some miles from the great highway, and Lindsay was glad to find with how much ease he recollected the turnings and windings of the bye-roads. It even gave him pleasure to recognise a glen at the bottom of a ravine thickly shaded with crooked and moss-grown trees, where half a century ago a woman had been guilty of infanticide, and whose subsequent execution at the county town is talked of still; it being apparently as well remembered as an event of yesterday. The dog-wood and the wild grape vine still canopied the fatal spot, for the thicket had never been cleared away, nor the ground cultivated. A little beyond, the road lay through a dark piece of woods that country-women returning late from the store, were afraid to ride through after night-fall; as their horses always started and trembled and laid back their ears at the appearance of a mysterious white colt, which was frequently seen gamboling among the trees, and which no sensible people believed to be a real or living colt, as

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one horse is never frightened at the sight of another. Shortly after, our traveller stopped for a few moments to gaze at the transformation of a building on the verge of the creek. He had remembered it as a large old house chequered with bricks alternately blackish and reddish, and having dark red window-shutters with holes cut in them to admit the light; some of the apertures being in the form of hearts, others in the shape of crescents. There had been a red porch, and a red front door which for years had the inconvenient property of bursting open in the dead of night; at which time, a noise was always heard as of the hoofs of a calf trotting in the dark, about the rooms up stairs. This calf was finally spoken to by a very courageous stranger, who enquired its name. The calf made not a word of answer, being now painted yellow, and the red shutters removed, had been altered into an establishment for carding and spinning wool, as was evident by surrounding indications, and by the noise of the machinery, which could be heard plainly, as far as the road. Lindsay began to fear that he should never again see polly Nichols, a tall, gaunt, hard-features spinning girl, whose untiring strength and immovable countenance, as she ran all day at the ‘big wheel,’ had often amazed him, and whom Mrs. Hilliard considered as the princess of wool-spinners. His conscience reproached him with having one day, while she was at dinner, mischievously stolen the wheel-finger of the staid Polly Nichols, and hidden it in the dough trough, thereby occasioning a long search to the industrious damsel, and the loss of an hour’s spinning to Mrs. Hilliard.

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He next came to the old well-known Meeting House, embosomed in large elms of aboriginal growth. He saw it as in former days, with its long range of stalls for the horses of the congregation, and its square horse-blocks at the gate with steps ascending on all their four sides, to which the country beaux gallantly led up the steeds of the country belles. Just beyond the Meeting House, he looked in vain for a well-known little brook, distinguished of old as ‘Blue Woman’s Run,’ and which had formerly crossed the road, murmuring over its bed of pebbles. It had derived this cognomen from the singular apparition of a woman in a blue gown, with a pail of water on her head, which had on several Sundays boldly appeared even in the brightness of the noon-day sun, and was seen walking fearlessly among the ‘Meeting folks,’ and their horses, as they stopped to let them drink at the brook; coming no one knew from whence, and going no one knew where; but appearing and disappearing in the midst of them. But the streamlet was no longer there, diverted perhaps to some other channel, and the hollow of its bed was filled up and made level with the road.

About two miles farther, our hero looked out for a waste field at some distance from the road, and distinguished by an antique persimmon tree of unusual size. This field he had always known of a wild and desolate aspect, bristled with the tall stalks of the mullein. Here, according to tradition, had once lived a family of free negroes, probably runaways from the south. They had lost their children by an epidemic, buried them at the foot of the persimmon tree, and soon after quitted the neighborhood. All vestiges of their hut had vanished

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long before Edward Lindsay had known the place, but the graves of the children might have been traced under the grass and weeds. This deserted field had the reputation of being haunted, because whoever had the temerity to cross it, even in broad day-light, never failed, that is if they had faith, to see the faces of two little black boys looking out from behind the tree, and laughing merrily. But on approaching the tree, no black boys were there.

There is considerable variety in American ghosts. In Europe these phantoms are nearly all of the same stamp: either tall white females that glide by moonlight among the ruined cloisters of old abbeys, or pale knights, in dark armor, that wander, at midnight, about the turrets and corridors of feudal castles. In our country, apparitions go as little by rule as their living prototypes; and are certainly very prosaic both in looks and ways.

The old persimmon tree was still there; but the field had been cultivated, and was now in red clover, and Lindsay knew that mind had marched over it. [sic]

He now came to a well-remembered place, the low one-story school-house under the shade of a great birch tree, whose twigs had been of essential service in the hands of Master Whackaboy, and whose smooth and paper-like bark was fashionable in the seminary for writing-pieces. The door and windows were open, and Lindsay expected, as formerly, to hear the master say to his scholars at the sound of horses’ feet—‘Read out—read out—strangers are going by—;’ which order had always been succeeded by a chorus of readers as loud and inharmonious as what children call a Dutch Concert. As Lindsay passed the school-house, he could not forbear stopping a moment to look in; and instead

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of Bumpus Whackaboy in his round jacket, he saw a young gentleman in a frock coat, seated at the master’s desk, with an aspect of great satisfaction, while a lad stood before him frowning and stamping desperately, and reciting Collins’s Ode on the Passions.

Our traveller now perceived by certain well-remembered landmarks, that he was approaching the mill in whose scales he had frequently been weighed: a ceremony never omitted at the close of his annual visit to Oakland, that he might go home rejoicing in the number of pounds he had gained during his sojourn in the salubrious air, and homely abundance of the farm. When he came to the place, he found three mills; and he was for a while, puzzled to recollect which of them was his old acquaintance. On the other side of the road were now a tavern, a store, and a blacksmith’s shop, with half a dozen dwelling houses. ‘This, I suppose, is an incipient city,’ thought Lindsay—and so it was, as he afterwards found: the name being Candyville, in consequence perhaps, of the people of the neighborhood having left off tobacco, and taken to mint-stick, for which and other bonbons of a similar character, the demand was so great that the store-keeper often found it necessary to take a journey to the metropolis chiefly for the purpose of bringing out a fresh supply.

At length our hero came to a hill beyond which he recollected that a turn in the road would present to his view the house of Abraham Hilliard, as it stood on the very edge of the farm. It was a lovely afternoon. The sunbeams were dancing merrily on the creek, whose shining waters beautifully inverted its green banks overshadowed with laurel bushes now in full bloom, and

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covered with large clusters of delicate pink flowers. He saw the top of the enormous oak that stood in front of the house, and which had been sapred for its size and beauty, when the ground was first redeemed from the primeval forest, by the grandfather of the present proprietor.

Lindsay turned into the late. What was his amazement when he saw not, as he expected, the well-known farm-house and its appurtenances.—It was no longer there. The dilapidated ruins of the chimney alone were standing, and round them lay a heap of rubbish. He stopped his horse, and gazed long and sadly, on finding all his pleasant anticipations turned at once to disappointment. Finally he dismounted, and securing his bridle to a large nail which yet remained in the trunk of the old tree, having been placed there for that purpose, he proceeded to take a nearer view of what had once been the Oakland Farm House.

There were indications of the last fire that had ever gladdened the hearth, the charred remains of an immense back-log now half hidden beneath a luxuriant growth of the dusky and ragged-leaved Jamestown weed. In a corner of the hearth grew a sumach that bid fair in a short time to overtop all that was left of the chimney. These corners had once been furnished with benches on which the children used to sit and amuse themselves with stories and riddles, in the cold autumnal evenings, when fires are doubly cheerful from being the first of the season.

Of the long porch in which they had so often played by moonlight, nothing now remained but a few broken and decaying boards with grass and plantain-weeds

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growing among them; and some relics of the stone steps that had ascended to it, now displaced and fallen aside by the caving in of the earth behind.

The well that had supplied the family with cold water for drinking, had lost its cover—the sweep had fallen down, and the bucket and chain were gone. The dark cool cellar was laid open to the light of day, and was now a deep square pit, overgrown with thistles and toad-flax.

From the cracks of the old clay oven that had belonged to the chimney, (and which was now half hidden in poke-berry plants,) issued tufts of chick-weed;d and when Lindsay looked into the place which he had so often seen filled with pies and rice-puddings, the glare of bright eyes and a rustling noise denoted that some wild animal had made its lair in the cavity. Suddenly a large grey fox sprung out of the oven-mouth, and ran fearfully past him into the thicket. Lindsay thought in a moment of the often-quoted lines of Ossian.

At the foot of the little eminence on which the house was situated, there had formerly been what its inhabitants called the harbor, (probably a corruption of arbor) a shed rudely constructed of poles interwoven with branches, and covered with a luxuriant gourd-vine. Here the milk-pans and pails were washed, and much of the ‘slopping work’ of the family done in the summer. A piece of rock formed the back-wall of a fire-place in which a immense iron pot had always hung. A slight water-gate opened from this place on a branch of the creek over which a broad thick board had been laid as a bridge, and a short distance below there was a miniature cascade or fall, at which Edward, in his childhood, had

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erected a small wooden tilt-hammer of his own making; and the strokes of his tilt-hammer could be heard, to his great delight, as far as the house, particularly in the stillness of night, when the sound was doubly audible.

The caldron [sic] had now disappeared, leaving no trace but the blackened stone behind it; the remains of the water-gate were lying far up on the bank; the board had fallen into the water; the rude trellis was broken down; and masses of the gourd-vine which had sprung from the scattered seeds, were running about in wild disorder wherever they could find any thing to climb upon.

Lindsay turned to the spot ‘where once the garden smiled,’ and found it a wilderness of tall and tangled weeds, interspersed with three or four degenerate holly-hocks, and a few other flowers that had sowed themselves, and dwindled into insignificance. And in the division appropriated to culinary purposes, were some straggling vegetables that had returned to a state worse than indigenous—with half a dozen rambling bushes that had long since ceased to bear fruit.

Lindsay had gazed on the gigantic remains of the Roman Coliseum, on ‘the castled crag of Drachenfels,’ and on the ivy-mantled arches of Tingern, but they awakened no sensation that could compare with the melancholy feeling that oppressed him as he explored the humble ruins of this simple farm-house, where every association came home to his heart, reminding him not of what he had read, but of what he had seen, and known, and felt, and enjoyed.

As he stood with folded arms contemplating the images of desolation before him, his attention was diverted by

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the sound of footsteps, and on looking round he perceived an old negro coming down the road, with a basket in one hand, and in the other a jug corked with a corn-cob. The negro pulled off his battered wool-hat, and making a bow and a scrape, said, ‘Sarvant masser—’ and Lindsay, on returning his bow, recognized the unusual breadth of nose and width of mouth that had distinguished a free black, well known in the neighborhood by the name of Pharaoh, and in whom the lapse of time had made no other alteration than that of bleaching his wool, which was now quite white.

‘Why Pharaoh—my old fellow!’ exclaimed Lindsay, ‘Is this really yourself?’

‘Can’t say, masser,’ replied Pharaoh. ‘All people’s much the same—Best not be too personal—But I ’blieve I m he.’

‘Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay,’ enquired our hero.

‘Lawful heart, masser!’ exclaimed the negro—‘I do b’lieve you’re little Neddy, what used to come from town, and stay at old Abraham Hilliard’s of summers, and what still kept wisiting there, by times, till you goed over sea.’

‘I am that identical Neddy,’ replied Lindsay, holding out his hand to the old negro, who evinced his delight by a series of loud laughs.

‘Yes—yes—’ pursued Pharaoh, ‘now I look sharper at you, masser, I see plain you’re ’xactly he. You’ve jist a same nose, and a same eyes, and a same mouth, what you had when you tumbled down the well, and fall’d out of the chestnut tree, and when you was peck’d hard by the big turkey-cock, and butted by the old ram.’

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‘Truly,’ said Lindsay, ‘you seem to have forgotten none of my juvenile disasters.’

‘To be sure not,’ replied Pharaoh, ‘I ’member every one of them, and a heap more, only I don’t want to be personal.’

‘And now,’ said Lindsay, ‘as we have so successfully identified each other, let me know, at once, what has happened to my good friends the Hilliards, who I thought were fixed here for life.—Why do I see their house a heap of ruins? Have the family been reduced to poverty?’

‘Lawful heart, no,’ exclaimed the negro: ‘masser Neddy been away so long in foreign parts, he forget how when people here in ’Merica give up their old houses, it’s a’most always acause they’ve got new ones. Now old Abraham Hilliard he get richer and richer every minute—though I guess he was pretty rich when you know’d him, only he never let on.—And so he build him fine stone house beyont his piece of oak-woods, and there he live this blessed day. And we goes there quite another road. And so he gave this old frame to old Pharaoh; and so I had the whole house carted off, all that was good of it, and put it up on the road-side, just beyont here, in place of my old tumble-down cabin what I used to live in, that I’ve altered into a pig-pen. So now me and Binkey am quite comfabull.’

