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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
               VOL. XXXIV.      April, 1849.      No. 4.


                           Table of Contents

                     The Poet Lí
                     The Naval Officer
                     Victory and Defeat
                     To Mother
                     On a Diamond Ring
                     The Recluse. No. I.
                     Rome
                     The Missionary, Sunlight
                     Thermopylæ
                     Lost Treasures
                     The Brother’s Temptation
                     The Unsepulchred Relics
                     Reminiscences of a Reader
                     The Gipsy Queen
                     The Brother’s Lament
                     Sonnet to Machiavelli
                     The Darsies
                     The Unmasked
                     Mormon Temple, Nauvoo
                     Rose Winters
                     The Zopilotes
                     History of the Costume of Men
                     The Beautiful of Earth
                     Wild-Birds of America
                     Jenny Lind
                     Storm-Lines
                     Review of New Books
                     Editor’s Table
                     Adieu, My Native Land

       Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.




[Illustration: Anaïs Toudouze LE FOLLET _Robes de M^{me.}_ Bara Bréjard,
_r. Laffitte, 5—Coiffures de_ Hamelin, _pass du Saumon, 21_. _Fleurs
de_ Chagon ainé, _r. Richelieu, 81—Dentelles de_ Violard, _r. Choiseul
2^{bis}_ 8, Argyll Place, Londres. Graham’s Magazine ]




[Illustration: D. Bydgoszcz, pinx.                A.L. Dick

THE BRIDGE & CHURCH OF S^{T}. ISAAC.]




                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

                 *        *        *        *        *

         VOL. XXXIV.     PHILADELPHIA, April, 1849.     NO. 4.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              THE POET LI.


                      A FRAGMENT FROM THE CHINESE.


BY MRS. CAROLINE. H. BUTLER, AUTHOR OF “RECOLLECTIONS OF CHINA,” “MAID OF
                           CHE-KI-ANG,” ETC.


                                PART I.

    Do not draw upon you a person’s enmity, for enmity is never
    appeased—injury returns upon him who injures—and sharp words
    recoil against him who says them.

                                                _Chinese Proverb._

On the green and flowery banks of the beautiful Lake Tai-hoo, whose
surface bears a thousand isles, resting like emeralds amid translucent
pearl, dwelt Whanki the mother of Lí. _The mother of Lí!_ Ah happy
distinction—ah envied title! For where, far or near, was the name could
rank with Lí on the scroll of learning—receiving even in childhood the
title of the “Exiled Immortal,” from his skill in classic and historical
lore!

Moreover, he was of a most beautiful countenance, while the antelope
that fed among the hills was not more swift of foot. Who like Lí could
draw such music from the seven silken strings of the Kin! or when with
graceful touch his fingers swept the lute, adding thereto the
well-skilled melody of his voice, youths and maidens opened their ears
to listen, for wonderful was the ravishing harmony.

Yet although the gods of learning smiled upon this youthful disciple of
Confucius, poverty came also with her iron hand, and although she could
not crush the active mind of Lí, with a strong grip, she held him back
from testing his skill with the ambitious _literati_, both old and
young, who annually flocked to the capital to present their themes
before the examiners. For even in those days as the present, money was
required to purchase the smiles of these severe judges. They must read
with _golden_ spectacles—or wo to the unhappy youth who, buoyant with
hope and—_empty pockets_, comes before them! With what contempt is his
essay cast aside, not worth the reading!

Sorely vexed, therefore, was poor Lí—and what wonder—to know that he
might safely cope with any candidate in the “Scientific Halls,” yet dare
not for the lack of _sycee_ (silver) enter their gates, lest disgrace
might fall upon him.

Yet Lí was of a merry heart—and, as all the world knows, there is no
better panacea for the ills of fortune than the spirit of cheerfulness.
Thus, although poverty barred the way to promotion, it could not
materially affect his happiness—no more than the passing wind which for
a moment ruffled the surface of the lake, yet had no power to move its
depths.

Now it happened that one day taking his nets Lí went down to the lake,
and as he cast them within the waters, not knowing any one was near, he
broke forth into a merry song, which sent its glad burthen far off to
the lips of mocking Echo, like Ariel, seeming to “ride on the curled
clouds.” Now it also chanced, that within a grove of the graceful
bamboo, which skirted the path down which Lí had passed on his way,
walked the great Mandarin Hok-wan.

“_Hi!_ by the head of Confucius the fellow sings well!” he exclaimed, as
the song met his ear, (for, as we have said, Lí had a voice of rare
melody,) and forthwith issuing from his concealment, Hok-wan seated
himself upon the bank and entered into conversation with the young
fisherman.

If the mere melody of the voice had so charmed the mandarin, how much
more was he captivated by the wit and learning of the youth, who, thus
poorly appareled, and humbly employed, seemed to share wisdom with the
gods! Hok-wan stroked his eye-brows in astonishment, and then bidding Lí
leave his nets, he bore him off as a rare prize to his own house, where
he that day feasted a numerous company.

First conducting Lí to an inner apartment, he presented him with a
magnificent robe richly embroidered, together with every article
necessary to complete the toilet of a person of distinction, and when
thus appareled, introduced him into the presence of his guests. And
truly Lí walked in among them with all the stateliness and hauteur of a
man who feels that he is conferring an honor, instead of being honored,
as no doubt Lí should have considered himself, in such an august
assemblage of grave mandarins. With what an air he seated himself at the
sumptuously loaded table! where, according to Chinese custom of the
higher classes, the various dishes of meats, soups, fish, preserves,
etc., were all nearly hidden by large bouquets of beautiful flowers, and
pyramids of green leaves.

And now no sooner had Hok-wan delivered with all customary formality the
speech of welcome, and drained to the health of his guests the tiny
goblet of crystal, embossed with gold, than rising to his feet, and
joining his hands before his breast, in token of respect to his host, Lí
called a servant, and bidding him take a part from all the good things
spread before him, said:

“Carry these to the dwelling of Whanki, the mother of Lí. Say to her
that as the sands on the lake shore, countless are the blessings of the
gods, who have this day smiled upon her son. Bid her eat—for although
from hunger he should gnaw his flesh, and from thirst drink his blood,
yet not one morsel of this banquet shall pass the lips of Lí unless his
aged mother be also sustained by the same delicacies.”

At hearing which, all the mandarins, and Hok-wan himself, loudly
expressed their admiration. Such is the esteem which the Chinese
entertain for filial piety.

This duty discharged, Lí attacked the dainties before him like a hungry
soldier, yet seasoning all he said and did with so much wit and humor,
that the guests laid down their chop-sticks and listened with wonder.
With the wine, Li grew still more merry—his wit cut like hail-stones
wheresoe’er it lighted, and at his jovial songs the grave dignitaries
forgetting their rank, (somewhat washed away by copious draughts of
_sam-shu_,[1]) snapped their fingers, wagged their shorn heads, and even
rising from the table embraced him familiarly. At length, when after an
interval of a few hours their hilarity was somewhat abated, during which
the guests walked in the beautiful gardens, or reclining upon luxuriant
cushions, regaled themselves with their pipes, or in masticating their
favorite betel-nut, Lí made bare his bosom before them, and to their
astonishment they found it was only a needy scholar whose praises they
had been shouting.

_A needy scholar!_

How firmly they clutched their fobs, lest a _candareen_[2] might jump
into the pocket of the needy scholar. But of advice they were as profuse
as grass-hoppers in August.

“Go to the capital—go to Kiang-fu,” (Nankin the ancient capital of the
empire,) “thou wilt perplex the learned—thou wilt bewilder the
ignorant!” said one.

“_Hi!_ this fellow Lí will yet stand with honor before the emperor,”
cried another.

“Appear boldly in the ‘Scientific Halls’ before the Examiners,” said a
third, “and never fear but thy name shall be cried at midnight from the
highest tower in the city,[3] as the successful Lí, with whom no other
candidate can compete!”

“When the wind blows over the fields does not the grass bend before it!”
said Hok-wan. “When the great Ho speaks will not inferiors obey! the
learned academician Ho is my brother—to him then you shall go—one word
from him, and even the judges themselves shall cry your name.”

“Ivory does not come from a rat’s mouth, or gold from brass clippings,”
thought Lí, as he listened to these remarks—“a few candareens now would
be better for me than all this fine talk—truly I must be a fool not to
know all this stuff before. Yet by the sacred manes of my ancestors, I
_will_ go to the capital, and that, too, ere another sun ripens the
rice-fields—furnished with a letter to the illustrious Ho, I may dare
admittance.”

Giddy with wine, and with the excitement of high hopes for the future,
at a late hour Lí was borne in a sumptuous palankeen to the humble
dwelling of Whanki.

The poor old soul at first knew not the gay gallant who stood before
her, so much had the gift-robes of the mandarin changed his appearance.

“_Heigh-yah!_ but, Lí, thou art as fine as a magpie,” quoth she, raising
her head from the pan of charcoal, over which she seemed to be simmering
something in a small dish—“_Heigh_—and now I look at you again, I see
you have drank of that cursed _sam-shu_—forever abhorred be the name of
I-tih![4] with all thy wit dost thou not know the wise saying of
Mencius—‘_Like a crane among hens is a man of parts among fools_.’ (It
may be inferred, I think, that the good old Whanki was something of a
scold.) And while thou hast been guzzling, see what I have prepared for
thee—what had _I_ to do with birds-nest soup, and with shark’s fins,
and with pigeon’s eggs from the table of Hok-wan! My poor Lí will be too
modest to eat with the great company, I said to myself, and I will not
eat them, but warm them up to comfort him when he comes back—look, here
they are,” (lifting the dish from the fire) “and yet thou comest home
like a well-fed, stupid swine!”

“Now tu-h, mother,” answered Lí, “if thy son has been drinking with
fools, they wore fine feathers—and now embrace me, for I am going to
the capital.”

“Lí, thou art drunk—go to bed—the capital indeed! Ah cursed, cursed
I-tih!” exclaimed the old woman.

But when at length Lí convinced her that he was neither drunk nor crazy,
but in reality about to start for Nankin, as a candidate for honors in
the Scientific Halls, and with a letter to the great Ho in his pouch,
Whanki knocked her head reverently before the shrine of the household
gods in token of gratitude.

The remainder of the night was passed in preparations for the journey,
and just as the golden ripples of the lake danced in the rays of the
rising sun, Lí tenderly embraced his aged parent, and set forth on foot
for Nankin, more than a hundred miles distant.

“Ah, the blessed bug,” quoth the old woman, gazing after him so long as
she could catch a glimpse of his large bamboo hat, “he will not want for
rice any day—no _sycee_ has he in his pockets, but such a tongue in his
head, as will bring him food and honors.”

Whanki was right. In every hamlet he passed through—in every cottage by
the wayside, Lí found a shelter and a welcome—the good people
considering themselves amply repaid for their hospitality if the young
stranger would but touch the strings of the _pipa_, or recite to them
odes from the Shoo-king.

In this manner he reached the capital, and crossing the marble bridge
over the great canal, upon the eastern side, entered the city at the
Gate of Extensive Peace. Going into the first barber’s shop which
offered, Lí carefully plucked _out_ his beard, (hear this, ye exquisites
of modern days!) shaved his head anew to the crown, and plaited his long
black hair with red ribbons. Then entering an adjoining tavern, he
exchanged his dusty, travel-worn garments for the rich dress presented
him by Hok-wan, which he had preserved with great care for the occasion,
and holding up his fan, to shield his eyes from the sun, stepped forth
into the busy streets, to look for the dwelling of the illustrious Ho.

And next, within the Hall of Ceremony, in the elegant mansion of Ho,
behold Lí in the presence of the great man himself—for with the same
audacity which marked his behavior at the dinner of Hok-wan, had Lí
given the door-keeper a vermilion card, leading Ho to expect a visiter
of rank. Advancing three steps to meet him, Ho bows low to his stranger
guest—then with graceful ease Lí also advances three step, and bows
still lower—Ho again gravely steps forward and makes another
salutation—upon which Lí again does the same—with a still lower
bending of the body, Ho once more advances—whereupon Lí, nearly
touching the marble pavements with his forehead, steps forward yet
another three steps! By this time their united and solemn paces had
brought them near the couch upon which visiters are expected to repose
themselves. And here again the same formalities were gone through with,
as to who should first be seated thereon. But _being_ seated, Lí at once
burst forth with such a flow of wit and fancy, that Ho was completely
captivated ere he knew the name or business of the daring youth!

Now this was a capital stroke of Lí. For the academician cared not so
much for any dignitary under the Emperor Supreme, as he did for a man of
learning, or even for one who could tickle the moments as they flew with
witty jests, provoking laughter. Ho saw at once that Lí not only
possessed this recommendation, but that his knowledge could also ring on
as many topics as there were bells to the Porcelain Tower. When,
therefore, he had perused the letter of Hok-wan, which, after securing
his ground, Lí put into his hand, and after having listened to the
history which the youth gave of his hard struggles, of his poverty, and
earnest desire to come before the judges on the day of examination, than
Ho, embracing him, bade him be of good cheer.

“Now, by the sacred Budha!” he exclaimed, “learning like thine shall win
its crown without the aid of propitiatory gifts, save to the gods
themselves. Know, O Lí, that Yang and Kau, who enjoy the smiles of the
great emperor, are this year the examiners. To them shalt thou go, with
no favor but my name—humble as it is, it shall cause thine to be
enrolled among the _literati_ of the Imperial Academy!”

No doubt Ho manifested great vanity in this, in so much as hinting that
his “_humble_” name could balance with gold in the scales of avarice!
Nevertheless Lí was delighted, and immediately set about piling up such
a cloud castle as spread over his whole heaven of glory.

And now the day of examination approached, and confident of success, Lí
boldly presented himself for admission.

Offering the memorial of Ho, which was to insure him, as he supposed,
the favor of the judges, he was much surprised to see those great men,
Yang and Kau, after turning over the missive with elevated noses,
expressive of their contempt, cast it from them with scorn.

“_Heigh!_ the academician Ho thinks to cheat us with bubbles! He sends
us a scrawl devoid of meaning, to bespeak our favor for an upstart
without degree or title! Yes—_we will remember the name of Lí!_” Saying
which, they cast looks of bitter disdain upon the needy scholar.

Then commenced the tedious formula of the examination. The candidates,
hundreds in number, were all obliged to undergo the strict search of the
officers in attendance. Their robes, pockets, shoes, and even their
nicely plaited queues were examined, to see they had not secreted some
essay or composition of some kind, which they might substitute for one
written on the spot without preparation, when the examiners should
command them. This done, they were all seated on long benches with their
paper and pencils ready for the trial—the doors and windows in the
meanwhile being closely barred and guarded, that no one from without
should have the power of smuggling any written paper into the hands of
the students.

At a signal-gun the theme for composition was given out, and, like the
velvet feet of butterflies, the pencils of the rival candidates glided
smoothly and fleetly over the tinted paper. With perfect composure and
ease, Lí wrote off his essay in the most beautiful characters, without a
single erasure or omission—handling the subject with great skill and
judgment, and gave it into the hands of Yang.

“_Heigh!_” said Yang, without giving himself even the trouble to glance
over it, but drawing his pencil derisively over the fair and beautiful
characters, “I remember the name of Lí! What stuff is here—why the
fellow is only fit to grind my ink!”

“To grind your ink!” quoth Kau, “say rather he is only fit to lace my
buskins!”

And laughing loudly at their own wit, the great judges Yang and Kau
turned their backs upon the unfortunate Lí.

Overwhelmed with mortification and rage, he rushed to the lower end of
the hall, and there was obliged to remain until evening, as not until
then could the doors be thrown open to give egress to any one. Here he
had the vexation of listening to the jibes and sneers of those around
him, and of seeing others promoted to honors, who were as far inferior
to him as owls to eagles! What a bitter day for poor Lí! and when at
length dismissed with renewed contumely from the Scientific Halls, he
rushed into the presence of Ho, swearing loudly that he would one day
ride over the necks of the proud Yang and Kau, “and by the head of
Confucius when I do—_Yang shall grind my ink, and Kau lace up my
buskins!_” he cried with bitterness.

Ho was terribly indignant at the treatment of his _protégé_, as well as
incensed for the insult he imagined his own dignity had received. But,
although he was himself high in favor with the emperor, Yang and Kau
stood still higher, therefore he dissembled his anger, lest his head
might pay the forfeit, should those two powerful courtiers incense the
emperor against him.

When he found Lí preparing to return home, he embraced him kindly, and
bade him tarry yet another year in the capital.

“In the end thou wilt surely succeed, O Lí. The next year the examiners
will not be the same, and thou may’st then be certain of success,” said
Ho. “Remain with me until the time comes round—thy days and nights
shall roll off bright and rosy as morning clouds—wine, wit, and music,
yes, and the smiles of women, shall make thee forget the insults thou
hast received.”

But Lí remembered his aged mother, sitting solitary in her humble home
by the side of the lake, and his resolution strengthened.

“Know, O Ho, that an old mother waits for Lí afar off. Summer and
harvest will come, but Whanki has no one to sow her rice, and desolation
will sit in her dwelling. The fish sport and gambol amid the waters of
the lake—Whanki has no strength to draw them forth, therefore hunger
and death will await her! What profit, O wise Ho, should I gain if my
aged parent suffered! Would not the gods curse the race of Lí!”

“Noble youth, take this purse—it is heavy,” exclaimed Ho—“hasten to
relieve the necessities of thy mother—a happy mother in so dutiful a
son—then return without delay and await the examination. I promise
thee, thou shalt not this time lack a present for the greedy
judges—though, by Budha, I would like to give it them at the dagger’s
point!”

Accordingly Lí bade farewell to his generous friend, promising to return
as speedily as possible.

-----

[1] A deleterious liquor distilled from rice.

[2] A Chinese coin.

[3] The custom of announcing the names of the successful candidates at
the examination.

[4] The god of intoxicating liquors.


                                PART II.

                 A man who has a tongue may go to Rome.
                                      _Chin. Prov’b._

Within the “Tranquil Palace of Heaven,” Hwant-sung sat upon the Dragon’s
Throne, with all his court prostrate before him.

There was evidently “something rotten in the state of Denmark,” for the
clouds which veiled the august features of the Celestial Monarch were
black as night—thunder might soon be expected, and low in the dust his
humble courtiers awaited the outpouring of his terrible wrath.

Before his footstool knelt the Premier Yang, bearing in his hand an
official document inscribed with curious hieroglyphics.

“By my ancestors,” exclaimed the emperor, with a wrathful look from one
to the other of his trembling courtiers, “a wise court is sustained by
the bounty of Hwant-sung! say rather a pack of idiots, asses, dolts,
fatted dogs! What! shall we become a jibe in the mouths of foreign
nations! Shall barbarian kings mock the court of Nankin! _Hi!_ Is there
not one then of my learned counsellors—not one of my renowned warriors
can decipher me this scroll! Tremble, then, ye hounds! Yang, I command
thee to make known to us the purport of the missive which the foreign
ambassadors have brought to our court.”

At this order well might Yang turn pale—for there was no more meaning
to him in the characters on which his eyes were fixed, than in the slimy
trail which the green lizard draws upon the sand. Over and over he
turned it—now on this side, now on that—watched narrowly and jealously
meanwhile by all around—for when was one high in favor with princes
also the favorite with the mass! At length, nine times reverently
knocking his head before Hwant-sung, Yang said:

“Let not the displeasure of Earth’s Glory, before whose frown the whole
world stands affrighted, annihilate his slave that the gods have not
granted him power to do the will of his majesty in this thing. He cannot
read.”

Then did Hwant-sung call up one after another of those whose scholastic
lore was famed throughout the empire. In vain. Not one could understand
the mysterious scroll. At which, becoming exceeding wroth, Hwant-sung
swore that unless within three days his ministers could make known to
him the signification of the embassy, their _offices_ and _salaries_
should all be taken from them—and if in six days they were still in
ignorance, their _death_ should release the empire from so many stupid
owls!

Then did the academician Ho humbly present himself at the foot of the
throne.

“Will the emperor deign to open the ears of graciousness while the
humblest of his slaves speaks? Know then, O mighty sovereign, there
arrived last night at my house a man in whom all knowledge seems to
centre. His mind, keen as the lightning, penetrates the most hidden
mysteries—there is no science, no art, which he hath not already
mastered. Command then that he appear before thee to make plain that
which doth perplex thy majesty’s servants.”

Hwant-sung rejoiced greatly at this information, and bade Ho bring the
learned scholar at once into his presence.

But when Ho, eager with joy, related to Lí the good fortune he had
secured him, that audacious youth positively refused compliance with the
commands of the emperor! offering as an excuse, that as he was but a
poor scholar, without title or degree, he dared not presume to appear
before so much majesty.

With this answer then the unhappy Ho returned to the palace, not
doubting but the rage of Hwant-sung would vent itself not only upon Lí,
but also upon himself.

Kneeling before the monarch, Ho exclaimed reverently—

“Will your majesty once more graciously listen. At the last examination,
this man of whom I have spoken was turned from the Scientific Halls in
disgrace—his essay rejected by the Premier Yang and the General Kau.
Will it then please thee to bestow some favor upon Lí, that he may with
more propriety come into this august presence?”

“It shall be done,” exclaimed the emperor. “We confer upon Lí the title
of Doctor of the first degree, together with the purple robe and yellow
girdle. Go bring him before us.”

With this mark of royal patronage, Ho retraced his steps with all the
alacrity of a lover, and made known to Lí the gracious favors of the
emperor, supposing, doubtless, that the student would rejoice as one
long blind now suddenly restored to light, or as a famished man at a
feast. But lo! coolly putting on the robes of office, as if he had but
just cast them aside, with the air of a prince, Lí signified to the
great academician Ho his readiness now to obey the mandate of the
emperor.

Entering the hall of audience with all the grace and ease of a man bred
in courts, Lí advanced to the throne, and after paying the customary
homage, rose to his feet and looked proudly around upon the assembly of
grave men and gallant courtiers.

The knees of the Premier Yang smote each other, as he recognized the
youth he had treated with so much contumely now suddenly brought into
notice—and well did Kau now _remember the name of Lí_—and it seemed as
if hot pins tore his flesh, into such agitation did that name now throw
him.

Hwant-sung received the new doctor with condescension, and placed in his
hand the document which he was required to make plain.

But Lí, casting a meaning glance upon Yang and Kau, said:

“Can an indifferent scholar like myself presume to know more than these
learned men! Know, O mighty emperor, thy servant was deemed unworthy of
favor by thy commissioners Yang and Kau—surely, then, they must be more
wise than Lí.”