‘Shew me the way,’ said Lindsay, ‘to the new residence of Mr[.] Hilliard. I have come from Philadelphia on purpose to visit the family.’

‘Bless your heart, masser for that,’ said the old negro, as he held the stirrup for Lindsay to mount; and walking by his side, he proceeded with the usual garrulity

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of the African race, to relate many particulars of the Hilliards and their transit.

‘Of course, masser Neddy,’ said Pharaoh, ‘you ’member old Abraham’s two boys Isaac and Jacob, what you used to play with. You know Isaac mostly whipped you when you fout with him. Well, when they growed up, they thought they’d help’d their father long enough, and as they wanted right bad to go west, the old man gave ’em money to buy back land. So each took him horse—Isaac took Mike, and Jacob took Morgan, and they started west, and went to a place away back—away back—severn hundred thousand miles beyont Pitchburg. And they’re like to get mighty rich; and word’s come as Jacob’s neighbors is going to set him up for congress, and I shouldn’t be the least ’prized if he’s presidump. You ’member, masser Neddy, Jacob was always the tonguiest of the two boys.[’]

‘And where are Mr. Hilliard’s daughters,’ asked Lindsay.

‘Oh, as to the two oldest,’ replied Pharaoh, ‘Kitty married Billy Pleasants as keeps the store over at Candyville, and Betsey made a great match with a man what has a terrible big farm over on Siskahanna. And old Abraham after he got into him new house, sent him two youngest to the new school up at Wondervlle, where they teaches the gals all sorts of wit and larning.’

‘And how are your own wife and children, Pharaoh,’ enquired Lindsay, ‘I remember them very well.’

‘Bless your heart for that masser,’ replied the negro, ‘why Rose is hired at Abraham Hilliard’s—you know they brungt her up. And Cato lives out in Philadelphy—I wonders masser did not see him. And as for old

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Binkey, she holds her own pretty well. You know, masser, Binkey was always a great hand at quiltings, and weddings, and buryings, and such like frolics, and used to be sent for high and low to help cook at them times. But now she’s a getting old,—being most a thousand,—and so she stays at home, and makes rusk and gingerbread and molasses beer. This is molasses I have in the jemmy-john; I’ve jist come from the store. So she sells cakes and beer—that’s the reason we lives on the road-side—and I works about. We used to have a sign that Sammy Spokes the wheelwright painted for us, for he was then the only man in these parts that had paints. There was two ginger-cakes on it, and one rusk, and a coal-black bottle with the beer spouting up high, and falling into a tumbler without ever spilling a drap. We were desperate pleased with the sign, for folks said it looked so nateral, and Sammy Spokes made us a present of it, and would not take it out in cakes and beer as we wanted him, and that shewed him to be very much of a gemplan.’

‘As no doubt he is,’ remarked Lindsay, ‘I find since my return to America that gentlemen are ‘as plenty as blackberries.’ ’

‘You say very true, masser,’ rejoined the negro; [‘]we are all gemplans now-a-days, and has plenty of black berries. Well, as I was saying, we liked the sign a heap. But after Nelly Hilliard as was—we calls her Miss Ellen now—quit Wonderville school, where she learnt every thing on the face of the yearth, she thought she would persecute painting at home, for she had a turn that way, and wanted to keep her hand in. So she set to, and painted a new sign, and took it all out

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of her own head; and gave it to old Binkey and axplained it to us. There’s a thing on it that Miss Ellen calls a urn or a wase—that stands for beer—and then there’s a sugar cane growing out of it—that stands for molasses. And then there’s a thick string of gree leaves with roots twisted amongst ’em—that answers for ginger, for she told us that ginger grows like any other widgable, and has stalks and leaves, but the root is what we uses. Yet somehow, folks doesn’t seem to understand this sign as well as the old one. A great many thinks the wase be an old sugar-dish with a bit of a corn-stalk sticking out of it, and some pasley and hoss-reddish plastered on the outside and say they should never guess cakes and beer by it.’

‘I should suppose not,’ said Lindsay.

‘But, masser Neddy,’ pursued the old negro, ‘all this time, we have been calling Abraham Hilliard, Abraham, instead of saying squire. Only think of old Abraham; he been made a squire this good while, and marries people. After he move into him new house, he begun to get high, and took to putting on a clean shirt, and shaving every day, which Rose says was a pretty tough job with him at first; but he parsewered. And he’s apt to have fresh meat whenever it’s to be got, and he won’t eat stale pies: and so they have to do small bakings every day, instead of big ones twice a week. And sometimes he even go so far as to have geese took out of the flock, and killed and roasted, instead of saving ’em all for feathers. And he says that now he’s clear of the world, he will live as he likes, and have every thing he wants, and be quite comfabull. And he made his old woman leave off wearing short gowns, and put

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on long gowns all the time, and quit calling him daddy, which Rose says went very hard with her for a while. The gals being young were broke of it easy enough, and now they says pappy.’

‘Pshaw!’ ejaculated Lindsay, whose regret at the general change which seemed to have come over the Hilliard family, now amounted nearly to vexation.

‘Now masser Neddy,’ continued Pharaoh, ‘we’ve got to the new house—there it stands, right afore you. An’t you ’prised at it? I always am whenever I sees it. So please a jump off, and I’ll take your hoss to the stable, and put him up, and tell the people at the barn that masser Neddy’s come; and you can go into the house and speak for you’mself.’

Lindsay, at parting, put a dollar into the hand of the old negro. ‘What for this, masser Neddy?’—asked Pharaoh, trying to look very disinterested.

‘Do whatever you please with it,’ answered Lindsay.

‘Well masser,’ replied the negro, ‘I never likes to hurt a gemplan’s feelings by ’fusing him. So I’ll keep it, just to ’blige you. But I ’spect, to be sure, masser Neddy’ll step in some day at neger-man’s cabin, and see old Binkey, and take part of him dollar out in cakes and beer. I’ll let masser know when Binkey has a fresh baking.’

Pharaoh then led off the horse, and Lindsay stood for a few moments to take a survey of the new residence of his old friends. It was a broad, substantial two story stone house. There was a front garden, where large snow-ball trees,

‘Threw up their silver globes, light as the foamy surf.’

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and where the conical clusters of the lilac, and the little May roses were bursting into fragrance and beauty, and uniting their odours with those of the tall white lily, and the lowly but delicious pink. Behind the house ascended a woodland hill, whose trees at this season exhibited every shade of green, in tints as various as the diversified browns of autumn.

Lindsay found the front door unfastened, and opening it without ceremony, he entered a wide hall furnished with a long settee, a large table, a hat-stand, a hanging lamp, a map of the United States, and one of the world. There was a large parlor on each side of the hall, and Lindsay looked into both, the doors being open. One was carpeted, and seemed to be fitted up for winter, the other had a matted floor, and was evidently the summer sitting-room. The furniture in both, though by no means showy, was excellent of its kind and extremely neat; and in its form and arrangement convenience seemed to be the chief consideration. Lindsay thought he had never seen more pleasant looking rooms. In the carpeted parlour, on the hearth of the Franklin stove, sat a blue china jar filled with magnolia flowers, whose spicy perfume was tempered by the outer air that came through the venetian shutters which were lowered to exclude the sun-beams. One recess was occupied by a mahogany book-case, and there was a side-board in the other. The chimney-place of the summer parlor was concealed by a drapery of ingeniously cut paper, and the various and beautiful flowers that adorned the mantel-piece had evidently been cultivated with care. Shelves of books hung in the recesses, and in both rooms were sofas and rocking-chairs.

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‘Is it possible,’ thought Lindsay, ‘that this can be the habitation of Abraham Hilliard?’ And he ran over in his mind the humble aspect of their sitting-room in the old farm-house, with its home-made carpet of strips of listing; its tall-backed rush chairs; its walnut table, its corner cup-board, its hanging shelves suspended from the beams that crossed the ceiling, and holding miscellaneous articles of every description.

Having satisfied his curiosity by looking into the parlors he proceeded through the hall to the back door, and there he found in a porch canopied with honey-suckle, a woman busily engaged in picking the stems from a basket of early strawberries, as she transferred the fruit to a large bowl. Time had made so little change in her features that, though much improved in her costume, he easily guessed her to be his old hostess Mrs. Hilliard. ‘Aunt Susan!’ he exclaimed; for by that title he had been accustomed to address her in his boyhood. The old lady started up, and hastily snatched off her strawberry-stained apron.

‘Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?’ continued our hero, heartily shaking her hand.

She surveyed him from head to foot, till his identity dawned upon her, and then she ejaculated—‘It is—it must be—though you are a gentleman, you must be little Neddy—there—there, sit down—I’ll be back in a moment.’

She went into the house, and returned almost immediately, bringing with her a small coquelicot waiter, with cakes and wine which she pressed Lindsay to partake of. He smiled, as he recollected that one of the customs of Oakland Farm was to oblige every stran-

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ger to eat and drink immediately on his arrival. And while he was discussing a cake and a glass of wine, the good dame heaped a saucer with strawberries, carried it away for a few minutes, and then brought it back inundated with cream and sugar. This was also presented to Lindsay, recommending that he should eat another cake with the strawberries, and take another glass of wine after them.

On Edward’s enquiring for her husband, Mrs. Hilliard replied that he was somewhere about the farm, and that the girls were drinking tea with some neighbours a few miles off; but she said she would send the carriage for them immediately, that they might be home early in the evening.

In a short time Abraham Hilliard came in, having seen Pharaoh at the barn, who had informed him of the arrival of ‘Masser Neddy.’ The meeting afforded equal gratification to both parties. The old farmer looked now as if quite accustomed to a clean shirt and to shaving every day; and Lindsay was glad to find that his manner of expressing himself had improved with his circumstances. Aunt Susan, however, had not in this respect, kept pace with her husband, remaining, to use her own expression—‘just the same old two and sixpence.’ Women who have not in early life enjoyed opportunities of cultivating their minds, are rarely able at a late period to acquire any conversational polish.—With men the case is different.

Mrs. Hilliard now left her husband to entertain their guest, and ‘on hospitable thoughts intent,’ withdrew to superintend the setting of a tea-table abounding in cakes and sweetmeats, the strawberry bowl and a pitcher of

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cream occupying the centre. This repast was laid out in the wide hall, and while engaged in arranging it, Mrs. Hilliard joined occasionally in the conversation which her husband and Lindsay were pursuing in her hearing, as they sat in the porch.

‘Well Edward,’ proceeded Mr. Hilliard, ‘you see a great alteration in things at the farm: and I conclude you are glad to find us in a better way than when you left us.’

‘Certainly,’ replied Lindsay.

‘Now,’ said the penetrating old farmer, ‘that ‘certainly’ did not come from your heart.—Tell me the truth—you miss something, don’t you?’

‘Frankly then,’ replied Lindsay, ‘I miss every thing—I own myself so selfish as to feel some disappointment at the entire overthrow of all the images which during my long absence had been present to my mind’s eye, in connection with my remembrances of Oakland Farm. Thinking of the old farm house and its inhabitants, precisely as I had left them, and believing that time had passed over them without causing any essential change, I must say that I cannot, just at first, bring myself to be glad that it is otherwise. The happiness that seemed to dwell with the old house and the old fashioned ways of its people, had been vividly impressed upon my feelings. And I fear—forgive me for saying so—that your family cannot have added much to their felicity by acquiring ideas and adopting habits to which they so long were strangers.’

‘There you are mistaken, my dear boy,’ answered the farmer. ‘I acknowledge that if, in removing to a larger house, and altering our way of living, we had in

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any one instance sacrificed comfort to show, or convenient to ostentation—which, unfortunately has been the error of some of our neighbours—we should, indeed have enjoyed far less happiness than heretofore. But we have not done so. We have made no attempts at mimicking what in the city is called style; and I have forbidden my daughters to mention the word fashion in my presence.’

‘Yes—yes—’ said Mrs. Hilliard—‘I hope we have been wiser than the Newman family over at Poplar Plains. as soon as they got a little up in the world, they built a shell of a house that looks as if it was made of white pasteboard; and figured it all over with carved work inside and out; and stuck posts and pillars all about it with nothing of consequence to hold up; and furnished the rooms with all sorts of useless trumpery.’

‘Softly—softly—wife,’ interrupted old Abraham—and turning to our hero, he proceeded—‘well, as I was telling you, Edward, I endeavour to enjoy what I have worked so hard to acquire, and to enjoy it in a manner that really improves our condition, and renders it in every respect better. You know, that in former times, though I had very little leisuree to read, I liked to take up a book whenever I had a few moments to spare, if I was not too tired with my work. And when I went to town with marketing, I always bought a book to bring home with me. Also, I took a daily paper. I gave my children the benefit of the best schooling that could be procured without sending them to town for the purpose; but at the

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same time, I was averse to their learning any shewy and useless accomplishments.[’]

‘Well,’ rejoined Mrs. Hilliard, ‘we were certainly wiser than the Newmans, who sent their girls to a French school in Philadelphia, and had them taught music, both guitar and piano. And the Newman girls mix up their talk with all sorts of French words that sound very ugly to me. Instead of ‘for what,’ or ‘for why,’ they say—poor-quaw,* and for ‘good morning,’ they say—boo-shoo,† and they’re always talking about something they call an-wee.‡ And the tunes they play on the piano seem to me like no tunes at all, but just a sort of scrambling up and down, that nobody can make either head or tail of. And when they sing to the guitar, it sounds to me just like moaning one minute, and screaming the next, with a little tinkling between whiles.’

‘Wife—wife—’ interrupted Abraham—‘you are too severe on the poor girls.’

‘Well—well—’ proceeded Mrs. Hilliard—‘I’ll say nothing more, only this: that the airs they take on themselves make them the talk of the whole country—And then they’ve given up all sorts of work. The mother spends most of her time in taking nas, to make up, I suppose, for having had to rise early all the fore-part of her life. The girls sit about all day in stiff silk frocks, squeezed so tight in them that they can scarcely move. Or they go round paying morning visits, interrupting people in the busy part of the day. And they invite company to their house, and give them no tea; and say they’re having a swearey.§ To be sure it’s a shame for me to say so, but it’s well known that they

*pourquoi. †bon jour. ‡ennui. §soiré

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never have a good thing on their table now, but pretend it’s genteel to live on bits and morsels that have neither taste nor substance. And no doubt that’s the reason the whole family have grown so thin and yellow, and are always complaining of something they call dyspepsy.’

‘They have certainly changed for the worse,’ remarked Lindsay—‘I remember the Newmans very well.—A happy, homely family living in a long, low, red frame house, and having every thing about them plain and plentiful.’

‘So had we in our former dwelling,’ said Mr. Hilliard, ‘yet I think we are living still better now.’

‘I have many pleasant recollections of the old house,’ said Lindsay.

‘For you,’ observed the farmer, ‘our old house and the manner in which we then lived, owed most of their charms to novelty, and to the circumstance that children are seldom fastidious. I doubt much, if you had found every thing in statu quo, and the old house and its inhabitants just as you left them, whether you could have been induced to make us as long a visit as I hope you will now.’

‘My husband,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, ‘is different from most men of his age. Instead of dwelling all the while upon old times, he stands up for the times we live in, and says every thing now is better than it used to be. And he’s brought me to agree with him pretty much—I never was an idle woman, and I keep myself busy enough still, but I do think it is pleasanter to keep hired people for the hard work than to have to help with it myself, as you know I used to. Though I never complained about it, still I cannot say, now I look back,

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that there was any great pleasure in helping on washing-days and ironing-days, or in making soft soap, and baking great batches of bread and pies—to be sure my soft soap was admired all over the country, and my bread was always light, and my pie-crust never tough—Neither was there much delight in seeing my two eldest girls paddling to the barn-yard every morning and evening, through all weathers to milk the cows, or in setting them at heavy churnings, and other hard work. And then at harvest-time, and at killing-time, and when we were getting the marketing ready for husband to take to town in the waggon, we were on our feet the whole day long. To be sure they were used to it, but I often felt sorry for Abraham and the boys, when they came home from the field in a warm evening so tired with work they could hardly speak, and were glad to wash themselves, and get their supper and go to bed at dark. And the girls and I were always glad enough too, to get to our rest, as soon as we had put away the milk and washed the supper things; knowing we should have to be up before the stars were gone, to sweep the house, and do the milking, and get breakfast, that the men might be off early to work.’

‘I remember all this very well,’ said Lindsay.

‘To be sure you do,’ pursued Mrs. Hilliard. ‘Then don’t you think it’s pleasant for us now not to be over-worked during the day, so that in the evening, instead of going to bed we can sit round the table in a nice parlor, and sew and knit; or read, for them that likes it. Husband and the girls always did take pleasure in reading—and for my part, now I’ve time, I’m beginning to like a book myself. Last winter I read a good

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deal in the second volume of the Spectator. In short, I have not the least notion of grieving after our way of living at the old house.’

‘Nor I neither,’ added Abraham; ‘and I really find it much more agreeable to superintend my farm, than to be obliged to labor on it myself.’

‘And now let us proceed with our tea,’ said Mrs. Hilliard; ‘and Neddy, if you do not eat hearty of what we have on our table, I shall think you are fretting after the mush and milk, and sowins, and pie and cheese that we used to have on our supper table, and which I do not believe you could eat now if they were before you. Come, you must not mind my speaking out so plainly. You know I always was a right-down sort of woman, and am so still.’

Edward smiled, and pressed her hand kindly, acknowledging that all she had said was justified by truth and reason.

The carriage—they kept a very plain but a very capacious one—brought home the girls shortly after candle-light. Lindsay ran out to assist them in alighting, and was glad to find that on hearing his name they retained a perfect recollection of him though they were in their earliest childhood at the time of his departure for Europe. When they came into the light, he found them both very pretty. Their skins had not been tanned by exposure to the sun and wind, nor their shoulders stooped nor their hands reddened by hard work; as had been the case with their two elder sisters. They were drest in white frocks, blue shawls, and straw bonnets with blue ribbons; neatly, and in good taste.

The evening passed pleasantly, and Lindsay soon

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discovered that the daughters of his host were very charming girls. Ellen perhaps had a little tinge of vanity, but Lucy was entirely free from it. Diffidence prevented her from talking much, but she listened understandingly, and when she did speak, it was with animation and intelligence. Lindsay felt that he should not have liked her so well, had she looked, and dressed, and talked, as he remembered her elder sisters.

When he retired for the night, his bed and room were so well furnished and looked so inviting, that he did not regret the little low apartment with no chimney and only one window, that he had occupied in the old farm-house; and he slept quite as soundly under a white counterpane, as he had formerly done under a patch-work quilt.

We have no space to enter more minutely into the details of our hero’s visit, nor to relate by what process he speedily became a convert to the fact that even among country-people the march of improvement adds greatly to their comfort and happiness; provided always that they do not mistake the road, and diverge into the path of folly and pretension.

Suffice it to say, that he protracted his stay to a week, during which he broke the girls of the habit of saying ‘pappy,’ substituting the more sensible and affectionate epithet of ‘father.’ When Pharaoh announced the proper time, he made a visit to the refectory of old Binkey, whom he afterwards desired the Candyville store-keeper to supply at his charge, with materials for her cakes and beer, ad libitum, during the remainder of her ife.

The visit of Edward Lindsay to Oakland was in the

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course of the summer, so frequently repeated, that no one was much surprised when, early in October, he conducted Lucy Hilliard to Philadelphia as his bride: acknowledging to himself that he could never have made her so, had she and her family continued exactly as he had nown them at the OLD FARM HOUSE.

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[p. 285]

THE STUDENT’S RHAPSODY.

BY H. GREELE.

I.

Teach me the language of the flowers,

Sole idol of my beating heart!

While I to thee, in trustful hours,

The love of loftier dreams impart:

No dread of ill my rapture mars;

No shadow o’er the present lowers:

Then let my words be of bright stars,

And thine of blushing flowers.

II.

What though in Fate’s unerring book,

’Tis doomed no laurel wreathes my brow—

What though I ne’er may hope to look

On crowds that to my sceptre bow—

What though no grace of form or face

To him who woos thy heart be given—

O! let our thoughts this hour embrace

The bright of earth and heaven!

III.

As late I sought thy bower at even,

I marked one star of deepest glow,

As starting from its throne in heaven

To bless a slumbering world below:

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Ah no! behold the Flower of Night,

Unfolding slowly, shames the roses;

And, by that planet’s genial light,

One drop of pearly dew discloses.

IV.

And that high star, so coldly seeming,

As moved by nought of earth or air,

Gazed in that dew-drop mirror gleaming,

And thrilled to mark its image there:

I blest the spell which, near or far,

O’er all things bright and pure hath power;

O! dearest! I would be that star!

Be thou that gentle flower!

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[p. 287]

STANZAS.
IN RETURN FOR A RING BEARING THE IMPRESS

‘FORGET ME NOT.’

‘Forget me not!’—Ah words of useless warning

To one whose heart is henceforth memory’s shrine!

Sooner the lark might fail to greet the morning,

Than I forget to think of thee and thine.

Sooner the sunflower forget to waken

At the first radiance from the god of light,

Than I, by treasured thoughts of thee forsaken,

Part with the recollections nwo so bright.

Oft when at night the lonely deck I’m pacing,

Or gaze on some refulgent, tremulous star,

Past scenes of happiness perchance retracing,

My thoughts will fly to meet thee, though afar.

When dark-robed storms, with fearful clangor sweeping,

Drive our strain’d bark along the hollow’d sea—

When to the clouds, the foam-topp’d waves are leaping,

E’en then, I’ll not forget to think on thee.

Thy memory in my gloomiest, brightest hours,

Will burst like sudden sunshine on my mind;

Or like the odorous breath of summer flowers,

Borne from some isle of verdure on the wind.

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And O, sweet Lady, when from home departed,

I count the weary leagues I stray from thee,

And am quite thoughtful and impatient-hearted—

Say, wilt thou sometimes—sometimes think of me?

Sometimes at evening when the wine-cup passes,

And pleasant friends are met in social glee—

Amid the flash of wit—the flash of glasses,

Let silent memory pledge one health to me.

Sometimes at evening, when your gentle sister,

At the piano, sings some melody;

And unforgetful of the past, you list her

Voice of music—waste a thought on me!

O! I shall not forget thee—and may heaven

See thee by every joy of life caress’d;

And unto me at least may it be given,

To know, whate’er my fate, that thou art blest.

Farewell! my Father-land is disappearing,

Faster and faster from my tear-dimm’d sight;

The winds rise wildly, and thick clouds are rearing,

Their ebon flag to hasten on the night.

Farewell! the pilot leaves us—onward gliding,

Our brave ship dashes through the angry swell—

Sustained by hope, remembering still, confiding,

I’ll not forget—my sister, friend, farewell!

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THE PROPHETIC PICTURES.*

‘But this painter!’ cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. ‘He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Doctor Mather, and gives lectures in anatomy to Doctor Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best instructed man among us, on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman—a citizen of the world—yes, a true cosmopolite; for he will speak like a native of each clime and country on the globe, except our own forests, whither he is now going. Nor is all this what I most admire in him.’

‘Indeed!’ said Elinor, who had listened with a woman’s interest to the description of such a man. ‘Yet this is admirable enough.’

‘Surely it is,’ replied her lover, ‘but far less so than his natural gift of adapting himself to every variety of character, insomuch that all men—and women too, Elinor—shall find a mirror of themselves in this wonderful painter. But the greatest wonder is yet to be told.’

‘Nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than these,’ said Elinor, laughing, ‘Boston is a perilous abode for the poor gentleman. Are you telling me of a painter, or a wizard?’

*This story was suggested by an anecdote of Stuart, related in Dunlap’s History of the Arts of Design—a most entertaining book to the general reader, and a deeply interesting one, we should think, to the artist.

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‘In truth,’ answered he, ‘that question might be asked much more seriously than you suppose. They say that he paints not merely a man’s features, but his mind and heart. He catches the secret sentiments and passions, and throws them upon the canvas, like sunshine—or perhaps, in the portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal fire. It is an awful gift,’ added Walter, lowering his voice from its tone of enthusiasm. ‘I shall be almost afraid to sit to him.’

‘Walter, are you in earnest?’ exclaimed Elinor.

‘For Heaven’s sake, dearest Elinor, do not let him paint the look which you now wear,’ said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed. ‘There: it is passing away now, but when you spoke, you seemed frightened to death, and very sad besides. What were you thinking of?’

‘Nothing; nothing,’ answered Elinor, hastily. ‘You paint my face with your own fantasies. Well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit this wonderful artist.’

But when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful face of his mistress. It was a sad and anxious look, little in accordance with what should have beenn the feelings of a maiden on the eve of wedlock. Yet Walter Ludlow was the chosen of her heart.

‘A look![’] said Elinor to herself. ‘No wonder that it startled him, if it expressed what I sometimes feel. I know, by my own experience, how frightful a look may be. But it was all fancy. I thought nothing of it at the time—I have seen nothing of it since—I did but dream it.’

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And she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff, in which she meant that her portrait should be taken.