Charmed with the boldness of the youth, the emperor graciously smiled
upon him, and motioned the two mortified examiners to withdraw.

Then standing erect, his head thrown back, yet in an attitude of
careless ease, Lí opened the important missive, and without even
glancing his eye over it to understand more fully its nature, read it
aloud from beginning to end, in a clear, melodious voice.

It proved to be a demand from the king of Po-Hai, couched in the most
insulting language, requiring the emperor to restore a part of Corea,
consisting of no less than a hundred and eighty towns, and also
demanding tribute from the time of its “_usurpation_” (as the memorial
expressed it) by the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Thus, but for the
skill of Lí, the empire would have been plunged in irretrievable
disgrace through the ignorance of its ministers.

The countenance of Hwant-sung grew black as midnight as he listened to
this insulting claim, and but for the bold remonstrance of Lí, he would
have ordered the bearers of the embassy to instant death.

“May it please your majesty to summon the boorish ambassadors before
us,” cried Lí boldly, “I will myself confer with them, and teach them
how to respect the mighty Emperor Hwant-sung.”

Immediately, therefore, the ambassadors were brought before Lí, who
conversed with them in their own language with the same haughty bearing
as if he himself were emperor, interpreting as he did so to the
indignant Hwant-sung. At length Lí dismissed them, saying:

“To-morrow his sovereign majesty, to whom your prince is but an
earth-worm, will indite an answer to your insulting embassy. Retire—and
tremble as ye walk! Thank the gods that the gracious emperor deigns ye
to live.”

The audience chamber rang with acclamation, as the ambassadors
obsequiously withdrew in compliance to the orders of Lí, and all the
courtiers pressed forward to compliment the young doctor—while the
emperor, embracing him, conferred upon him at once the rank of
academician, and ordered apartments to be prepared for him in the palace
of the Golden Bell.

With continued graciousness, he also directed a sumptuous banquet to be
got in readiness, and at which all the learned men and wits of the court
were expected to appear. Wine was poured for the guests by beautiful
young girls of the “_golden lilies_”[5]—ravishing music swept around
them, while at intervals of the feast, the emperor sent from his own
apartments a choice theatrical corps for their entertainment.

Now did it seem that all the trials of Lí were over, his poverty but a
dream long past, and that now upon the pinnacle to which his ambition
had pointed from early youth, he stood ready to hurl back in the teeth
of his enemies the disgrace which, only a few months before, they had
heaped upon the name of Lí.

The feast wore on even into the night—the wine circulated freely, and
in the same breath the courtiers exalted the name of the emperor and of
the young academician. What wonder that under the attendance of such
charming cup-bearers Lí should have drank more freely than was
consistent with his new dignity! How from such hands could he resist the
tempting goblet!

The result was, that when the next morning the emperor repaired to the
Hall of Audience to treat with the embassy from Po-Hai, the academician
Lí was not in attendance—nay, did not make his appearance until after
being twice summoned by royal mandate!

The courtiers with whom Lí had feasted the night previous, shook their
heads and looked significant. The Premier Yang and the General Kau
resumed their usual boldness of demeanor, for no doubt this upstart,
this vagabond Lí, would find the anger of their Celestial Monarch more
than his head was worth—decapitation would certainly follow such
contempt of royalty!

To be _twice_ summoned—what audacity!

At length Li walked carelessly into the hall—his dress somewhat
disordered, and his feet thrust negligently into slippers. But for those
who were hoping his ruin, what rage to see the emperor not only extend
his own royal hand in signification that he would raise him from the
ground, but also condescend to inquire after his health!

“I think, learned doctor, the wine was to thy fancy, yet methinks the
fumes are still troubling thee! Ere we proceed to our public duties I
would have thy wits clearer.”

Saying which, Hwant-sung ordered a plate of hot-spiced fish-broth to be
brought from the royal kitchens, that its effects might dissipate the
evils of last night’s debauch.

And when with unprecedented condescension their sovereign even took the
chop-sticks, and himself cooled it for the palate of Lí, amazement
almost turned them to marble.

When his majesty deemed the senses of his new favorite sufficiently
restored, the ambassadors were summoned into the hall.

Upon the top of the platform, near the foot of the “Dragon’s Throne,”
was placed, by the order of Hwant-sung, a cushion or divan of the
Imperial Yellow, embroidered with gold and silver, and upon a tablet
formed of mother-of-pearl, and richly set in a band of emeralds, was a
cake of perfumed ink—a sheet of flowery paper—a hair-pencil set in a
gold tube, together with a small _jade_ stone, with which to rub the
ink.

Waving his hand condescendingly to Lí, the emperor spoke: “Ascend the
platform, learned doctor, and repose thyself upon the cushions at my
feet, while I indite to thee our answer to these slaves.”

“May it please your majesty,” replied Lí, “my feet are not in proper
dress to approach so near the ‘Glory of the Earth.’ Will it please thee
to command new buskins to be brought thy servant, that he may with
decency ascend the platform.”

This bold request was no sooner proffered than it was granted. And then,
with a significant glance to the spot where stood Yang and Kau, pale
with rage and envy, the audacious Lí again addressed the emperor:

“The humblest of thy slaves would not be officious—but he has one more
request to lay at the feet of his gracious sovereign. At the examination
this year, thy servant was repulsed by Yang, and turned from the
Scientific Halls in disgrace by Kau! Will it therefore please thee to
command the Premier Yang to _grind my ink_, and the General Kau to _lace
my buskins_!”

Never, perhaps, was an audience-chamber so insulted! Even the awe which,
in the presence of the Celestial Monarch, rendered the courtiers less
men than jackals, failed in this case to suppress a murmur of
indignation which passed from one end of the hall to the other.

But Hwant-sung, well pleased to punish the injustice of his
commissioners, immediately ordered them both to approach and do the
bidding of Lí!

To disobey was death. They wanted courage to die, therefore preferring
disgrace, they obsequiously advanced. Kneeling, _Kau laced the buskins
of Lí_, who then ascended the platform, and while reclining at his ease
upon the soft cushion at the feet of the emperor, Yang stood at his side
assiduously _rubbing his ink_!

Thus did Lí accomplish his revenge, and triumph over his enemies!

Taking the pencil, he now, with rapid and easy strokes, proceeded to
indite the answer, which the emperor vouchsafed to the Po-Hai embassy,
and while he did so, Hwant-sung bent over him in astonishment, beholding
the characters which he traced with so much rapidity to be identical
with those which had so perplexed his court.

Then standing erect upon the right hand of the “Dragon’s Throne,” in
clear distinct tones, Lí read aloud the imperial answer—the ambassadors
trembling with fear as they listened.

“And now return,” exclaimed Lí, “and teach your king that foxes may not
war with lions, nor the cuckoo steal into the eagle’s nest! He is like a
vexed grasshopper striving to combat the mighty chariot about to crush
him, or like a fly in the jaws of the dragon! When the mighty
Hwant-sung, at whose name fear sits in the hearts of all nations, shall
send a handful of men to seize upon the petty territory of Po-Hai, blood
shall flow a thousand _li_!”[6]

Kneeling reverently before the throne, and knocking their heads in token
of submission, the ambassadors then withdrew to relate to their king
that the “Celestial Empire was upheld by an Immortal from the skies!”
who stood ever by the throne of the Dragon, and to whom all men did
reverence.

From that day the star of Lí was in the ascendent, and for many years he
enjoyed the undivided confidence of the emperor, and attained a rank in
the scale of letters, which renders the name of Lí celebrated in Chinese
literature. Many volumes of his beautiful poems and other works are
still preserved in the Imperial Libraries.

-----

[5] Small feet.

[6] Leagues.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE NAVAL OFFICER.


                            BY WM. F. LYNCH.


                      (_Continued from page 164._)

Mr. Gillespie and his daughter had retired below when the sweeps were
gotten out, and had now returned to the deck. Unconscious of danger,
they looked admiringly upon the shining and beautiful scene. Nearly
abreast the island of Porto Rico, in full view, lay basking in the beams
of the setting sun, the dark, rich green of its luxuriant growth of
cane, here and there varied by groves of the cotton-tree, amid which
were seen clustering the settlements of the planters. Astern, but
farther distant, Cape Engano stretched far to seaward, while inland,
ridge over ridge, wooded to their summits, rose the picturesque
mountains of St. Domingo. The numerous vessels in sight, mostly running
before the wind, varying in size, in rig, and in the color of their
canvas, enlivened the view, while nearer, the frigate in her towering
proportions was borne majestically toward them.

“Oh, Edward! what a glorious sight!” said the maiden to her lover, who
had stepped to her side, as she gained the deck. “Look, father! look at
that splendid ship, doesn’t she cleave the waters ‘like a thing of
life?’ But what is the matter, Edward? You are silent, and seem
dejected, do tell me?”

“In a moment, dearest,” he whispered, as he left her to approach the
captain, who had beckoned to him.

“Mr. Talbot,” said the last, “my little craft is in great peril, and
less than an hour must decide her fate. The Spaniard will not be silent
much longer, and I advise you to get the passengers below.”

“I was about to propose it,” replied Talbot, and returning to Miss
Gillespie’s side, said, “summon your fortitude, Mary, the ship which you
admire so much, is a Spanish frigate, and is endeavoring to capture the
vessel we are in.”

“Oh, how unfortunate! and will they harm us? Can they hurt you and
father and Frank? Good God! what is that?” and she shrieked as the ship
luffed to the wind, and fired a shot, which went plunging across the
bows of the schooner.

“Come below, dearest! come quickly! Help me, Mr. Gillespie, for she has
nearly fainted.”

The maiden and her father were conducted to the most secure place below,
when, resisting the entreaties of his mistress, Talbot returned to the
deck, which Frank had refused to leave.

At the first report of the frigate’s gun, the captain had called out,
“Edge her away, quarter-master, keep her off a point; let the guns
alone,” he added, addressing some of the crew, “let them be, it would be
worse than useless to fire them—the ‘Bird’ must now trust to her wings
alone.”

The little vessel was in fact at the very crisis of her fate. The last
shot had told that they were within reach of the guns of the enemy; they
felt that their only avenue of escape was through a gauntlet of fire,
and that the loss of a single spar would certainly insure their capture.
It seemed perfect madness for such a wee thing to abide the wrath of the
huge leviathan, panoplied in thunder, and possessing almost the power of
annihilation. But, in the forlorn and desperate hope of sustaining the
enemy’s fire for a few moments, without material injury her captain
steadily pursued his way, but cut his anchors from the bow, and threw
four of his guns overboard. If the wind had been light, the schooner’s
chance would have been a fair one; but the breeze instead of lulling,
seemed to freshen as the sun went down. As it was, however, there was a
bare possibility of escape, for already the little vessel, lightened of
so much weight, began to increase her velocity—still there was an
abiding, a stunning fear of being sunk or disabled by the broadside of
the frigate. The latter had already opened her fire, and near the chase,
the fierce, iron hail had fairly lashed the water into foam, but the
schooner was yet materially unharmed, when a voice more potent than that
of gunpowder, hushed the loud artillery.