The painter, of whom they had been speaking, was not one of those native artists, who at a later period than this, borrowed their colors from the Indians, and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts. Perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and pre-arranged his destiny, he might have chosen to belong to that school without a master, in the hope of being at least original, since there were no works of art to imitate, nor rules to follow. But he had been born and educated in Europe. People said, that he had studied the grandeur or beauty of conception, and every touch of the master-hand, in all the most famous pictures, in cabinets and galleries, and on the walls of churches, till there was nothing more for his powerful mind to learn. Art could add nothing to its lessons, but Nature might. He had therefore visited a world, whither none of his professional brethren had preceded him, to feast his eyes on visible images, that were noble and picturesque, yet had never been transferred to canvas. America was too poor to afford other temptations to an artist of eminence, though many of the colonial gentry, on the painter’s arrival, had expressed a wish to transmit their lineaments to posterity, by means of his skill. Whenever such proposals were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant, and seemed to look him through and through. If he beheld a sleek and comfortable visage, though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture, and golden guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and the reward. But if the

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face were the index of any thing uncommon, in thought, sentiment, or experience; or if he met a beggar in the street, with a white beard and a furrowed brow; or if sometimes, a child happened to look up and smile: he would exhaust all the art on them, that he denied to wealth.

Pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became an object of general curiosity. If few or none could appreciate the technical merit of his productions, yet there were points, in regard to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgement [sic] of the amateur. He watched the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing Nature herself, as him who seemed to rival her. Their admiration, it must be owned, was tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country. Some deemed it an offence against the Mosaic law, and even a presumptuous mockery of the Creator, to bring into existence such lively images of his creatures. Others, frightened at the art which could raise phantoms at will, and keep the form of the dead among the living, were inclined to consider the painter as a magician, or perhaps the famous Black Man of old witch-times, plotting mischief in a new guise. These foolish fancies were more than half believed, among the mob. Even in superior circles, his character was invested with a vague awe, partly rising like smoke-wreaths from the popular superstitions, but chiefly caused by the varied knowledge and talents which he made subservient to his profession.

Being on the eve of marriage, Walter Ludlow and Elinor were eager to obtain their portraits, as the first

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of what, they doubtless hoped, would be a long series of family pictures. The day after the conversations above recorded, they visited the painter’s rooms. A servant ushered them into an apartment, where, though the artist himself was not visible, there were personages, whom they could hardly forbear greeting with reverence. They knew, indeed, that the whole assembly were but pictures, yet felt it impossible to separate the idea of life and intellect from such striking counterfeits. Several of the portraits were known to them, either as distinguished characters of the day, or their private acquaintances. There was Governor Burnett, looking as if he had just received an undutiful communication from the House of Representatives, and were inditing a most sharp response. Mr. Cooke hung beside the ruler whom he opposed, sturdy, and somewhat puritanical, as befitted a popular leader. The ancient lady of Sir William Phipps eyed them from the wall, in ruff and farthingale, an imperious old dame, not unsuspected of witchcraft. John Winslow, then a very young man, wore the expression of warlike enterprise, which long afterwards made him a distinguished general. Their personal friends were recognised at a glance. In most of the pictures, the whole mind and character were brought out on the countenance, and concentrated into a single look, so that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly resembled themselves to strikingly as the portraits did.

Among these modern worthies, there were two old bearded Saints, who had almost vanished into the darkening canvas. There was also a pale, but unfaded Madonna, who had perhaps been worshipped in Rome,

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and now regarded the lovers with such a mild and holy look, that they longed to worship too.

‘How singular a thought,’ observed Walter Ludlow, ‘that this beautiful face has been beautiful for above two hundred years! Oh, if all beauty would endure so well! Do you not envy her, Elinor?’

‘If Earth were Heaven, I might,’ she replied, ‘But where all things fade, how miserable to be the one that could not fade!’

‘This dark old St. Peter has a fierce and ugly scowl, saint though he be,’ continued Walter. ‘He troubles me. But the Virgin looks kindly at us.’

‘Yes; but very sorrowfully, methinks,’ said Elinor.

The easel stood beneath these three old pictures, sustaining one that had been recently commence. After a little inspection, they began to recognize the features of their own minister, the Rev. Dr. Coleman, growing into shape and life, as it were, out of a cloud.

‘Kind old man!’ exclaimed Elinor. ‘He gazes at me, as if he were about to utter a word of paternal advice.’

‘And at me,’ said Walter, ‘as if he were about to shake his head and rebuke me, for some suspected iniquity. But so does the original. I shall never feel quite comfortable under his eye, till we stand before him to be married.’

They now heard a footstep on the floor, and turning, beheld the painter, who had been some moments in the room, and had listened to a few of their remarks. He was a middle-aged man, with a countenance well worthy of his own pencil. Indeed, by the picturesque, though careless arrangement of his rich dress, and,

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perhaps, because his soul dwelt always among painted shapes, he looked somewhat like a portrait himself. His visitors were sensible of a kindred between the artist and his works, and felt as if one of the pictures had stept from the canvas to salute them.

Walter Ludlow, who was slightly known to the painter, explained the object of their visit. While he spoke, a sunbeam was falling athwart his figure and Elinor’s, with so happy an effect, that they also seemed living pictures of youth and beauty, gladdened by bright fortune. The artist was evidently struck.

‘My easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and my stay in Boston must be brief,’ said he, thoughtfully; then after an observant glance, he added: ‘but your wishes shall be gratified, though I disappoint the chief Justice and Madam Oliver. I must not lose this opportunity, for the sake of painting a few ells of broadcloth and brocade.’

The painter expressed a desire to introduce both their portraits into one picture, and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. This plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected, because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room which it was intended to decorate. Two half length portraits were therefore fixed upon. After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influence over their fates the painter was about to acquire.

‘The old women of Boston affirm,’ continued he, ‘that after he has once got possession of a person’s face and figure, he may paint him in any act or situation whatever—and the picture will be prophetic. Do you believe it?’

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‘Not quite,’ said Elinor, smiling. ‘Yet if he has such magic, there is something so gentle in his manner, tht I am sue he will use it well.’

It was the painter’s choice to proceed with both the portraits at the same time, assigning as a reason, in the mystical languise which he sometimes used, that the faces threw light upon each other. Accordingly, he gave now a touch to Walter, and now to Elinor, and the features of one and the other began to start forth so vividly, that it appeared as if he triumphant art would actually disengage them from the canvas. Amid the rich light and deep shade, they beheld their phantom selves. But, though the likeness promised to be perfect, they were not quite satisfied with the expression; it seemed more vague than in most of the painter’s works. He, however, was satisfied with the prospect of success, and being much interested in the lovers, employed his leisure moments unknown to them, in making a crayon sketch of their two figures. During their sittings, he engaged them in conversation, and kindled up their faces with characteristic traits, which, though continually varying, it was his purpose to combine and fix. At length he announced, that, at their next visit, both the portraits would be ready for delivery.

‘If my pencil will but be true to my conception, in the few last touches which I meditate,’ observed he, ‘these two pictures which I meditate,’ observed he, ‘these two pictures will be my very best performances. Seldom, indeed, has an artist such subjects.’

While speaking, he still bent his penetrative eye upon them, nor withdrew it till they had reached the bottom of the stairs.

Nothing, in the whole circle of human vanities, takes stronger hold of the imagination, than this affair of

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having a portrait painted. Yet why should it be so? The looking-glass, the polished globes of the andirons, the mirror-like water, and all other reflecting surfaces, continually present us with portraits, or rather ghosts of ourselves, which we glance at, and straightway forget them. But we forget them, only because they vanish. It is the idea of duration—of earthly immortality—that gives such a mysterious interest to our own portraits. Walter and Elinor were not insensible to this feeling, and hastened to the painter’s rooms, punctually at the appointed hour, to meet those pictured shapes, which were to be their representatives with posterity. The sunshine flashed after them into the apartment, but left it somewhat gloomy, as they closed the door.

Their eyes were immediately attracted to their portraits, which rested against the farthest wall of the room. At the first glance, through the dim light and the distance, seeing themselves in precisely their natural attitudes, and with all the air that they recognised so well, they uttered a simultaneous exclamation of delight.

‘There we stand,’ cried Walter, enthusiastically, ‘fixed in sunshine forever! No dark passions can gather on our faces!’

‘No,’ said Elinor, more calmly; ‘no dreary change can sadden us.’

This was said while they were approaching, and had yet gained only an imperfect view of the pictures. The painter, after saluting them, busied himself at a table in completing a crayon sketch, leaving his visitors to form their own judgment as to his perfected labors. At intervals, he sent a glance from beneath his deep eye-brows, watching their countenances in profile, with his

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pencil suspended over the sketch. They had now stood some moments, each in front of the other’s picture, contemplating it with entranced attention, but without uttering a word. At length, Walter stepped forward—then back—viewing Elinor’s portrait in various lights, and finally spoke.

‘Is there not a change?’ said he, in a doubtful and meditative tone. ‘Yes; the perception of it grows more vivid, the longer I look. It is certainly the same picture that I saw yesterday; the dress—the features—all are the same; and yet something is altered.’

‘Is then the picture less like than it was yesterday?’ inquired the painter, now drawing near, with irrepressible interest.

‘The features are perfect Elinor,’ answered Walter; ‘and, at the first glance, the expression seemed also her’s. [sic] But, I could fancy that the portrait has changed countenance, while I have been looking at it. The eyes are fixed on mine with a strangely sad and anxious expression. Nay, it is grief and terror! Is this like Elinor?’

‘Compare the living face with the pictured one,’ said the painter.

Walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started. Motionless and absorbed—fascinated, as it were—in contemplation of Walter’s portrait, Elinor’s face had assumed precisely the expression of which he hahd just been complaining. Had she practised for whole hours before a mirror, she could not have caught the look so successfully. Had the picture itself been a mirror, it could not have thrown back her present aspect, with stronger and more melancholy truth. She appeared

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quite unconscious of the dialogue between the artist and her lover.

‘Elinor,’ exclaimed Walter, in amazement, ‘what change has come over you?’

She did not hear him, nor desist from her fixed gaze, till he seized her hand, and thus attracted her notice; then, with a sudden tremor, she looked from the picture to the face of the original.

‘Do you see no change in your portrait?’ asked she.

‘In mine—None!’ replied Walter, examining it. ‘But let me see! Yes; there is a slight change—an improvement, I think, in the picture, though none in the likeness. It has a livelier expression than yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes, and about to be uttered from the lips. Now that I have caught the look, it becomes very decided.’

While he was intent on these observation, Eldinor turned to the painter. She regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he repaid her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore, she could but vaguely guess.

‘That look!’ whispered she, and shuddered. ‘How came it there?’

‘Madam,’ said the painter, sadly, taking her hand, and leading her apart, ‘in both these pictures, I have painted what I saw. The artist—the true artist—must look beneath the exterior. It is his gift—his proudest, but often a melancholy one—to see the inmost soul, and, by a power indefinable even to himself, to make it glow or darken upon the canvas, in glances that express the thought and sentiment of years. Would that I might convince myself of error in the present instance!’

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They had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk, hands almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church-towers, thatched cottages, old thunder stricken trees, oriental and antique costume, and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist’s idle moment. Turning them over, with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch of two figures was disclosed.

‘If I have failed,[’] continued he;—‘if your heart does not see itself reflected in your own portrait—if you have no secret cause to trust my delineation of the other—it is not yet too late to alter them. I might change the action of these figures too. But would it influence the event?’

He directed her notice to the sketch. A thrill ran through Elinor’s frame; a shriek was upon her lips; but she stifled it, with the self-command that becomes habitual to all, who hide thoughts of fear and anguish within their bosoms. Turning from the table, she perceived that Walter had advanced near enough to have seen the sketch, though she could not determine whether it had caught his eye.

‘We will not have the pictures altered,’ said she, hastily. ‘If mine is sad, I shall but look the gayer for the contrast.’

‘Be it so,’ answered the painter, bowing. ‘May your griefs be such fanciful ones, that only your picture may mourn for them! For your joys—may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely face, till it quite belie my art!’

After the marriage of Walter and Elinor, the pictures formed the two most splendid ornaments of their abode. They hung side by side, separated by a narrow panel,

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appearing to eye each other constantly, yet always returning the gaze of the spectator. Travelled gentlemen, who professed a knowledge of such subjects, reckoned these among the most admirable specimens of modern portraiture; while common observers compared them with the originals, feature by feature, and were rapturous in praise of the likeness. But, it was on a third class,—neither travelled connoisseurs nor common observers, but people of natural sensibility—that the pictures wrought their strongest effect. Such persons might gaze carelessly at first, but, becoming interested, would return day after day, and study these painted faces like the pages of a mystic volume. Walter Ludlow’s portrait attracted their earliest notice. In the absence of himself and his bride, they sometimes disputed as to the expression which the painter had intended to throw upon the features; all agreeing that there was a look of earnest import, though no two explained it alike. There was less diversity of opinion in regard to Elinor’s picture. They differed, indeed, in their attempts to estimate the nature and depth of the gloom that dwelt upon her face, but agreed that it was gloom, and alien from the natural temperament of their youthful friend. A certain fanciful person announced, as the result of much scrutiny, that both these pictures were parts of one design, and that the melancholy strength of feeling, in Elinor’s countenance, bore reference to the more vivid emotion, or, as he termed it, the wild passion, in that of Walter. Though unskilled in the art, he even began a sketch, in which the action of the two figures was to correspond with their mutual expression.

It was whispered among friends, that, day by day,

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Elinor’s face was assuming a deeper shade of pensiveness, which threatened soon to render her too true a counterpart of her melancholy picture. Walter, on the other hand, instead of acquiring the vivid look which the painter had given him on the canvas, became reserved and downcast, with no outward flashes of emotion, however it might be smouldering within. In course of time, Elinor hung a gorgeous curtain of purple silk, wrought with flowers, and fringed with heavy golden tassels, before the pictures, under pretence that the dust would tarnish their hues, or the light dim them. it was enough. Her visiters felt, that the massive folds of the silk must never be withdrawn, nor the portraits mentioned in her presence.

Time wore on; and the painter came again. He had been far enough to the north to see the silver cascade of the Crystal Hills, and to look over the vast round of cloud and forest, from the summit of New-England’s loftiest mountain. But he did not profane that scene by the mockery of his art. He had also lain in a canoe on the bosom of lake George, making his soul the mirror of its loveliness and grandeur, till not a picture in the Vatican was more vivid than his recollection. He had gone with the Indian hunters to Niagara, and there, again, had flung his hopeless pencil down the precipice, feeling that he could as soon paint the roar, as aught else that goes to make up the wondrous cataract. In truth, it was seldom his impulse to copy natural scenery, except as a frame work for the delineations of the human form and face, instinct with thought, passion, or suffering. With store of such, his adventurous ramble had enriched him; the stern dignity of Indian

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chiefs; the dusky loveliness of Indian girls; the domestic life of wigwams; the stealthy march; the battle beneath gloomy pine-trees; the frontier fortress with its garrison; the anomaly of the old French partizan, bred in courts, but grown gray in shaggy deserts; such were the scenes and portraits that he had sketched. The glow of perilous moments; flashes of wild feeling; struggles of fierce power—love, hate, grief frenzy—in a word, all the worn-out heart of the old earth, had been revealed to him under a new form. His portfolio was filled with graphic illustrations of the volume of his memory, which genius would transmute into its own substance, and imbue with immortality. He felt that the deep wisdom in his art, which he had sought so far, was found.

But, amid stern or lovely nature, in the perils of the forest, or its overwhelming peacefulness, still there had been two phantoms, the companions of his way. Like all other men around whom an engrossing purpose wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of human kind. He had no aim—no pleasure—no sympathies—but what were ultimately connected with his art. Though gentle in manner, and upright in intent and action, he did not possess kindly feelings; his heart was cold; no living creature could be brought near enough to keep him warm. For these two beings, however, he had felt, in its greatest intensity, the sort of interest which always allied him to the subjects of his pencil. He had pryed [sic] into their souls with his keenest insight, and pictured the result upon their features, with his utmost skill, so as barely to fall short of that standard which no genius ever reached, his own severe conception.

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He had caught from the duskiness of the future—at least, so he fancied—a fearful secret, and had obscurely revealed it on the portraits. So much of himself—of his imagination and all other powers—had been lavished on the study of Walter and Elinor, that he almost regarded them as creations of his own, like the thousands with which he had peopled the realms of Picture. Therefore did they flit through the twilight of the woods, hover on the mist of waterfalls, look forth from the mirror of the lake, nor melt away in the noon-tide sun. They haunted his pictorial fancy, not as mockeries of life, nor pale goblins of the dead, but in the guise of portraits, each with the unalterable expression which his magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. He could not recross the Atlantic, till he had again beheld the originals of those airy pictures.

‘Oh, glorious art!’ thus mused the enthusiastic painter, as he trod the street. ‘Thou art the image of the Creator’s own. The innumerable forms, that wander in nothingness, start into being at thy beck. The dead live again. Thou recallest them to their old scenes, and givest their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. Thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of History. With thee, there is no Past; for, at thy touch, all that is great becomes forever present; and illustrious men live through long ages, in the visible performance of the very deeds, which made them what they are. oh, potent Art! as thou bringest the faintly revealed Past to stand in that narrow strip of sunlight, which we call Now, canst thou summon the shrouded Future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it! Am I not [t]hy Prophet?’

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Thus, with a proud, yet melancholy fervor, did he almost cry aloud, as he passed through the toilsome street, among people that knew not of his reveries, nor could understand nor care for them. It is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. Unless there be those around him, by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires, and hopes will become extravagant, and he the semblance, perhaps the reality, of a madman. Reading other bosoms, with an acuteness almost preternatural, the painter failed to see the disorder of his own.

‘And this should be the house,’ said he, looking up and down the front, before he knocked. ‘Heaven help my brains! That picture! Methinks it will never vanish. Whether I look at the windows or the door, there it is framed within them, painted strongly, and glowing in the richest tints—the faces of the portraits—the figures and action of the sketch!’

He knocked.

‘The Portraits! Are they within?’ enquired he, of the domestic; then recollecting himself—‘your master and mistress! Are they at home?’

‘They are, Sir,’ said the servant, adding, as he noticed that picturesque aspect of which the painter could never divest himself,—‘and the Portraits too!’

The guest was admitted into a parlor, communicating by a central door, with an interior room of the same size. As the first apartment was empty, he passed to the entrance of the second, within which, his eyes were greeted by those living personages, as well as their pictures representatives, who had long been the objects of so singular an interest. he involuntarily paused on the threshold.

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They had not perceived his approach. Walter and Elinor were standing before the portraits, whence the former had just flung back the rich and voluminous folds of the silken curtain, holding its golden tassel with one hand, while the other grasped that of his bride. The pictures, concealed for months, gleamed forth again in undiminished speldnor, appearing to throw a sombre light across the room, rather than to be disclosed by a borrowed radiance. That of Elinor had been almost prophetic. A pensiveness, and next a gentle sorrow, had successively dwelt upon her countenance, deepening, with the lapse of time into a quiet anguish. A mixture of affright would now have made it the very expression of the portrait. Walter’s face was moody and dull, or animated only by fitful flashes, which left a heavier darkness for their momentary illumination. he looked from Elinor to her portrait, and thence to hiw own, in the contemplation of which he finally stood absorbed.

The painter seemed to hear the step of Destiny approaching behind him, on its progress towards its victims. A strange thought darted into his mind. Was not his own the form in which that Destiny had embodied itself, and he a chief agent of the coming evil which he had foreshadowed?

Still, Walter remained silent before the picture, communing with it, as with his own heart, and abandoning himself to the spell of evil influence, that the painter had cast upon the features. Gradually his eyes kindled; while as Elinor watched the increasing wildness of his face, her own assumed a look of terror; and when at last, he turned upon her, the resemblance of both to their portraits was complete.

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‘Our fate is upon us!’ howled Walter. ‘Die!’

Drawing a knife, he sustained her, as she was sinking to the ground, and aimed it at her bosom. In the action, and in the look and attitude of each, the painter beheld the figures of his sketch. The picture with all its tremendous coloring, was finished.

‘Hold, madman!’ cried he sternly.

He had advanced from the door, and interposed himself between the wretched beings, with the same sense of power to regulate their destiny, as to alter a scene upon the canvas. He stood like a magician, controlling the phantoms which he had evoked.

‘What!’ muttered Walter Ludlow, as he relapsed from fierce excitement into sullen gloom. ‘Does Fate impede its own decree?’

‘Wretched lady!’ said the painter. ‘Did I not warn you?’

‘You did,’ replied Elinor calmly, as her terror gave place to the quiet grief which it had disturbed. ‘But—I loved him!’

Is there not a deep moral to the tale? Could the result of one, or all our deeds, be shadowed forth and set before us—some would call it Fate, and hurry onward—others be swept along by their passionate desires—and none be turned aside by the Prophetic Pictures.

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THE LEAN OLD MAN.

BY SEBA SMITH.

I fell asleep; and my chainless soul

Far abroad on fancy’s pinions flew;

It soared to the sky, and away to the pole,

And saw things old and new.

I thought I could compass the land and sea,

Look away where a thousand years had fled,

And behold all that was, or that is to be,

Like a spirit of the dead.

I looked on that bustling, busy crew,

Earth’s children, great and small;

But a lean old man, who met my view,

Seemed busiest of them al.

And stranger still it seemed to me,

That through the wide earth or air,

Not a single spot could I ever see,

But that same old man was there.

I saw a young grove in its leafy dress,

And I sought its cooling shade,

And flowers were springing in gladfulness,

Where the cherishing breezes played.

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But the old man was there, and his work begun,

For his touch on the trees was found,

And the branches soon withered, and one by one

Their old trunks strew’d the ground.

I saw him again in a crowded town,

As he hurried through the street,

And steeples and towers were crumbling down

And lying beneath his feet.

I lean’d against a castle gate,

’Twas barr’d and bolted strong;

Within were seen the proud and great,

And I heard their mirth and song.

The old man came, and the bolts gave way,

he frowned, and the mirth and song were o’er;

And the castle walls in ruins lay,

And the proud ones were no more.

A little child, a rose-lip’d boy,

Came wandering idly by;

His face was smooth, and light and joy

Were dancing in his eye.

That old man’s grasp was quick and strong,

As he seiz’d his hand and flew—

I watched them all their journey long,

And mark’d what changes grew.

’Twas but a moment ere that child

Was a feeble gray old man;

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And his guide look’d on him and grimly smiled,

But still the couple ran.

A moment more and his limbs grew cold,

And he shrunk from the grasp of his guide,

And fell at his feet, for his sands were told,

And the light in his eye had died.

I wondered and wept, that the bright and fair

Must all feel his deadly sway—

When a trumpet came sounding through the air,

And the sky like a scroll rolled away.

And an angel came down on his wings of gold,

Whose brightness outshone the sun,

And he cried, as he flew, ‘thy sands are told,

And thy race, O Time, is run.’

-----
[p. 311]

DEATH OF AN INFANT,
IN
ITS MOTHER’S ARMS.

BY MRS SIGOURNEY.

‘He slumbers long, sweet Mother,

Upon thy gentle breast,

Thou’rt weary now with watching,

Sweet Mother, go to rest:

There seems no pain to stir him,

The peril sure is past,—

For see—his soft hand clasped in thine,

He heeds nor storm nor blast.

Why dost thou gaze so wildly?

Why strain thy strong embrace?

Unlock thy fearful clasping,

And let me see his face.’

So down that mother laid him

In her agony of care,

And kissed that cold and marble brow

With calm and fix’d despair.

‘Oh weep!—there’s holy healing

In every gushing tear,

Nor question thus that beauteous clay,

The angel is not here,—

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No shut of rose at even-tide,

Was with a peace so deep,

As thus thy youngest, fairest one

Sank down in dovelike sleep.’

Where best he lov’d to hide him,

In that dear, sheltering spot,

Just there, his tender spirit passed—

Pass’d and she knew it not.

His fond lip never trembled

Nor sigh’d the parting breath,

When strangely for his nectar’d draught

He drank the cup of death.

‘Full was thy lot of blessing

To charm his cradle hours,

To touch his sparkling fount of thought,

And breathe his breath of flowers,—

And take thy daily lesson

From the smile that breathed so free

Of what in holier, brighter realms

The pure in heart must be.

No more thy twilight musing

May with his image shine,

When in that lonely hour of love,

He laid his cheek to thine,—

So still and so confiding,

That cherish’d babe would be,

So like a sinless guest from heaven,

And yet a part of thee.

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p. 313

But now, his blessed portion,

Is o’er the cloud to soar,

And spread a never-wearied wing

Where sorrows are no more,—

With cherubim and seraphim

To tread the ethereal plain—

High honor hath it been to thee

To swell that glorious train.’

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[p. 314]

LINES.

‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.’

BY R. C. WATERSTON.

Not all the beauties of this joyous earth,—

Its smiling vallies, or its azure sky,

Or the sweet blossoms that in quiet mirth

Turn their soft cheeks to winds that wander by,

Can please enough the ear, or satisfy the eye.

The warbling fountain with its silver shower,

The curling waves dissolving on the shore,

The clouds that feed with dew each infant flower,

The small stream’s gentle song, the ocean’s roar,

All give the mind delight, and yet it pants for more.