Unobserved by either, a light and fleecy speck, more like a wift of
smoke than a fragment of a cloud, had risen over the land, and swift as
a meteor shot across the sky. It was what sailors term a “white squall,”
and it had caught the chaser and the chased wholly unprepared. Almost
simultaneously it struck them both. The frigate's fore-mast and
main-topmast went by the board, and every sail that was set, was blown
into perfect shreds. The “Humming Bird,” light and resistless, felt the
blast but to succumb before it—she was whirled over and capsized in an
instant. A number of the crew, entangled in the sails and rigging were
immediately drowned. The remainder clambered to the upper-rail, to which
they clung with the tenacity that endangered life. In a paroxysm of
anguish, Talbot had thrown himself down the cabin-hatchway as he felt
the vessel going over, and at imminent hazard had rescued Miss
Gillespie, but her father and the servant-maid perished. Frank had been
saved by one of the seamen, who held him firmly with one hand, while
with the other he clung to the shrouds.

As soon as the survivors were assured of their immediate safety, they
looked around to see if there were any hopes of being rescued from their
position before the night set in. The frigate had driven past them, and
under a single after-sail was hove-to, clearing her hull of the wreck.
To the westward, distinct in the reflected light of the sun, which had
descended, were several vessels again unfolding to the breeze the canvas
which they had wisely furled to the passing gust. Some of the larger
ones were again standing boldly out to seaward, while the others like
affrighted wild-fowl, were hovering toward the shore. They were all too
distant, and the air was fast becoming too obscure for them to see the
wreck, or the unfortunate beings who were perched upon it.

On the first recovery from her swoon, the grief of Miss Gillespie for
the loss of her father was almost inconsolable. It required all the
endearment and entreaties of her lover and her brother to prevail on her
to struggle against the spasms which threatened her very existence.

The survivors strove to cheer each other, but the indiscreet cry of one
that he saw the fin of a shark cleaving the surface of the water, led
them to fear that they were environed by yet greater peril. In about two
hours the moon arose, and her clear, chaste light silvered the crests of
the waves, as they curled to the now gentle breeze. She had risen scarce
more than her diameter, when the watchers on the wreck discovered two or
three dark objects which seemed to creep upon the water. Their hopes and
their fears were equally excited, but presently they heard the splash of
oars, and they knew them to be boats from the frigate. As eager now to
be taken as before to escape from capture, by shouts and cries they
attracted the notice of those who sought them. They were soon removed to
the frigate; the lady and her brother being led to the cabin, and the
remainder, including Talbot, promiscuously confined on the lower deck.

Under jury-foremast and new main-topmast, the frigate was the next
morning standing under easy sail, along the southern side of St.
Domingo.

Repeatedly but ineffectually Talbot had endeavored to convey a message
to Miss Gillespie, and spent the night in sleepless anxiety on her
account. He knew not into whose hands she had fallen, and whether her
youth and beauty might not, in the hands of unprincipled men, tempt to
ruffianly treatment. Her brother was with her, it was true, but although
spirited, he was young and feeble compared to the strong men around him.

Early in the morning, Talbot had asked to see the officer of the watch.
He was told that he could not communicate with any one but through the
officer of the marine guard, who would not make the rounds for three or
four hours. Talbot impatiently waited for him, and it seemed an age
before he made his appearance. When he did so, and was told that Talbot
wished to speak to him, he superciliously asked, “Well, sir, what do you
want?”

“I wish,” replied Talbot, “to communicate through you to the commander
of this ship, that I hold a commission as lieutenant in the navy of the
United States, and that with the family of Mr. Gillespie, I was a
passenger on board of the privateer.”

“This is a singular tale,” remarked the other, incredulously; “have you
any proofs of your identity—where is your commission?”

“I haven’t it; with all my baggage, it was, unhappily, lost in the
schooner.”

“This seems incredible,” said the officer, “your dress, too, does not
indicate the position you claim.”

“I am aware of it,” replied Talbot, “for I scrupulously avoided wearing
any part of my uniform, that in appearance even, I might not be classed
among the complement of that unfortunate vessel. But here is her
commander, who, as well as his crew, will bear testimony to what I say.”

“Let them answer for themselves,” was the abrupt reply. “If they escape
being hung as pirates, they will fare well.” After a moment’s
hesitation, he added, “I will state what you say to Count Ureña, our
commander, although I do not myself believe it; but let me advise you
not to rely upon the evidence of these wretches,” pointing to the
prisoners, “if you have no other proof you will fare badly.” As he said
this, he turned upon his heel and walked away, Talbot with difficulty
restraining himself from throttling him for his coarse, unfeeling
rudeness.

Again, hour after hour passed away in fruitless anxiety. Every step upon
the ladder which led from above, exciting a thrill of hope, only the
instant after to be crushed in bitter disappointment. At length, about 2
P.M., an orderly, with a file of marines came to conduct him to the
commander. With alacrity he obeyed the summons, and when he reached the
gun-deck, from habits of association, he felt cheered at the sight of
the long lines of massive artillery, the stacks of muskets here and
there, surmounted with their bristling bayonets, and the bright sheen of
the sharpened cutlases. As the cabin-door was thrown open by the sentry
stationed there, he cast a quick and searching glance around the
apartment, in the hope of seeing his betrothed. She was not there, and
but for the guns projecting from either side, he could not have realized
that he stood in the cabin of a man-of-war, so rich was its furniture
and so gorgeous its decorations. Gracefully festooned across its entire
width, and partially concealing the white and highly polished
lattice-work of the after-cabin, was a deep curtain of crimson
embroidered and fringed with gold. On either side, in the recesses
between the guns, were magnificent couches canopied and covered with the
same material, intertwined with white. Between the forward and the after
gun, on each side, were collections of flowers and fragrant plants. A
large mirror in an arabesque frame, was inclined over a rose-wood
sideboard, laden with massive plate and a profusion of crystal. A richly
chased silver lamp was suspended over a table, the cover of which was of
white cloth, like the curtain, fringed with gold. Around were a few
rose-wood chairs, and from several cages were heard the cheerful and
melodious notes of canary-birds. The deck was covered with the finest
matting. On the couch, in the recess to the left, was seated a man of
middle age and rather delicate features, except the chin and under lip,
which were massive and sensual, and a peculiar glance of the eye, which
gave a sinister aspect to an otherwise singularly handsome countenance.
He was spare in figure, and to a casual observer, even as he sat, it was
perceptible that he stooped, and his whole appearance indicated a
frequent participant in the orgies of dissipation. Before him stood the
officer of marines, who had just made his official report. At a signal
from the latter, Talbot advanced toward the count, who said, “I
understand, sir, from the officer of the guard, that you declare
yourself to be a lieutenant in the navy of the United States, but that
you have no evidence to sustain you. How can you expect me to credit the
assertion of a stranger under such suspicious circumstances as you must
admit your present position to be?”

“You have a lady on board, sir, my affianced bride, who, with her
brother, is here under the same circumstances with myself, they will
tell you that I am not an impostor.”

“Your affianced bride,” said the count, not heeding what he had last
said, “you are then the friend for whom she has been so restless and
uneasy?”

“I knew that she would be so,” replied Talbot; “may I ask now to see
her, that she may corroborate what I have said?”

“Not so fast,” exclaimed the count, “that you have gained the affections
of the young lady is no proof of your being what you profess, indeed,
you may have won them under an assumed name and character.”

“It ill becomes you, sir,” cried Talbot, highly incensed, “it ill
becomes you to insult a man who for the time being is in your power; but
I warn you that if I, or those with me, are unnecessarily detained or
harshly treated, you will be held to a severe accountability.”

“And by whom, sir,” exclaimed the count, turning pale with rage, “by a
man who has no other vouchers to a most improbable tale, than a horde of
pirates, a mere boy, and a love-sick maiden?”

“The proofs are sufficient, sir, for any impartial mind, but I see
plainly that you have some purpose in seeming to disbelieve them—what
that purpose is your conscience best can tell.”

“What mean you, sir, by this insolence; but I know how to curb and to
punish it!”

“Insolence! and punish!” contemptuously answered Talbot, “those are
words used by cowards when addressing slaves. I defy alike your malice
and your power. You may maltreat me, but a day of reckoning will surely
come. I demand to see Miss Gillespie and her brother,” he added, as his
ear caught the sound of stifled sobs in the after cabin.

The count pulled a bell-rope by his hand, and at the summons, the sentry
who had admitted him, opened the door and looked in, while from another
door, the steward entered and stood obsequiously by his master. The
latter, pointing to the door, said,

“Mr. Manuel, take out your prisoner and confine him apart from the rest;
sentry, let them pass.”

Talbot hesitated a moment, and then said, “I am unarmed and helpless,
and it would therefore be madness to resist you—but, in the name of
humanity, I ask you, can you listen unmoved to the distress of the
unhappy lady within there; as a man, an officer, and a nobleman, I
appeal to you in her behalf. She has recently lost her father, as you
know, and, save myself, her young brother is now her only protector.”

“She will be sufficiently protected, sir, without your
interference—take out the prisoner, Mr. Manuel.”

The above conversation had taken place in Spanish, which Talbot spoke
fluently, but when he found that for some sinister purpose, he was not
to be permitted to see Miss Gillespie, he advanced toward the
lattice-work and called out in English, “Mary, dear Mary, be upon your
guard! Frank, do not leave your sister for a moment; I fear that she is
in the hands of a villain.”

“That I will not,” cried the boy, who vainly tried to force the door,
while his sister sobbed convulsively.

The count, who, although not understanding the language, comprehended
the import of the words, with a gesture of frantic impatience, motioned
the officer to lead his prisoner away.

Talbot, satisfied that the danger was lessened by the timely warning he
had given, without resistance, submitted to be led from the apartment.

When left alone, the count remained for some time in a thoughtful
attitude. “If I could but speak their horrid language,” he said,
soliloquizing with himself, “or if she understood mine, I should
certainly succeed, for as to this would-be bridegroom, I can easily get
rid of him, and of the brother also, if he prove intractable. Let me
see! can I trust Gonzalez? From the expression of his eye sometimes, as
well as from his never speaking of her, I fear that he knows all about
his unhappy sister; and yet I must trust him, or abandon all, for he is
the only interpreter we have. There is no help for it; I cannot give up
the game so freshly started—but I will be wary and watch him closely.”
He slightly touched the bell, “Send Gonzalez to me,” he said to the
attendant, who obeyed the summons. A few moments after, a young man of
23 or 24 years of age entered the apartment, and bowing to the count,
awaited his commands in silence. From his spare figure, he looked taller
than he really was. His hair and moustaches were glossy black, curling
in their rich luxuriance. His eye-brows, thick and bushy, formed one
continuous arch, and the eye beneath, black and lustrous, was soft and
subdued in its ordinary expression, but at times, in a single glance,
would convey a startling idea of latent but indomitable energy. His
features were almost femininely regular, and his voice musically clear
and sweet. The count’s fears were not without foundation; his secretary,
for such was the position of Gonzalez, knew his sister’s wrongs, and
like a true Spaniard, thirsted for an opportunity to revenge them. His
commander scanned him closely where he stood for some minutes, the young
man at first returning his gaze with a look neither too humble, nor yet
audacious, and then deferentially turned his eyes in another direction.

“What is the matter, Gonzalez? You seem of late unusually taciturn and
moody.”

“I think, señor, that my health is suffering from long confinement to
the ship. I need recreation on shore.”

“What mean you by long confinement—were you not on shore repeatedly
last month in Havana?”

“No, señor! If you will recollect, I applied several times to go, but on
each occasion you had important letters or despatches to write.”

“Did you hear from home before we sailed?” and the count’s look became
intensely riveted upon him.

The young man slightly , “I heard indirectly, señor, that all
were well.”

“From whom?”