The world is not our home, and thus our eye

Is ever reaching upwards,—like the dove,

That seeks a nest beneath a summer’s sky,

So we amid earth’s beauty, gaze above,

And yearn to gain a sphere of holier joy and love.

-----

a Native American woman helps a white man on rocks where a boat has wrecked
Drawn by T. Birch.      Engraved by J. B. Neagle.
THE WRECKED MARINER.

-----
[p. 315]

THE PROPHECY OF UIQUERA.

‘A curse be ever on thy race—

Down to a well-earned doom they go—

Thankless and dishonored slaves.’

BY THE AUTHOR OF

‘THE SOUTHWEST’ AND ‘LAFITTE.’

The life and times of Charles of England, the gayest and most gallant monarch, since the days of that oriental potentate, so famous for wisdom and architecture, have been prolific themes, not only for the elegant pens of the courtiers of the period, and the graver historian, but for the exercise of the genius and talents of graceful female biographers of the present age.

It is at the close of this era of gallantry, beauty and wit, an era, in which the warlike knight began to merge into the pacific gentleman of hound and horn, and tournaments gave place to contests in the political arena, and when the memory of this erring but amiable prince lived only in the hearts of his subjects,—his vices forgotten his virtues alone remembered,—that we open the first scene of our tale.

* * * * * * *

‘Nay, sweet Lady Mary—your eyes betray your heart! That diamond trembling upon their rich fringes contradicts your words;’ and the speaker spurred the high-blooded animal upon which he was mounted, closer to the side of the ambling palfrey, ridden by the lovely

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p. 316

girl he addrssed. ‘Say not I must forget you Mary! On the morrow, my uncle sends me to Eton. may not your love bless me, absent from you? Oh, recall, dear cousin, that chilling word! Say not there is no hope!’

A moment’s embarrassing silence ensued, when, crushing a tear which glittered beneath her dark eye-lashes, the maiden drew her veil closely over her face, and shaking her silken bridle, bounded forward with velocity, as if in the fleetness of her movements, she would annihilate the feelings which tortured her young bosom. With equal speed the youth galloped by her side down the solemn glades of the old forest, until they came in sight of the towers of an ancient castle, lifting themselves with gothic grandeur above the majestic oaks, which for centuries had encircled them.

The maiden was the daughter of its noble earl; and the honors, titles and wealth she inherited, were only equalled by her surpassing loveliness. Her complexion was like the purest ocean-pearl, which a mellow sun-set cloud has delicately tinted with its own roseate hue. Her dark chestnut hair escaped from beneath her riding hat, and floated around her shoulders in a cloud of natural tresses. Her eyes were large, and eloquent in their expression, and of the same rich brown shade of her hair. She had not yet numbered fifteen summers—a gay, wild, fascinating child, yet all the woman in the depth and fervor of her feelings.

Her form was moulded with the symmetry of a sylph’s; and as she bounded on her fleet courser through the wood, imagination might have deified her as the queen of the sylvan empire, through which she rode, and leader of its train of fairy nymphs.

The youth who accompanied her, was also surpassing-

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ly fair; a fitting mate for so sweet a dove. His hair was black as the raven’s plume which danced over his riding hood, and flowed in thick curls about his neck. His brows were arched and dark, and his forehead wore that lofty and noble air, said to be the birthright of England’s nobles. His eyes were exceedingly black, and a voluptuous langour dwelt about his mouth. The upper lip was curved slightly, evincing a native haughtiness of spirit. The contour of his face was a faultless oval. He counted perhaps seventeen winters and summers.

They were lovers.

As they came in sight of the distant turrets, the maiden reined in her spirited animal, and putting aside her veil, turned with a smile, like an April sunshine, whilst tears danced in her brilliant eyes, towards her companion:

‘Charles—you well know I love you. It is useless for me to attempt to disguise it. But—but—’ and as she paused and hesitated, the rich blood mounted to her cheek and brow, whilst she drooped her eyes in painful embarrassment.

‘But what? sweet Mary! Why, cousin, this silence and emotion?’ he enquired with animation,—his brow paleing [sic] with the presentiment of evil; and he laid his hand emphatically upon her arm as he spoke.

‘Charles! They tell me—that—that—’

‘Nay—torture me not with suspense,’ he cried, as she hesitated to proceed; and springing from his horse, he grasped with eager and enquiring anxiety both of her hands.

‘They tell me, my dear Charles—but oh, I will not

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p. 318

believe it,’ she added, bending her head till it rested upon his shoulder to conceal her emotion,—‘they tell me—you are the late king’s son!’

The poor youth relaxed his hold upon her bridle, which he had suddenly seized—the hand locked in the maiden’s, convulsively unclasped, and with a brow changed to the hue of death, he fell without a word, or sign of life to the earth.

* * * * * * *

A gay anniversary was announced for celebration in the halls of Eton. The princes, and nobles, and the beauty of the land were assembled there to honor the fête.

The venerable religious pile in which the concluding ceremonies of the day were held was living with beauty, and gorgeous with the display of diamonds and jewels, and the magnificent dresses of knights and gentlemen.

A youth, whose striking figure and handsome features created a murmur of surprise throughout the assembly, whilst one or two dowager countesses were seen to draw forth miniatures, and whispering, compare them amid many signs of intelligence, with his appearance, advanced with grace and modesty to receive, above all competitors, the highest collegiate honor of that day, to be conferred by the royal hands of James himself.

As he bent on one knee, and inclined his head to receive the golden chain and medal, a youth, near his own age, his unsuccessful rival for the distinction, with a lowering brow and small, deep set eyes, his hair, and such portions of his dress not concealed by his gown, cut after the popular fashion of the times of the long Parliament, rose boldly from his chair and cried in a loud, harsh tone:—

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p. 319

‘Hold! He whom you would thus honor, is the illegitimate son of Charles!’

All eyes turned in the direction of the audacious speaker, and the brow of the monarch grew black with indignation.

‘Young Cromwell! It is young Cromwell!’ passed from mouth to mouth, while surprise at this sudden and singular announcement, fixed every eye, alternately upon the malicious interrupter of the ceremonies, and upon the ill-fated Charles.

With a cry of despair that thrilled every bosom, and burying his face in the folds of his robe, the sensitive and disgraced youth rushed forth from the Chapel.

Many days afterwards, the rumour was rife among the Etonians, and in the higher circles of the kingdom, through which this strange tale was circulated, that the victim of young Cromwell’s malignity and revenge, who, with the true spirit of his grandsire, had expressed his bitterness against all associated with royalty and THE CHARLES, had fled an exile over sea to the ‘New World,’ as the continent of American was denominated, even at that comparatively late period.

* * * * * * *

The province, formerly, and now state, of Maine, where we transfer the scenes of this tale, is constituted of lands, originally possessed by several tribes of warlike Indians. The most powerful of these were the Kennebec and Penobscot tribes—names harsh and uneuphonious in the ear of an European.* The former dwelt

*The languages of the tribes once occupying the territory of the United States, follow the same laws characteristic of the languages of Europe.

The dialects of Europe become softer or harsher as they are

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on the banks of the beautiful river, to which they have left their name. Their hunting grounds extended west and south to the river Saco. Their eastern boundary was the Damariscotta river, which also formed the western limits of the Penobscots. This tribe possessed the lands watered by the river bearing its name. Their eastern limits were undefined, but constantly changing and enlarging with the progress of their conquests over their less powerful neighbors.

Between this tribe and the Kennebecs an hereditary war had existed, to use the emphatic figure of a late chief, ‘since the oldest oak of the forest was an acorn.’

They were also of different religions. The Kennebecs worshipped a spirit who they imagined presided over their rivers and lakes, whom they denominated Kenlascasca, or, The Angel of the Waters. In the limpid bosom of their divnity, they buried their dead, worshipped him in the descending rain, and propitiated him by human sacrifices, which they immolated in deep waters, when, in his anger, he suffered them to swell above their banks.

The Penobscots worshipped the great mountain, Coa-

spoken more northerly or southerly; so in Italy we find a language which has become but another term for poetry and melody.

Harsh consonants, gutturals and abrupt monosyllables, are peculiar to the dialects of the northern tribes of America; and, Penobscot, Androscoggin, Norridgwock, Saccarapac, Schoheghan, Monadnock, Cochreah, and Kennebunk, are sounds as characteristic of the languages of those tribes once inhabiting New England, as, Chitalusa, Homachitta, Alabama, Afalaya, Altamaha, Natches, Natchitoches, Mississippi, (whose original is Mesachébeé,) of the tribes of the South.

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lacas,* which lifted its blue head to the skies in the midst of their hunting grounds. When the storm-clouds gathered about his summit, and he veiled his face from them in displeasure, when his voice was heard in the loud thunder, and the glance of his angry eye seen in the lightnings, they trembled; and as a sacrifice, which should at the same time avert his wrath, and manifest their obedience and submission, they sacrificed by fire, a fawn of one spring.

Upon the summit of this mountain dwelt the priest of their religion, who administered in a rude temple, to which the whole tribe once a year performed pilgrimage, the sacred duties of his office. At this shrine, the young warrior sought success in battle—the maiden, in love, the injured, in justice or revenge.

The sage and prophet of his people, and visible presence of their divinity was denominated Uiquera, or The priest of the Mountain. He was aged, and gray hairs thinly sprinkled his bronzed and time-worn temples.

It was evening—an evening of that mild and hazy time, when Autumn is losing itself in winter, termed the Indian Summer, and peculiar to New England,—when the aged patriarch stood upon a rock in front of his hut, gazing upon the vast landscape beneath him, mellowed by the peculiar atmosphere of the season, to the soft, dreamy features of an Italian scene.

To the north, forests, tinged with mingled gold and purple, orange and vermillion, and dyed with a thousand intermediate hues,—a gorgeousness of scenery found only in America—and yet untrodden by others than the beast of prey, or of chase, and his Indian hunter, stretched away, league added to league, till they met

*Blue Hill, Campden, Maine.

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p. 322

the horizon. Still farther north, breaking with unequal lines this meeting of sky and woods, towered the summits of a chain of mountains, constituting the dividing ridge, between the waters flowing into the great river of the north, and the less majestic streams, that, coursing southward, seek the Atlantic sea. To the east and west, forests alone bounded the view. On the south, bays penetrated far inland nearly to the base of the mountain, and beyond, was the deep, restless sea, extending far away, until sky and ocean alone met the eye.

The aged man gazed upon the vast prospect thus spread out, like a map beneath him, and wondered as he gazed, at the greatness and power of the Great Spirit who created it.

‘Father!’ spoke tremulously a sweet and child-like voice.

‘My child!’ he said calmly turning, and placing his hand upon the head of a lovely maiden kneeling at his feet, the only daughter of the chief of her tribe.

‘Father—they teach me that you are favored by the good Manitoula. His aid I have come to seek, through you, his minister!’

‘It is thine, daughter—speak!’ he replied with dignity, and in a mild and encouraging tone.

‘Anasca, the young chief of the Kennebecs, with many gifts and promises of lands, and offers of peace and amity, demands me of my father in marriage!’ and the Indian maid bowed her head to the earth in silence, awaiting his reply.

‘Does this please the chief, thy father?’

‘Oh, I know not—the offer is tempting; and yet he should love me better than thus to sacrifice me!’

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‘Will it be a sacrifice, if it is to obey thy father’s will, my daughter?’

‘Oh, yes—yes—’

‘Lina, dost thou cherish hatred against the young warrior?’

‘No, oh no! but I love him not. I fear him!’ she added with energy.

‘Whom then dost thou love, child, that thou canst not love this youth? They tell me he is a brave young chief, and of noble bearing, though, perhaps, hasty and passionate withal.’

‘Love? love? oh, none but you and my father!’ she replied with the undisguised artlessness of her simple nature.

‘Daughter,’ said the seer solemnly, ‘it becomes us to make peace. If friendship may ensure between those so long at enmity, by this proposed union, it should be sought, but not at the sacrifice of thy happiness. Wilt thou wed him, maiden?’ he added abruptly, taking her hand and looking steadily into her face.

‘Oh no, no, no, father! I would rather the lightning of the Great Spirit in his anger, should consume me, than wed him! Oh save!—save me—my father!’ she cried, imploringly clinging to his robe.

‘Fear not, thou shalt not wed him, Lina,’ he said, smiling, raising her from her suppliant posture. ‘Where is this youth?’ he enquired, affectionately and soothingly parting the dark hair from her face as he gazed down into it.

‘I left him three mornings since with many of his warriors encamped opposite the council island. When I learned for what he came, with the swiftness of the brood bird when she seeks her nestling from the coming

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storm, I fled to the holy mountain, and thee, for shelter! Oh, wilt thou not give it to me, holy father?’ she added clasping his arm, and looking up into his face beseechingly.