“From a muleteer who resides in the adjoining village.”

“Did he give you any particulars?”

“None, señor, worth relating.”

The count paused. He was dissatisfied, yet feared that by further
questioning he might excite the very suspicions he wished to repress.
Assuming a bland and conciliatory tone, he said, “I have been to blame,
Gonzalez, and will make amends. When we reach port, you shall have ample
opportunities to recruit on shore. Should you need funds, consider my
purse at your service.”

“Thanks, señor! my salary is more than sufficient for all my wants.”

“Well, should you be in need, remember my offer; but come nearer, I have
now something confidential to impart. You are aware that the lady
brought on board last night is now in the after-cabin.”

“I am, señor.”

“One of the prisoners, doubtless an impostor, assumes that she is his
betrothed. I wish you to see her and ascertain how she is affected
toward him.”

“It is needless, señor. At the invitation of Lieutenant Flores, I
accompanied him in his boat last night, and in rescuing the prisoners
from the wreck, witnessed how tenderly that lady clung to the man you
speak of.”

“It may have been the convulsiveness of fear!”

“If so, señor, it would have subsided with the occasion that gave it
birth; but it continued to the last, and while she evinced for the lad
the solicitude of an elder sister, she seemed to regard the American as
her chosen and sole protector.”

“How were they separated?”

“I understood, señor, by your orders,” replied the youth with an air of
surprise.

“I mean,” said the count, somewhat confused, “how did they bear it?”

“He was at first disposed to resist, but a moment after submitted with
an air of stern resignation.”

“And she?”

“She at first seemed bewildered, and could not comprehend the purport of
the order; when she did so, she implored her lover, for such he must be,
not to desert her, but after he had whispered a few words to her, she
too submitted, and with such meek gentleness as moved the hardest hearts
to sympathy.”

“Sympathy,” exclaimed the count, reddening; “where there is no real
distress, there can be no occasion for its exercise. In common humanity,
I am bound to protect her from the acts of an impostor.” There was a
slight twitch of the secretary’s upper lip, but he said nothing.

“At all events, I wish you to converse with her, Gonzalez. Try if you
cannot reconcile her to a short separation from her lover, and assure
her that as soon as I am satisfied that he is what he represents
himself, he shall be free.”

The secretary bowed in acquiescence, and the count rising, led the way
into the after-cabin. It was fit for the boudoir of a queen. A carpet of
the richest Persian dyes and softest texture was under foot. Except in
front, the whole apartment was lined with fawn- tapestries; the
windows framed into the after ports had party- curtains of fawn
and cherry colors. An ottoman and several chairs were covered with
embroidered damask corresponding to the tapestry; a small, richly-carved
book-case was filled with handsomely bound books. There was a pair of
globes upon stands, and a harp, a guitar, mirrors and candelabra, with a
few small but exquisite paintings completed the equipment of this cell
of a Sybarite.

With disheveled hair, and eyes inflamed with weeping, in all the
abandonment of grief, Miss Gillespie lay with her head upon her
brother’s breast, who, as the door was opened, threw his arms around, as
if more perfectly to protect her. With a courteous air, and all the
finished breeding of an artificial gentleman, the count advanced and
paid his respects through the medium of the interpreter. “Had she
sustained no injury from the accident of the night before? Had she
recovered from her alarm? Had she slept well? Could he do any thing for
her?”

The three first questions she answered in monosyllables. At the fourth,
she made an effort to speak, but maiden bashfulness overcame her, and
she looked imploringly to her brother. The youth construed her feelings
rightly, and said,

“We wish, sir, to see our friend, Mr. Talbot, who was, with us, a
passenger in the schooner.”

“At present it cannot be,” answered the count, “but when we reach
Havana, he will doubtless prove his character, and then you can be again
united, but,” addressing her, “so much beauty should not be marred by
untimely grief. A few days more and your friend will be restored to
liberty. Here I cannot make any distinction between him and the other
prisoners. Let me therefore entreat you, Miss, to dry up your tears, and
let a smile once more wreath itself upon your lovely cheek.”

“Say to him,” asked Miss G., of the interpreter, “that I am in deep
affliction. Yesterday I lost my father, and now, when I am most
helpless, I am by his act,” (she looked toward the count) “separated
from the friend whom that father had chosen as my protector through
life. I am therefore in no mood to listen to compliments, which would be
ill-timed from any one, most of all from him.”

The count stifled his vexation and said, “I beg pardon for this
intrusion. I will await a more seasonable time to express my sympathy
and make a proffer of my services;” so saying, he withdrew, desiring
Gonzalez to remain and gather the particulars of their history.

An unprincipled man, in his sphere possessing almost unlimited power, he
felt himself baffled by an unarmed prisoner and a helpless maid. “Till
now,” he said to himself, “I thought Dolores beautiful, but her features
want the intellectual grace and harmony of this northern houri. At all
hazards, she must be mine. If all else fails, the drug must be resorted
to. It is certainly the speediest and I know not but that it is the
best; but I am neglecting my first precaution.” He rung the bell for the
steward, a dark, swarthy Italian, with the body of a man surmounted on
the legs of a dwarf.

“Domingo,” said his master, “go into the secret passage and watch
Gonzalez, who is now with the lady. Note every thing that he does, and
try to gather the meaning of what he says.”

The steward obeying, disappeared through a panel that opened with a
spring.

In about half an hour, Gonzalez came forth from the inner cabin, and
stated what he had learned of the prisoners, which, as there was no
concealment, is precisely what is known to the reader. When he had
retired, at a peculiar signal from the count, the panel noiselessly flew
open, and the steward reappeared before his master. His account was any
thing but satisfactory, and the count’s brow was darkened with deep
mistrust, as he listened to the recital.

About sunset, Miss Gillespie, aroused by some incentive, sent to ask if
her brother and herself might be permitted to walk on the upper deck.
Assent was most graciously given, and the count himself escorted her.
Finding that she would not converse, and that his presence was evidently
irksome to her, he smothered his chagrin, and after a few turns, left
the orphans to themselves.

It was an hour and a scene fitted to captivate the eye and refresh the
soul; and such was its soothing influences, that Miss G. frequently
found her mind wandering from the contemplation of the perils which
environed her. The night previous, the ship, driven before the blast,
was whirled with resistless velocity along a bed of seething foam. Now,
the gentle wind borne from the land, wafted fragrance on its wing, and
the sea, slightly ruffled, seemed to enjoy the refreshing embrace of its
sister element; the ship, too, under a cloud of canvas, snow-white and
full distended, pressed majestically on, the spray, like fairy fret-work
curling and combing beneath the bow and the rippling wake sparkled in
the rays of the setting-sun. The gorgeous western sky was tinged with
the hues of crimson and gold; the south was a boundless expanse of blue,
the island of St. Domingo, lofty, picturesque and beautiful, bounded the
northern and eastern horizon. The land, but little cultivated, seemed
fertile in the extreme, and was covered with lofty and umbrageous trees,
the tangled and luxuriant undergrowth seeming so interlaced as even at
high noon to intercept the light of the sun. The near mountains were
covered to their very summits with verdure, not the tawny verdure of a
northern clime, but the brilliant green of the tropics, while the
loftier mountains wreathed their bald and craggy tops with the clouds
that floated in the distance.

The sun had gone down and the moon was up: still Miss Gillespie paced
the deck with her brother. It was evident that she had some purpose in
view, and by those who watched her, she was observed to cast frequent
and furtive glances around. At length a figure that had been stealthily
gliding along under the shadow of the bulwarks to leeward, suddenly
stepped beside her, and whispered, “Lady, I have endeavored to see him,
but failed. Some time tonight I will surely succeed. In the meantime
there is but one resource. Take this powder, and when you go below,
dissolve it, and take a part yourself, giving the remainder to your
brother. If you would be safe, neither of you should sleep a wink
to-night. Be careful of what you eat or drink. But, hush! there is a
man’s head raised above the rail—he has been observing us. I must
away—but do not forget this.” He handed a small folded paper as he
spoke, and immediately disappeared.

Miss Gillespie had brought a book on deck with her, and by occasionally
seeming to read it, had at first given a pretext for remaining. Into
this book she inserted the paper, and soon after turned to leave the
deck, when some one brushed rudely against her, and the book fell. The
person, who, in her confusion she did not recognize, instantly picked it
up, and in seeming eagerness to return it, let it fall a second time.
Frightened almost beside herself, Miss G. now snatched it up and hurried
below. Unfortunately, the paper was not to be found. So dreadful seemed
the fate before her, that with difficulty she restrained herself from
shrieking aloud. Frank cheered her all he could, although he had but a
faint conception of the danger. They determined to deny themselves food
and liquids of every description, hoping thereby to avoid the
administration of an opiate. Alas! they knew not the infernal arts of
the demon in human shape, who had them in his power.

That evening, as was his wont once a week, the count supped with his
officers in the ward-room, and he remained until near midnight; but in
the meantime his diabolical agent had not been idle.

About 11 o’clock Frank and his sister were sensible that they were
inhaling an aromatic and fragrant vapor. At first they enjoyed it; but
it soon occurred to them that they were fast becoming drowsy. With
desperate exertions they endeavored to force the doors, or to obtain
assistance by their loud and vociferous outcries. The breeze had
unfortunately freshened on deck, and there was much tramping and running
overhead, so that they were unheard, or if heard, unheeded. One would
suppose that this agitation and fear would have proved an antidote to
the insidious effects of the drug; but no! gently, imperceptibly, they
felt their systems relax; they soon began to wonder at their alarm; a
delicious langour enthralled them, and as volume after volume of the
scented vapor rolled into the apartment, they surrendered themselves to
its influence, and pressed in each other’s arms, were soon wrapped in a
profound and insensible sleep.

About an hour before, Talbot, to whom the night previous had been a
sleepless one, although racked with anxiety, had fallen into a light and
fitful slumber, when he was instantly aroused by a hand being laid upon
his chest, and a voice whispering in his ear, “Do not speak, but follow;
imitate my motions as exactly as you can. For God’s sake be cautious,
you know not how much is at stake.”

The speaker, who was lying beside him on the deck, then rolled over
toward the hatchway; but when the sentry turned in his round, he
remained perfectly still. This he repeated, slowly and cautiously;
Talbot followed his example, until they reached what sailor’s term the
combings of the main-hatch, i.e. the elevated pieces around it, to
prevent the water from running into the hold. He there waited for some
time until he saw the sentry loiter at the furthest end of his round,
when he quickly threw himself down the hatch, and crept on one side out
of sight. As soon as Talbot had done the same, he led the way among the
casks and barrels. When they had proceeded a little distance, he
whispered, “The master’s-mate of the hold, who is a fellow-townsman of
mine, had this passage opened for me to-day. Had he refused, and he
hesitated for a long time, that villain in the cabin would inevitably
succeed in his plans.”

“What plans?” eagerly asked Talbot. “I know not who you are, or whither
you are leading me—explain.”

“You will soon know me; but let it content you now that I lead you to
save your mistress. But that I feared the interference of that ruffian,
the steward, I would have gone alone.”

“Lead on, then! lead quickly!” said Talbot, his fears strongly excited.