‘Daughter—thou hast it already!’ he replied with emotion; ‘thou shalt not wed this stranger.’

‘False priest—thou liest!’ shouted a voice behind them; and a spear, thrown bey an unseen and unerring hand, simultaneously pierced the bosom of the patriarch. He fell to the earth with a deep groan, and the maiden uttering a shriek of terror and dismay, cast herself upon his bleeding body.

‘Welcome, my gentle fawn of the Lakes! thou hast found thy holy mountain will not protect thee, and thy priest is mortal—’ said the young Anasca tauntingly, approaching and raising her from the form of his victim. ‘Old man, I would not have slain thee, but thou wert poisoning this little bird’s talons and turning them against my own breast.’

‘Sacrilegious murderer!’ suddenly exclaimed the seer, rising upon one arm—his white hair sprinkled with blood, that in a warm current oozed from a wound in his breast, where the spear which inflicted it, still vibrated,—‘Scorner of religion and the Great Spirit of Earth and Sky! Thy doom and that of thy race is sealed!’ and his eye dilated and became radiant with prophetic inspiration as he continued. ‘Here! on the holy altar thou hast desecrated, do I anathematize thee! Every drop of this gurgling blood shall beget a curse upon thee and thine! Accursed be thy impious race! A people greater than thine—more numerous than the stars of heaven—shall take thy lands, thy power and thy name! Another century shall roll by, and thou

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shalt be remembered no more! Last chieftain of thy tribe!’ he continued with additional energy, ‘on thee, come all evil and all woe! Curses of sky and sea—cursed of air and earth—be thou accursed forever!’

‘Daughter!’ he continued with supernatural excitement, whilst the young chief stood appalled and transfixed with horror, before the wild air and prophetic language of the dying priest—‘daughter, blessed art thou above all the maidens of thy tribe! Thou shalt become a saviour of thy people and thy name. For every curse that follows this unholy assassin, shall a blessing come upon thee and thine. The people who shall bring woe to him, shall bring joy to thee! Thou—thyself—art destined to become the preserver of thy father’s tribe—and when all the nations of this land shall have dwindled like the mountain dews before the morning, at the approach of a race from the East, with faces white like the moon, and arms brighter than the sun, and more terrible than thunder, thy name shall exist—thy people be yet numbered among their nations. And, whilst the tribe of this impious assassin shall expire in their ignorance, a new and purer relition, revealed from the heavens, shall be taught thee by this new race, who with eyes like the deep blue of the noon-day sky, and faces white like the summer cloud, are to rule our land—and in the bosom of their great empire, thine own tribe shall dwell forever!’

Thus speaking, the last prophet of his religion and people, sunk back to the ground, and upwards, from the mountain altar of his religion and worship, his spirit took its flight to the world of mysteries.

* * * * * * *

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Podiac, is a romantic, rocky promontory projecting into the sea, and forming the southern shore of the bay of Casco, which, with its three hundred and sixty-five islands, penetrates the heart of Maine.

It is on this promontory, now called Cape Elizabeth, in honor of the Maiden Queen, that the scenes of our fifth chapter are laid, a few days after the death of the venerable seer, Uiquera.

One of the wild storms peculiar to that coast, had for three days poured its fury upon the sea, lashing it into foam. The fourth morning broke with cloudless brilliancy, and discovered the wreck of a ship, dismasted and in pieces, lying in a crevice on the extremity of the southern cape of the promontory—which, here dividing, form two points projecting farther into the sea than the main head-land. At the present day, both of these points are crowned by light-houses, the upper one of which is a favorite resort for the gay citizens of an adjacent seaport,* situated on a peninsula a few miles farther inland. But at the period of our tale it was the abode only of the sea-gull, who nested in the crevices of the cliffs, and bears and wolves, who mingled their howlings with the roaring of the tempests.

The storm had subsided, yet the waves rolled landward with violence, dashing against the cliffs with a loud noise, flinging the spray high over their summits and reverberating in hollow sounds through its deep caverns.

The rising sun shone cheerfully upon the scene, dissipating the hurrying clouds, and shedding an enlivening radiance over nature.

Firmly wedged between two rocks, at the extremity

*Portland, Maine.

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of the southern point of the cape, lay the wreck, its masts broken off, a jury-mast, upon which a sail was brailed up, and only a portion of the hull visible above the waves, which rolling continually over it, surged against the overhanging rocks.

The only living being upon which the sun shone, was a young man, the sole survivor of the ill-fated bark, who, pale from fatigue,—his dark hair and garments heavy and dripping with brine—was laboriously ascending from the wreck, the sides of the rock, to escape the surge, which, several times, nearly washed him off into the sea.

With a bold eye and a strong arm, although nearly exhausted, he still clung to such projections as the face of the cliff afforded, and soon gained a secure footing upon the summit of a flat rock beyond the reach of the waves. Here, he bent devoutly on one knee, and lifted his eyes and hands in a prayer of thankfulness for his deliverance.

Whilst in this attitude, a female figure, flying rather than running, along the verge of the cliff above him, intercepted his vision. Surprised, he followed it for a moment with his eyes, when it disappeared in a crevice of the promontory. The next moment, another form clad like an Indian hunter, with equal speed, as if in pursuit, bounded along the cliff and was also lost to his sight in the gorge.

An instant of surprise and expectation elapsed, when the airy and graceful figure he had first seen—a young and beautiful Indian maiden, issued from the gap which for a few seconds had concealed her, and with the fleetness of the dove pursued by a hawk, approached the

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spot where he still kneeled. Her raven hair flew wildly about her head, and her robe of variegated feathers fluttered like wings around her person. Over the sharp-pointed rocks and slippery sea-weed she bounded safely, and was darting past him with the air and manner of one who would plunge headlong into the sea, when her eye caught the form of the youth.

She suddenly checked her flight, and gazed upon him for a moment with a look of timidity and indecision—one foot advanced as if she would still fly, and a hand extended towards him entreatingly. For an instant, like a beautiful statue she stood in this attitude, and then, with strange confidence advanced towards him—gazes steadily into his face for a second, and then with the unsuspecting confidence of a child who fears no danger, softly and timidly placed her hand upon his arm, while her dark eyes full of eloquent pleading, silently sought his protection.

The youth at once understood this language, more eloquent than that of tongue or pen. Scarcely had they interchanged this mutual understanding and confidence, when the young warrior Anasca, who had torn her from the corpse of the prophet, and borne her to his tribe, who were then hunting on the south shore of the Casco, from whom she had just escaped, preferring death, to a union with one she loved not—appeared in sight, his eye flashing with rage, and his arm extended in the act of launching his hunting spear.

The stranger drew forth from his breast a small Genöese stiletto, sprung to his feet, and met him face to face. The surprise of the Indian was unlimited! The sudden

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appearance of one of a race he had never before seen—his hostile attitude—his manifest design to protect the lovely and trembling fugitive, combined with recollection of the prophecy of the dying seer, paralysed, and fixed him to the spot, with astonishment and dismay.

As he stood thus under the influence of these emotions, the youth sprang upon him and seized his spear. The act restored him to his self-possession. He became once more the warrior whose name—Anasca, The fearless—he had won by his prowess and deeds of arms, by which he had already signalized himself above the warriors and preceding chieftains of his tribe.

For a few moments the two young combatants contended, with all their skill and bravery, when, with a well-aimed blow of his stiletto the youth laid the young chief dead at his feet.

With a cry of joy, Lina rushed into the arms of her preserver.

* * * * * * *

The warriors of the Penobscot tribe had assembled upon the island in the river which bears their name, where their chief resided, and the national counsels convened—to consult upon the expediency of making an incursion upon the territory of the Kennebecs, for the recovery of their chief’s daughter, and to avenge the insult they had received. In the midst of their deliberations a birch canoe was discovered, ascending the river, with a small white sail, such as the oldest warrior had never before seen, spread to the south wind, and containing two persons. As no danger was to be apprehended from so small a party, the chief and his warriors awaited its approach in silence.

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As the boat came nearer, a visible emotion was manifest among the spectators.

‘It is the chief’s daughter!’

‘It is Lina!’

‘My child! my daughter!’ cried the old chief, rushing to the strand, where he embraced his child as she bounded from the canoe into his extended arms.

Her companion, who had been concealed by the canvas sail he had taken from the wreck, to forward their escape, after, with Lina’s guidance he had secured one of the boats of Anasca’s tribe, now stepped upon the beach; and baring his head, he placed his hand upon his heart, in token of amity.

The chief started back with an exclamation of surprise at his strange beauty and attire, and in the first emotion of his feelings, fell with his face to the ground, followed in this attitude of reverence, by all the warriors surrounding him, who shared his astonishment and superstition.

‘It is the Good Spirit of the Mountain!’ at length exclaimed the chief rising from his posture of adoration. ‘It is he, to whom the holy prophet, many moons ago, bade me resign my authority, my daughter and my religion, if I would preserve them all!’

And as he ceased speaking, he placed his bow and quiver, spear and coronet of feathers at the feet of the young Englishman. Then taking the hand of his daughter, he placed it in that of the youth, and commanding his warriors to yield them obedience and allegiance, he, slowly, and with his hands clasped over his breast, retired through the crowd, who silently and with reverence gazed wonderingly after his retreating form.

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Secluding himself on the holy mountain, he there passed a life of devotion, having after the abdication of his power, been converted to the Christian faith, by his daughter, who became a convert to the religion of her husband.

* * * * * * *

The aboriginal tribes of New England, with but one exception are now nearly extinct. The warlike and ambitious Kennebecs have melted away like snow. The Penobscots still exist, inhabitants and possessors of the river-island, originally and still the seat of their national councils, and the abode of their chief. Their existence and independence are acknowledged by the state which includes their territory, and delegates have represented them in her legislative conventions.

They are devout Catholics; and in a neat chapel erected upon their island, worship the God of the Christians.

They are governed by a young Chieftainess, whose personal charms bear testimony to those of Lina, her lovely ancestress, the bride of the exiled Charles, and which if tradition says truly, are transmitted to her descendant.

The graves of the two lovers, who died—in the spirit of that love which will bear no separation—within a few hours of one another, are still pointed out by the aged warriors of the tribe, in a grove of dark pines, on the site of the sacred fane of their ancestors, and near the entrance to the cave where dwelt the venerable prophet of the Holy Mountain.

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[p. 332]

SONG OF THE SUNBEAM.

’Twas a rich warm ray, a sunbeam bright,

That carol’d thus, as it moved to the west;

A moment it stay’d on the forest’s height,

Then slowly sank to its place of rest.

‘Through a little chink in the massive wall

I darted me down on the dungeon floor,

And the captive strove to the light to crawl,

As the glad warm ray play’d his features o’er.

In secret the miser his treasures survey’d

In his well-barr’d room from intrusion free;

But I peer’d through a hole a moth had made,

And he sprang to his feet for fear of me.

I glanced on the fringe of the maiden’s eye,

And dried up the tear that trembled there,

As she knelt her beneath the glorious sky,

And breathed out a fervent and holy prayer.

The fair young mother sat and smil’d,

And her fingers stray’d through its silky hair,

As I played on the cheek of her laughing child,

And its ringlets danced in the summer air.

I kiss’d the dew from the violet’s cup,

And sipp’d of the sweets that lay conceal’d;

I lifted the leaves of the rose-bud up,

And its rich young blush to the eye reveal’d[.]

-----
p. 333

On the mountain top, in the vale below,

I have glanced on the rock, and nurtur’d the flower;

Have been to the deep where the sea-shells glow,

And painted the drops of the falling shower.

The bright fish leap’d in the little brook,

And the bird flew up with a joyous wing,

And the herd stood still with a happy look,

For I’ve cheer’d or warm’d every living thing.’

’Twas a rich warm ray, a sunbeam bright,

That carol’d thus, as it moved to the west;

A moment it staid on the forest’s height,

Then slowly sank to its place of rest.

E. O. S.

-----
[p. 334]

THE MARTYR’S THIRST.

‘I thirst to know that the winds of heaven are wafting me to that shore,’ is an expression more than once used in the Journal of a late Liberian missionary, who was the first sent out to Africa by the order to which he belonged.

COX’S MEMOIRS.

BY B. B. THATCHER..

‘I thirst, I thirst,’ he cried, ‘to know

When I may see the shore,

But dimly now revealed in dreams,

Yet dearer, more and more,

As thus I thirst afresh to feel

The soft winds lift this lingering keel.

The palmy land!—the beautiful!

Ah! give me but one sight

Of all its vales of living bloom,

And all its isles of light,—

And let me hear, above mine eaves,

The shiver of the plantain’s leaves!—

Wake, wake, ye breezes of the hills!