They resumed their way, groping along in the dark, and taking every step
with the greatest caution. In a short while they distinguished the faint
light admitted from the deck above through the fore-hatch. As soon as
they had gained this opening, Gonzalez, for it was he, taking the
opportunity when the sentry was furthest off, and had his back toward
him, sprung quickly up, and blowing out the light in a lantern which
hung to an upright timber, immediately returned to Talbot’s side. As was
anticipated, the sentry, supposing the light to have been extinguished
by a flurry of wind, took the lantern down, and proceeded to the
main-hatch, to relight the lamp. As he did so, they both, unperceived,
succeeded in gaining first the gun and then the upper-deck. Then
separating, each one quietly and undetected reached the quarter-deck,
and again rejoining each other, they slipped through a port-hole to a
narrow platform outside, called the main-chains, and there, in intense
anxiety, concerted their future movements, for the most perilous part of
their enterprise was yet before them.


                              CHAPTER III.

The convivial party in the ward-room had been broken up by a squall, and
with the other sea-officers, the count had repaired to the quarter-deck.
For a short time the wind blew with violence, and was succeeded by a
heavy fall of rain. In less than an hour there was a perfect calm, and
the sails flapped sluggishly against the masts as the ship moved with
the undulations of a light ground-swell.

In the cabin, the solitary lamp, suspended from a beam, through the
gauze-like vapor shed its soft light upon the rich and costly furniture,
and revealed the forms of the sleepers, whose deep breathing alone
proclaimed their existence, so immovable was their position—so much
deprived did their bodies seem of the watchful guardianship of the
spirits within them. The faint and silvery light, the attenuated vapor,
the fragrant odors wafted from the flowers in front, the boy, with his
noble brow undimmed by sin or sorrow, the lovely maiden, one arm upon
her breast, and one clasped around her brother, formed an atmosphere and
a group in and around which angels might love to linger. But a serpent
had stealthily glided in, and the count, with maddening pulse and
gloating eye, looked upon his unconscious victim. Incapable of any
feeling but that of a hardened libertine, no thought of the dire ruin he
was about to inflict for one instant stayed his purpose. As the spider,
after weaving its web, contemplates the struggles of the entangled fly,
before clutching to devour it, so he stood, reveling in anticipation on
the sensual feast before him. At length he approached, he gently
touched, then breathed upon, and called them by their names, and then
more rudely shook them. As he anticipated, they neither heard nor heeded
him. The stillness was death-like and profound. He removed the boy from
the girl's embrace, and she lay resistless at his mercy. For an instant
longer he paused; he fondled her hand, he played with her tresses; he
stooped to kiss her moist and parted lip.

The fiend-like purpose was frustrated: a crashing blow descended upon
his head, and he rolled over and fell senseless on the deck. With one
foot upon the prostrate form, and the massive bar again uplifted, Talbot
stood over him, while from the doorway Gonzales looked on.

“Hold!” said the last, as Talbot was about to repeat the blow, “Hold!
another stroke may finish him, and that is a task reserved for me
alone.” He advanced as he spoke, and proceeded to examine the wound. “It
is a very severe contusion,” he added a moment after, “and if it had
fallen a little more direct, the blow would have been a fatal one. He is
now wholly insensible, and unless my skill in surgery fails me, he will
remain, for some days at least, in a perfect stupor. It is most
fortunate. We need not now attempt an escape, for no one can suspect us,
and before he recovers, we shall probably be in Havana. Let us place him
in his room and retire; the vile, pandering steward will not dare to
enter during the night, and in the morning, I will be hovering near. It
is useless, no human efforts can awake them now,” he added, as he saw
Talbot endeavoring to arouse the maiden: “but they are safe, and that
they may continue so, we must not lose a moment.”

With a sigh, Talbot relinquished the hand of his mistress, which he had
clasped within his own, and, pressing his lips to her fair forehead,
turned to assist Gonzalez in removing the wounded man. They then effaced
all traces of their presence, and retired as they had come, through the
window of the quarter-gallery.

The next morning the table in the forward cabin was spread for
breakfast; the steward, in passing to and fro, grinned leeringly as from
time to time he looked toward the after cabin. One of the midshipmen of
the watch came to report 8 o’clock. The steward tapped lightly at the
state-room door, but receiving no reply, and not presuming to disturb
his master, took it upon himself to report to the officers that the
count said “Very well”—the usual reply. By 9 o’clock, he began to be
uneasy, not that he apprehended any thing to have happened to his
master, but that the lady might awake before the count had left her
apartment. At the lattice-work, and to the key-hole of his master’s
door, he alternately placed his ear. At the last he thought that he
distinguished a deep and smothered breathing; at the first he could hear
no sound whatever. Satisfied that his master was in his state-room, he
felt more easy.

At 10 o’clock, the wonted hour, the drum beat to quarters for
inspection. When the first lieutenant came to make his report, the
steward intimated that the count was indisposed.

“Has he directed that he should not be disturbed?” asked the officer.

The steward admitted that he had not.

“Have you been summoned to him in the night?”

“No, sir!”

“Then I must make my report.” He advanced to the door and knocked, at
first gently, and then louder and more loudly still. There was no reply;
and the officer, turning the bolt, to the surprise of the steward, the
door yielded to his push, and flew open. (That their mode of entrance
might not be suspected, Gonzalez had unlocked it before retiring.) The
count was found with his wrapper on, lying in a profound stupor, the
blood clotted thickly over the wound he had received. The orphans were
buried in a sleep which the surgeon pronounced unnatural; and the
steward was suspected of having drugged them, and afterward attempted
the life of his master. This miserable wretch was thrown in irons as the
supposed murderer of the man in whose contemplated villainy he had been
a willing and a free participant.

Light and baffling winds detained the frigate, and on the evening of the
fourth day after the incident above related, she had just cleared the
windward passage, and with Cape la Mole astern, was standing along the
northern shore of Cuba, for the port of Havana. The count had laid in a
comatose state since his accident, and his constant heavy breathing and
frequent moans, showed how much pressure there was upon the brain, and
how much he suffered. In the course of this day his respiration had
become more regular and less oppressive, and about 3 o’clock in the
afternoon, he awoke to consciousness and a sense of pain. By degrees his
recollection returned, and after making a few inquiries, to the surprise
of every one, he ordered the steward to be released, and again summoned
in attendance upon him. These two, the master, just rescued from the
grave, and the servant who would have found an ignominious one had his
master died, conferred for a long time together. After questioning his
steward closely, the count said, “I am satisfied, Domingo, that it was
not from your hand that I received the blow. I left you in the forward
cabin, you could only have entered on the starboard side, and in that
direction my head was turned, and I must have seen you. The blow was on
the other side—probably from some one secreted there. Were you at any
time absent from the cabin, after I went to the ward-room?”

“Not an instant, señor!”

“It is strange! Could he have entered by the quarter-gallery?”

“It must have been so, señor, although I can discover no marks.”

“I suspect Gonzalez,” said the count; “indeed, I am sure that he has
been concerned, but then he had not the vigor to deal such a blow. That
hateful American must have been the man. I will be deeply revenged!”

Late that afternoon, as Talbot, sitting aloof from the other prisoners,
was grieving that Mary’s persecutor had recovered his faculties before
the arrival of the ship in port, and from which he feared the most
serious consequences, he was accosted by the master’s-mate, who said, in
passing, “Courage, my friend, you will soon be at liberty—take a cigar
to cheer you.”

Talbot thanked him, and was about to decline, when he caught the eye of
the officer, and noticed that he pushed a particular one out from the
small bundle he held in his hand; Talbot took it, and watching his
opportunity, opened his cigar unobserved. It contained a small slip of
paper within its folds with these words. “We are strongly suspected, if
not discovered; I know it from the searching examination I have
undergone. We must fly and reach Havana before the ship if possible. Be
on the alert for any opportunity that may present to slip up the
main-hatch ladder, near which I will be hovering. Do not hesitate! Here
you are absolutely within the power of the tyrant. He will throw you
into the Moro Castle as soon as we arrive, and before your case can be
investigated, months must elapse, and in the meantime, the lady will be
lost to you forever.”

This note agitated Talbot exceedingly. It was agonizing to think of
leaving Mary and her brother in the hands of their unprincipled captor;
and yet, from his own experience thus far, he felt sure, that if he
remained, he would be kept separated from her, and most probably
confined in a dungeon until her ruin was completed. His only consolation
was, that the count could not recover sufficiently to renew his
nefarious designs before the ship had reached her port of destination.
This consideration determined him to make his escape if possible.

There had been some water heated in the coppers, (anglice—boiler,) for
the purpose of giving the count a prescribed bath. It so happened that
while the cook’s attention was drawn another way, a piece of meat was
thrown in, which rendered the water greasy and unfit for its destined
use. The master’s-mate was therefore directed to have more drawn from
the hold. Accordingly he came upon the lower or birth-deck, and as he
stepped from the ladder, said, sufficiently loud for Talbot to hear, who
was reclined beside it, “Look out!” and passed immediately on. The
latter, taking the hint, but uncertain how to apply it, remained for a
few moments in great suspense, when the master’s-mate called the sentry
forward to hold the light for him. As the latter moved forward, Talbot
availed himself of the opportunity, and instantly hurried up the ladder,
although yet uncertain if such were the plan concerted by his friends.
He was very soon assured, however, for nearly abreast of him, from the
shadow between two of the guns, a figure advanced a few steps and
immediately retired again. It proved to be Gonzalez, and together they
clambered out over one of the guns, and found themselves by the small
skiff of the privateer, which had been saved and hoisted up immediately
under the anchor in the waist. Fortunately, the wind had hauled nearly
ahead, and with the yards sharp-braced up, the ship was sailing
sluggishly along, with her head rather diagonally inclined toward the
shore.

“We must remain quiet here,” whispered Gonzalez, “until some movement be
made on deck, in the noise of which we can lower the skiff undetected.”

The wind was gradually freshening, and the ship began to plunge with the
increasing swell. After a while the topgallant-sails were taken in, but
it was an operation so quickly performed, that before the boat was
lowered half the distance it was suspended from the water, the noise
ceased, and they were obliged to hold on. In about half an hour after,
which seemed to them an almost interminable space of time, they were
cheered with the welcome order,

“Man the main clew-garnets and buntlines,” preparatory to hauling up the
mainsail. As the men ran away with the ropes, and clued and gathered the
large and loudly flapping sail to the yard, Talbot and Gonzalez lowered
the boat, and casting her loose, the ship passed by without any one
observing them and was soon lost to view in the obscurity of the night.
They had exchanged apprehended evils from human malignity for instant
and appalling danger. The moon, struggling through a bank of clouds and
shorn of her brilliancy by the opposing mist, cast her furtive beams
upon the fretted sea. Instead of the prolonged and easy swell of the
mid-ocean, the gulf, as if moved by adverse tides, whirled its waves
about like some huge Briareus, tossing his hundred arms in the wildest
and most furious contortions. The skiff was so light, so frail, and so
difficult of trim, that they were every moment in danger of upsetting.
The swell rapidly increased, and as they sunk into the trough of the
sea, and shut out the faint horizon, the succeeding wave overshadowed,
and its crest seemed to curl in anger above them. Sometimes a wave, like
some monster rising from the deep, looked down black and threatening
upon the tiny boat, and then rolling its seething foam along the sides,
it rushed ahead, and gathering into a mass, seemed to await her coming.
Thinly clad, and soon wet to the skin, as they rode upon the tops of the
waves, they suffered bitterly from the coldness of the wind. In the
hollow of the sea, they were sheltered one moment only to be more
exposed the next. Sometimes riding upon the broken crest of a wave, they
felt upon their bed of foam, as insignificant and far more helpless than
the gulls which, disturbed in their slumber, screamed around them. The
oars were of little service, save to steady the boat in the dreadful
pitchings and careerings to which it was every instant subjected. One
managed the oars, or sculls rather, while the other steered and
occasionally bailed. There could be no transfer of labor, for it was
certain death to attempt a change of position. Although the current set
along the land, the wind and the heave of the sea, drove them indirectly
toward it. After five hours incessant fatigue, cold, cramped and wearied
to exhaustion, they reached the near vicinity of the shore, and running
along it for about a mile, in increased danger, for the boat was now
nearly broadside to the sea, they made the mouth of a small harbor, into
which, as their frames thrilled with gratitude, they pulled with all
their might. As the peace and the joys of heaven are to the wrangling
and contumelies of this world, so was the placid stillness of that
sheltered nook to the fierce wind and troubled sea without. The
transition was as sudden as it was delightful, and with uncovered heads
and upturned gaze, each paid his heartfelt tribute of thankfulness.