Waft, waft me to the soil

That waits to clasp the weary bones

Worn out with lonely toil

Betimes;—for I should sink to rest,

Serene as sunset in the west,

-----
p. 335

If once,—oh! could I tell but once,

Upon that holy ground,

The tidings of immortal truth,

Where never was the sound;

Rearing the wilderness of men

To blossom and be blest again.

Then, though my fate should be to fall,

Alone—unwept—unknown

Of those who love me, but in vain—

With not a single stone

To guide the feet of him who strays

To find me in far-coming days,

Thou, God, wilt see me, and thy breath

Can raise, from that green grave,

A voice, to call all Christendom,

These souls of Thine to save;

And flames that die not, shall be fed,

To light them, from the martyr’s bed!

Wake, wake! I hear, from Gambian hills,

The joy of solemn song;

Poor Afric lifts her hands and shakes

Her chains, to hail the throng

Who preach Thy peace; O Heaven, I thirst

To be in this Thy cause the first!’

He sleeps,—and let him rest,—for we

Will shed no tear for him,—

Rejoicing rather in the trust

-----
p. 336

Which only death could dim;

Nor column proud, with crumbling fame,

Shall mock that meekly—noble name.

No! build him, for his monument,

The work he left undone;

Bring in the lost he yearned his life

Away for,—one by one,—

To greet him on the blessed shore,

Where he and they will thirst no more!

-----

a ruined stone aqueduct stretches into the distance
Thomas Cole.      James Smillie.
AQUEDUCT NEAR ROME.
Boston Published Chas. Bowen.

-----
[p. 337]

THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT.

The Aqueduct of which an engraving is here given, was built by Claudius; by means of it he brought water to Rome from the neighboring mountains. Its whole length was forty two miles, including its windings, yet the distance from the source of the water at the lakes, to the city, was but twenty five miles. Some of the turnings appear not to have been rendered necessary by the shape of the ground, but were made perhaps to abate the force of the current. The ruins of this stupendous work, represented in the engraving, present one of the most striking views in Italy, and it appears to have been transferred to canvas with great force by Cole. The following lines, handed us by a friend, though not accurately descriptive of this aqueduct, are full of beauty, and suggest many thoughts and feelings appropriate to the scene.

The sun-browned girl whose limbs recline

When noon her languid hand has laid

Hot on the green flakes of the pine—

Beneath its narrow disk of shade;

As through the flickering noontide glare

She gazes on the rainbow chain

Of arches lifting once in air

The rivers of the Roman’s plain,—

Say, does her wandering eye recal [sic]

The mountain current’s icy wave,—

Or for the dead one tear let fall

Whose founts are broken by their grave?

-----
p. 338

From stone to stone the ivy weaves

Her braided tracery’s winding veil,

And lacing stalks and tangled leaves

Nod heavy to the drowsy gale.

And lightly floats the pendent vine

That swings beneath her slender bow,

Arch answering arch—whose rounded line

Seems mirrored in the wreath below.

How patient Nature smiles at Fame!

The weeds that strewed the victor’s way

Feed on his dust to shroud his name,

Green when his proudest towers decay.

Lo in that channel—empty now

The scanty rain its tribute pours,

Which cooled the lip and laved the brow,

Of conquerors from a hundred shores.

Thus bending o’er the nation’s bier,

Whose wants the captive earth supplied,

The dew of memory’s passing tear

Falls on the arches of her pride!

-----
[p. 339]

THE DESERTED CHURCH.

BY I. MCLELLAN JR.

The twilight’s evanescent stain

Fades from each dim and dusty pane,

And as eve’s deep’ning shadows fall,

On broken roof and mouldering wall,

Methinks the spirits of the place

Around me, in the dusk, I trace.

And down each vaulted aisle again

Sweeps slow and sad a spectral train,

While o’er the dark procession toss

The gilded crosier, and the cross,

As if the hooded monks of old

Had started from their charnels cold,

To hover o’er the half-sunk stones

That years ago closed o’er their bones!

Methinks that massive altar, green

With moss and weeds—a tangled screen—

And damp with cankered rust and mould

Is blazing as it blazed of old!

The silver censor round it swings

The fretted cresset radiance flings,

And golden lamps their lustre shed

On mitred brow, and shaven head,

And pallid virgins kneeling there

With streaming eyes upturned in prayer—

—But no—’twas but day’s latest flame,

-----
p. 340

Which thro’ the roofless chancel came,

And touched with its fantastic gleam,

Each weed-grown arch and ivied beam!

And now the moonbeam’s silver zone

Around the crumbling pile is thrown,

Revealing with its pearly light

The plashing mildew—snowy white—

On many a monumental bust

Of warrior long returned to dust!

No more the barefoot friar’s pace

Shall sweep the pavement of the place;

No more the iron heel of knight,

Nor slipper of his lady bright,

Shall echo here, for long the tomb

Hath shut them in its dreary gloom,

And the wild thistles of the grave

Above the old stone coffins wave!

A mournful sound!—Is it the knell

Of Time from yonder yawning bell?

The jarring tongue, the noisy throat

Will ne’er repeat their clamorous note,

The curfew chime, or matin peal,

Which one o’er woods and wilds did steal.

A solemn sound! Was it the blast

Of the grand organ that swept past,

Or echo of monastic lyre,

Or hymn or anthem of the choir?

No—organ, bell, and sacred flute,

Within these lonely walls are mute,

’Twas but the melancholy sound

Of the bleak breeze that moaned around!

-----
[p. 341]

THE ROSE COLOR.

The Rose Color came from the Sun, her home,

Longing once more o’er the earth to roam;

’Twas the young spring-time and her sister-shades,

Were slumbering now on the flowery glades.

On the silken grass lay the green at rest;

And pillowed, the blue, on the violet’s breast;

The golden yellow had sought the bell,

Born for a fairy’s enchanted cell:

And many a tree’s fresh buds had blown—

And many a shrub into loveliness grown—

But the Rose Spirit saw, though the world was fair,

That a something of beauty was wanting there.

As she floated along by a morning cloud,

She threw a deep flush o’er its fleecy shroud:

On the silvery waves of a lake below,

Was mirrored that bright carnation glow.

A bird stood drinking the violet dew

As she sprinkled his wings with her liveliest hue—

The bending tree took a robe more gay,

As her pencil was traced on its blossoming spray.

Wherever her foot on the grass had been,

Was a ruby leaf, ’mid its emeralds green;

A flowering almond she stooped to paint,

With a lighter touch, and a bloom more faint;

But the queen-like rose with her head on high,

She crimsoned o’er with a glorious dye.

-----
p. 342

Then a maiden stept from her sylvan bower,

And lingered long near her favorite flower.

Her eye was dark as her raven hair,

Blown from her brow by the sporting air;

Like the lily the rival of mountain snow,

Like the blue-white cloud, was that maiden’s brow.

But the voice of her lover just then was heard,

And her bosom beat quick to his whispered word[.]

The rose-spirit passed, and she saw the streak

That kindled now on the maiden’s cheek:

She saw and sighed, for the fresh almond flower,

And the tinted rose, they had lost their power.

They bloomed, but the maiden’s speaking blush,

Had a deeper charm than the rose’s flush.

The rose-spirit saw that love had the art,

To mix his hues with rouge from the heart;

She knew that earth had no rival dye,

With his spirit-tings of the soul to vie—

And thus half ashamed of her own bright hue,

As it glowed on the rose, to the sun she flew.

-----
[p. 343]

ETERNITY.

BY J. H. CLINCH.

I.

Thoughts may arise too mighty and intense

For finite minds to contemplate,—too deep

For things of clay to fathom,—too immense

For man’s imperfect efforts to o’erleap;

Thoughts which like some impetuous river sweep

Beyond our clouded vision, which alone

The sons of light may grapple with, who keep

Eternal guard around the Eternal throne,

Nor fully yet to them, in all their grandeur, shown.

II.

GOD—and Eternity—and boundless space!

Who in such ocean-thoughts shall dare embark,

Fearless of shipwreck?—who shall hope to trace

Such themes to their original, and mark

Their progress or their end?—The glow-worm spark

Of human wisdom—human love?—alas!

Lights which but make obscurity more dark,

Pow’rs mighty but in weakness: ‘through a glass

Darkly’ our clearest views, our keenest sight must pass.

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p. 344

III.

Eternity! Ennobling—humbling thought—

Primeless and endless; adding day by day

Accumulations to the Past, but not

Withdrawing from the Future aught away;

Old, but forever new; with no delay

To its resistless course, yet standing still;

Ages in countless myriads may decay

Yet to what end? Eternity’s vast wheel

Approaches not that point which may its limit seal.

IV.

We ‘grasp to take the vast idea in—’

To compass the unlimited, in vain;

Thought sinks exhausted, and we scarce begin

To gird our powers the combat to sustain—

To grapple with infinity, and gain

The mastery of unimagined things,

Ere clouds and darkness gather on the brain,

Obscurity unfolds its ebon wings,

And Weakness o’er the mind its leaden fetter flings.

V.

Why is it so? Why must the soul in vain

Attempt its own existence to survey/

The mortal scans the finite—why again

May nt the immortal send its thoughts away

E’en to the dark infinity?—It may—

But not until the imprisoned mind is free—

Not till ‘the muddy vesture of decay’

Fall from around it, and the spirit flee,

Uncaged—unchained from Earth—its home of light to see.

-----
p. 345

VI.

All that the eye may rest upon below—

All that the sense perceive—is hedged around

And limited on all sides, and we know

That e’en the sands are numbered, and a bound

Is fixed to those bright hosts, whose voiceless sound

Speaks to all lands, strewing the azure floor

With golden dust—and number may be found

E’en for the drops of ocean; but no lore

May reckon up thy waves, O Sea without a shore!

VII.

Thou hast no depths, for thou art fathomless—

No tides, for thou art changeless; still at rest

Save thy low billows’ heavings, which compress

Worlds’ brief durations in their foamy breast;

Each airy bubble on whose swelling crest

Springs forth a life, and dances joyous by

For one brief moment in rich colors drest,

Then bursts unmarkd,—its hues of beauty fly,

And others, leaping forth, its short-lived place supply.

VIII.

Thou art a theme for angels’ harps, O dim

And undefined Eternity! Too vast

For mortal, until thou receivest him

Within thy portals; and his spirit cast

its glances o’er thee, when that hour is past

Which bears him out of time, to mansions fair

Prepared for those, to whom, when peals the blast

Of the awakening trump, their Judge shall bear

The blessed words ‘well done—your master’s glory share!’

-----
[p. 346]

WAR SONG.

FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LOMONOSOR.

On, warriors! like a ship at sea,

That fast before the storm,

When skies are dark and winds are free,

Majestic bears her form—

Dashing aside th’ aspiring waves,

And heedless while the tempest raves.

On, like the eagle, when he cleaves

The black portentous cloud,

And, far below his eyrie leaves,

To soar beyond the shroud

Of woven mists and vapours dun,

Hidig the radiance of the sun.

On, soldiers! on! through clouds of smoke,

And weltering seas of blood—

Let every flashing sabres’ stroke

Swell high the crimson flood!

Onward! and let our rallying cry

Still be ‘for death or victory!’

-----
[p. 347]

THE AUTUMN LEAF.

BY S. P. WALKER.

What trembling falls from yonder bough

Kissing the green sward lightly now?

So long it courted earth and air,

It seemed a light wisp dancing there.

’Tis the autumn leaf I know full well

By the yellow hue—’tis here to tell

How the spring, and all the summer days,

With their lovesome beams and glad’ning rays,

Have gone, with their joys so frolicksome—

And the evening of the year is come.

Relic of verdant beauty bright!

Seared at length by the fanning blight,—

Lovely once in thy day of bloom,

But withered now, what is thy doom?

The proud old elm thou once didst crown,

In all thy pride has shaken thee down,

Since unrobed of thy morning dress,

The tint is lost of thy loveliness;

And a short while, thy kindred all

Shall strew thee o’er in their rushing fall.

A fragile thing is the autumn leaf—

Its bloom and beauty, all how brief?

For two seasons past, it gemm’d the tree

Whose branches, flushed with its livery,

-----
p. 348

Waved over in seeming high disdain,

The humble blade of the lowly plain:

But its colour changed and life decayed,

By the ruthless limb on the turf ’tis laid—

And the whistling winds of the winter drear,

Will whirl it soon away from here.

’Tis thus as the yellow autumns pass,

That Nature holds up her tell-tale glass—

And mirrors to us in wan array,

The months and years as they glide away;

And though the scene hath a mellow hue,

It whispers a moral gentle and true—

It tells of winter, perchance of the tomb,

Yet bids us think of Spring’s coming bloom.

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