On one side of the sequestered little bay, through the dim and uncertain
light, they discovered two or three huts, embowered and almost concealed
by groves of the umbrageous and productive banana, whose large
pendent-leaves waving in the wind, seemed at one time to beckon them on,
and at another to warn them from approaching. It was evidently a fishing
settlement, for there were some boats hauled up on the shore, and a long
seine was hung upon a number of upright poles. Pulling toward what
seemed the usual landing, their light skiff grated upon the pebbly
beach, and they leaped, overjoyed, upon the silent shore—silent and
mute in all that pertains to human action or the human voice, but
eloquent, most eloquent, in the outpourings of a rich and teeming earth,
and the gushing emotions of thankfulness it awakened in the bosoms of
those two weary and persecuted men.

                                                   [_To be continued._

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          VICTORY AND DEFEAT.


            To-day, with loud acclaim the welkin rings
            In praise of deeds the shout of VICTORY brings:
            To-morrow, not e’en Echo will repeat
            The praise of deeds then canceled by DEFEAT.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               TO MOTHER.


                             BY ANNIE GREY.


               Oh! wake, my mother! wake! and hail
                 With me this dawning day;
               Oh wake, my mother! wake and list
                 Thy daughter’s fervent lay.

               She comes to seek thy blessing,
                 And to whisper in thine ear—
               That warmer glows her love for thee
                 With every added year.

               Wake, mother! wake! while faintly steal
                 The sunbeams pure and bright,
               And playful throw around thy couch
                 Their most bewitching light.

               For this is a hallowed day, mother!
                 A hallowed day to me;
               ’Twas at its dawn, four years ago,
                 That first I greeted thee.

               We love the sunbeams, mother,
                 And wheresoe’er they rest,
               We feel their sacred influence,
                 As though some angel guest

               Concealed itself ’mid golden rays,
                 That from God’s holy shrine
               Fall as night-dews or summer-showers,
                 Refreshing and divine.

               We love the sunbeams, mother!
                 What beauties they awake,
               When first from the clear eastern sky
                 All gloriously they break.

               Oh! how the flowers delight to feel
                 Their warm kiss from above,
               And brighten ’neath it as the heart
                 Beneath a kiss of love;

               And merrier dance the waters,
                 When every ripple shows
               A sparkling crown like diamond gems,
                 As carelessly it flows.

               But wake, my mother! wake and list
                 The strain I have to sing;
               ’Tis not of these glad sunbeams,
                 Though joy around they fling,

               But of a sunbeam brighter,
                 That cheers me all the while,
               And never knoweth change, mother!
                 The sunbeam of thy smile.

               How often, oh! how often,
                 When my heart feels lone and drear,
               Its thrilling presence banishes
                 All thoughts of grief or fear.

               How often, often, mother!
                 When I’ve mourned, but scarce knew why,
               I’ve hailed its light, and soon forgot
                 The tear-drop and the sigh.

               For thoughts of sadness will intrude
                 Upon my soul oft times;
               They come and bid me ne’er forget
                 That there are purer climes.

               And still I trust its radiance
                 May fall upon my soul
               Through all my future hours and days,
                 As onward still they roll.

               And, mother! oh, my mother!
                 When this dream of life is o’er,
               When God calls back his wandering child
                 To Heaven’s unclouded shore,

               Amid the pure and golden beams
                 That fall around me there,
               The gentle stir of angel wings
                 And harp-strings softly fair,

               I’ll not forget thee, mother!
                 Though fleeting years have flown,
               But come sometimes and watch o’er thee
                 When thou art all alone.

               Thou wilt not see me, but I’ll come
                 Upon the summer breeze,
               Or hidden lay amid the shade
                 Of young, green summer leaves,

               And whisper in thine ear, mother,
                 Of what I feel too well,
               But words of mortal dialect
                 Can never, never tell.

               I’ll whisper of my fervent love,
                 And breathe low thanks to thee
               For all the tenderness and care
                 Thou hast bestowed on me.

               And I shall hope to meet thee
                 In the sinless land on high,
               Where we can lisp in tones of love
                 The language of the sky.

               Oh! I shall be waiting, mother dear!
                 And watching all the while,
               To greet again, with happy heart,
                 The sunbeam of thy smile.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           ON A DIAMOND RING.


                          BY CHARLES E. TRAIL.


           Rare is the diamond’s lustre, and the mine
             No richer treasure hath than yellow gold;
             Yet were its jewels of a price untold,
           Still dearer charms this little ring doth shrine.
           Circling thy taper finger, how divine
             Its lot; oft to thy fair cheek prest,
             And by such contact past expression blest,
             Or sparkling ’mid those sunny locks of thine!
             Oh! these are uses which might consecrate
               The basest metal, or the dull, vile earth;
             Enhance the diamond’s price, or elevate
               The clod to an inestimable worth.
           Would that so dear a gem, which thus hath shone
           Upon thy snowy hand, might ever bless my own!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE RECLUSE. NO. I.


                           BY PARK BENJAMIN.


In the series of papers (and they will have the rare merit of being
short) which I am about to offer to the reader, I shall not so far
follow the ill fashion of the day as to strive to be “original.” I do
not mean by this remark to signify that I shall not give my own thoughts
in my own way. But I shall not twist the English language out of all
shape and comeliness; I shall not Germanize and Frenchize and
Italianize; I shall express my ideas in the simplest possible words; I
shall always choose the Saxon rather than the Norman; I shall endeavor
to write so that “he who runs may read.” Were I a teacher of youth, I
should recommend as the best models of style Swift and Southey, Addison,
Steele, Channing, Sir James Macintosh, Irving, not Carlyle, Gibbon,
Johnson, Emerson. I set plain Nature above gorgeous Art. The epithet
“natural” conveys to my mind the highest praise of verse or prose. A
style may indeed be eminently artistic, but still appear to be natural.

I have said enough to show the manner in which I shall try to convey my
ideas. Fewer words will set forth the character of my matter.

I have no subject. I think, in my solitude, of many things. As thoughts
occur to me I put them down. Though a Recluse, and having but little
society except that of woods and fields, rocks and waters, I am fond of
contemplating the events of the hour. Many of my topics will therefore
be of immediate interest. They will at least have the charm of variety,
and my “mode of treatment,” to use an expression of physicians, the
merit of brevity.

This is sufficient introduction. Courteous reader, I salute you.


                       I.—THE CROTON CELEBRATION.

Of all public displays, that which affected me most deeply was the
celebration of the opening of the Croton river into the great city of
New York. A day had been appointed by the powers in being. Arrangements
were made for a mighty civic procession. It was a jubilee of Cold Water.
The Temperance Societies figured chiefly on the occasion. Those trades
which best flourish by the practice of temperance were numerously
represented, bearing before them their symbols and instruments. I
remember a printing-press on a platform, borne triumphantly along,
working as it went, throwing off handbills, on which odes were printed,
to the eager and amused crowd on both sides of the way. By the side of
that printing-press sat, in smiling dignity, Colonel Stone, as everybody
called him, then editor of the Commercial Advertiser. Kind-hearted,
conscientious, hospitable, credulous, verbose gentleman! thou art
sleeping as silently as those aboriginal lords of the soil whose lives
thou commemoratedst!

I have seen a great many multitudes, but never so quiet, so orderly, so
well-dressed, so happy a concourse as that which filled the windows and
balconies and doorsteps, and absolutely covered the sidewalks, on the
morning of the Croton celebration. Throngs of gayly clad women and
children moved merrily about; for there was not a solitary drunkard that
day in all the streets of the city to molest or make them afraid. An
individual under the influence of any liquor more potent than that which
was gushing from a thousand fountains, would have been an anomaly too
hideous to be borne. Braver than Julius Cæsar or Zachary Taylor must he
have been who dared to took upon wine red in the cup on such a day as
that.

I well remember the reflections which passed through my mind as I stood
gazing on that happy and soul-comforting scene. The treaty of peace, as
it might well have been called, establishing the North-Eastern boundary
of the United States, settling a _questio vexata_ of long continuance,
which had again and again threatened war, had just been concluded
between this country and Great Britain—thanks to the pacific
dispositions and noble talents of the negotiators. Thinking of this, as
I looked at the mighty civic array, at the procession, which was like an
endless chain of human beings, the head of it, after having traveled
through six miles of streets, meeting the tail of it, which had not yet
drawn an inch of its slow length along, below the Park—as I looked at
the smiling faces and the sporting fountains—I exclaimed to myself, How
glorious a scene is this! How much worthier of a free people than the
martial triumphs of old! A great good has been done. Energy and Skill
have effected a stupendous work. Thousands and thousands are met
together on an appointed day, to commemorate an achievement which shall
prove a blessing to many generations yet unborn. Indeed, indeed this is
more to be desired than the most complete of victories.

I went on thus with my cogitations. Let me suppose that these
negotiations between two nations, strong in men and the resources of
warfare, negotiations skillfully conducted to a most fortunate issue,
and the establishment of a peace in which all the world is interested,
had proved to be unsuccessful. Suppose that war had been declared, that
we had no longer ago than yesterday received intelligence of a conquest
on the sea, that a fierce battle had been fought, and that our ships had
come into port laden with spoils and crowded with prisoners. How
different to-day would have been our rejoicings! The outward
demonstrations might, in some respects, have been the same. The streets
would have been filled with multitudes of men; the bells of the churches
(oh sacrilege!) would have pealed long and loudly; the flag of our
country would have waved from many a house-top and “liberty-pole”—yet,
in the midst of all this, there would have been distinguished the
trophies of wo and of disaster. The cannon, which had dealed death to
the brave, would have been borne through the streets, and the banners of
the conquered trailed in the dust. Execrations would have mingled with
shouts, and frowns of hatred with smiles of joy. Sorrow and anguish
would have been comates with exultation and delight, and the hilarity of
all hearts deeply subdued by the sad faces of many mourners.

And how different would have been our inward emotions! Instead of “calm
thoughts regular as infant’s breath,” we should have experienced a
tumultuous rapture, a demoniac triumph, an uneasy and restless joy, a
trembling pride, a satisfaction with the present embittered by fears for
the future. Now we rejoice with cheerful consciences. No “coming events
cast their shadows before” to cloud the horizon of hope. We look upon a
cloudless firmament above us and around us. We are indeed proud of the
task which has been accomplished; but ours is a pride unmixed with any
baser emotion—a pride honorable to humanity. Ah, how much more glorious
is this than a victory! It is a sight to make the old young—a sight
worthy of perpetual commemoration. It will be always recollected. We
shall tell it to our children’s children. From time to time our authors
shall write of it—so that it may always live in the memory of the age.


                            II.—ON A BIBLE.

               Could this outside beholden be
               To cost and cunning equally,
               Or were it such as might suffice
               The luxury of curious eyes—
               Yet would I have my dearest look
               Not on the cover, but the Book.

               If thou art merry, here are airs;
               If melancholy, here are prayers;
               If studious, here are those things writ
               Which may deserve thy ablest wit;
               If hungry, here is food divine;
               If thirsty, Nectar, Heavenly wine.

               Read then, but first thyself prepare
               To read with zeal and mark with care;
               And when thou read’st what here is writ,
               Let thy best practice second it;
               So twice each precept read shall be,
               First in the Book, and next in thee.

               Much reading may thy spirits wrong,
               Refresh them therefore with a song;
               And, that thy music praise may merit,
               Sing David’s Psalms with David’s spirit,
               That, as thy voice doth pierce men’s ears,
               So shall thy prayers and vows the spheres.

               Thus read, thus sing, and then to thee
               The very earth a Heaven shall be;
               If thus thou readest, thou shalt find
               A private Heaven within thy mind,
               And, singing thus, before thou die
               Thou sing’st thy part to those on high.

I have modernized the orthography of the foregoing quaint and beautiful
stanzas, from the dress in which they are clothed in the second part of
the Diary of Lady Willoughby, just published by John Wiley, bookseller,
in New York. They are happily imitative of the style of the poets of
olden time. They remind one of George Herbert—that “sweet singer in the
Israel” of the English church, of Donne, of Wotton, and of other
lyrists, who chanted the praises of our God. To my ear, much dearer are
such simple, tuneful verses than the grandiloquent outpourings of the
more modern muse. They come home, as it were, to one’s child-like
sympathies. They awaken the thoughts of “youthly years;” they freshen
the withered feelings of the heart, as heaven’s dew freshens the dried
leaves in summer.

Let me recommend this most tender, most soul-touching of “late
works”—these passages from the Diary of Lady Willoughby. It is not a
_real_ “aunciente booke,” but an imitation; yet, like certain copies of
a picture by an old master, it may boast some touches better than the
original. Chatterton’s forgeries were not more perfect in their way,
though this be no forgery, but what it pretends to be—namely, an
invention. I feared, when I took up the second part of this remarkable
production, that it would deteriorate in interest, that the hand of the
_artist_ would become manifest. But it is not so. Here, throughout, is
the _ars celare artem_ in perfection.

How touching a lesson do the feigned sorrows the Lady Willoughby present
to her sex. What absence of repining! What reliance on the justice and
mercy of God! What trust in the merits of her Redeemer! Her faith is
never shaken. Her soul is never dismayed. With an expression holier than
Raphael has imparted to his pictures of the Madonna, she looks upward
and is comforted. Ever into the troubled waters of her soul descends the
angel of peace. Perfect pattern is she for wives and mothers. Excellent
example of a Christian woman.


                                  III.

Are not some of the prophecies being fulfilled in these latter days?
Trace we not in the decay of old empires the tempest of God’s wrath? Is
not the arm of the Lord stretched out over the people and over the
nations of the earth? Breaks he not thrones to pieces as if they were
potter’s vessels? Where are the kings and princes who were born and
chosen to rule over men? “How are the mighty fallen!” Even now, as by
the mouth of his holy prophet, Isaiah, may the Lord say, “Is not _this_
the fast that I have chosen. To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdened, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke?”

Truly has my mind, shut out as I am from commune with the busy
world—truly has my mind been deeply, solemnly affected by the wondrous
events which are passing in those realms, the pages of whose history are
printed in blood. I see the hand of God in all. I trace the fulfillment
of prophecies contained in the Book of books. I am oppressed by a
sensation of awe as I read the words of inspiration and discern their
truth in these latter days.

Was not the heart of Louis Philippe before his sudden and terrible
overthrow as stout as the heart of the King of Assyria? Did not he, too,
say of his monarchy, his rule and his riches—not only to himself, but
even to the stranger in his land—

“By the strength of my hand I have done it and by my wisdom; for I am
prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed
their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man;
and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people.”

And was he not likewise cast down? Was not a burning kindled under his
glory like the burning of a fire? “And behold at evening-tide, trouble,
and before the morning he _was_ not.”

“This is the portion of them that spoil us,” shouted the people of
France at the overthrow of the family of Orleans. “This is the portion
of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 ROME.


                           BY R. H. STODDARD.


In the heart of Rome eternal, the Coliseum stands sublime,
Lofty in the midst of ruins, like a temple built to Time.

Vast, colossal, ’tis with piles of broken arches reared on high,
But the dome is gone, and nothing roofs it but the summer sky.

And the walls are rent, and gaping wide, and crumbling fast away,
And the columns waste, but moss and grasses cover their decay.

When the sky of June was bluest, melting as the eye of love,
And the breezes from Campagnia bore the city’s hum above;

Poring o’er the rich and classic authors of the Age of Gold,
Virgil, Horace, Terence, Plautus, Livy and historians old,

I imagined Rome restored as in the glorious days of yore,
Peopled by the great and mighty, as it shall be nevermore.

I beheld the Past before me, and the fallen circus rose,
And the leaning columns righted, and the ruins seemed to close;

Flags were streaming on the lofty walls, and standards of renown,
Plucked from out some hostile army, or some sacked and burning town;

Proud patricians filled the boxes, judges, senators, in white,
Consuls from remotest provinces, and hosts of ladies bright;

And the emperor sat among them, in his regal purple proud,
And below a countless sea of heads, the common plebeian crowd;

Wrestlers struggled in the ring, and athlete and equestrians bold,
And the steeds and dashing chariots raised a cloud of dusty gold;

Troops of sworded gladiators, Dacian captives, fought and bled,
And the lists were strewn with wretches lying on their bucklers dead;

And in the arena Christian saints and martyrs, old and gray,
Were trampled in the dust, and torn by savage beasts of prey.

Sick of this, I turned and looking out the arches in the street,
I beheld a mighty multitude, a crowd with hurrying feet;

Nobles with their flowing togas, simple artisans bedight
In their holyday attire and badges, maids with eyes of light,

Waving hands to lovers distant, and the little children clung
To their mother’s gowns, and nurses held aloft their infants young,

And afar and pouring through the city gates a long array,
And in front, in his triumphal car, the hero of the day;

And his coursers champed their frosted bits and pranced, but all in vain,
Braced he stood, with streaming robe, and checked them with a tightened
  rein;

And a mournful group of kingly captives, dusty, drooping low,
Followed, fettered to his chariot, gracing his triumphal show;

Augurs and soothsayers, flamen, tribunes, lictors bearing rods,
And gray-bearded priests, with olive boughs and statues of the gods,

Shaking from their brazen censers clouds of incense to the skies,
Leading lowing steers, in wreaths and garlands decked, to sacrifice.

Sacred nymphs from temples near, in spotless white, and vestal throngs
Followed solemn, dancing mystic dances, singing choral songs.

Cohorts of the Roman soldiers conquering legions marched behind,
With their burnished armor shining and their banners on the wind;

And, with distance faint, the brattling drums, the trumpet’s mighty blast,
And the clarion rung and sounded like an echo from the Past.

All at once the glorious vision melted, faded in the air,
Like a desert exhalation, leaving all its ruin bare.

And, in place of glory and the beauty of the olden day,
I beheld the Queen of Cities wasted, fallen in decay.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                       THE MISSIONARY, SUNLIGHT.


                            BY CAROLINE C——.


               “Her presence makes thick darkness light—
               Hope’s rainbow spreadeth o’er her path;
             Through her, weak souls are filled with might,
               And Mercy triumphs over Wrath.”


A sweet Sister of Charity, a faithful, never-wearying missionary, is the
beautiful Sunlight, daughter of the proud monarch who reigns supremely
over the broad dominions of the “upper blue!”

Six long, tedious months in her father’s gorgeous palace, had the lovely
maiden been constrained to mingle in the festal scenes which enlivened
the monarch’s dwelling during that dreary time when the poor earth lay
helplessly beneath the iron hand of winter. How often from the
palace-windows had she looked with eyes dimmed with tears, and most
melancholy glances on the world that was subject during all those months
to a _natural_ kind of heathenish slavery! Despoiled of their rich
garments the old princes of the forests stretched forth their naked arms
toward her in supplication of her presence and charitable aid. A voice,
to no ear audible save her own, crept up from beneath the winding-sheets
which envelopes streamlet and river; and a wail that broke forth from
the poor in their agony and want, reached her gentle heart, and her
tears fell afresh. And even the children of gayety and fashion felt an
irresistable yearning in their hearts to listen once more to her soft
and gentle teachings!

But “’tis always the darkest the hour before day;” and while Sunlight
was half-despairingly revolving in her mind all possible means by which
she might again, without the utmost danger of sudden death, be enabled
freely to wander over earth to beautify and bless it, the discerning old
king, her father, saw how pale her cheek was growing, and how dimness
was creeping over her bright eyes. He knew she wearied of, and longed
heartily to escape from the heartless pomp and magnificence which
surrounded her; so he resolved to carry into immediate execution a plan
he had long been contemplating. He would make a sudden and strong attack
on his old foe who was lording it so magnificently over earth! He would
teach the rough, boorish chieftain, in a way he could not mistake, that
there were other and mightier powers in existence than his own.

So he fought long and valiantly, and won the victory—a glorious one it
was, too. In a few days many sharp, fierce conflicts had taken place,
the glittering crown of winter was broken, his staff of office taken
from him, and the disagreeable old gray-beard was forced to skulk away
in silence and shame and confusion of face, to his bleak and fitting
home at the North Pole.

(Would he were wise enough not to attempt again another short-lived
triumph! But he is so Napoleon-ish in his nature, we may well have our
fears on this point.)

When the king had returned to his palace the night of the last decisive
victory—after he had thrown aside his golden armor, though weary from
the conflict, he paused not a moment to rest till he had summoned his
young daughter to his presence, and thus made known to her his will.

“To-morrow, my child, put on thy most beautiful and radiant garments,
and let the bright smile come back once more to thy face, for I have
work for thee to do. I have subdued the army of King Winter, and now it
shall be thine to make joy in the place where he has sown desolation. It
is thine, to restore order and comfort and happiness and beauty in the
dwelling place where he reigned in such a rude, uncivilized, mobocrastic
manner. Ah! that light in thine eye tells me it is no ungrateful task I
set for thee! it is very plain now, the cause of all thy sighing and
tears for so long back; the old bloom will revisit thy cheek again I
see. But remember, thy mission is one all-important. Do all things well,
and nothing hastily—and now to rest! This shall be no gala-night, thou
needest all thy strength for thy work; so haste to thy couch, and be
stirring early in the morn.”

When the maiden was thus assured of the fulfillment of her greatest
hope, she bended down at the king’s feet and said, joyfully, “Oh, my
father, I bless thee for thy goodness. The dear earth, she shall swiftly
know thy mercy, and array herself in glorious garments in which to honor
her deliverer! To-morrow, to-morrow shall see that if thou, my father,
art strong to make free, thy daughter is loving, and patient, and full
of good-will to help and adorn the miserable captives thou hast
delivered from bondage.”

And early the next morning the lovely princess went forth alone,
rejecting all offers of a body-guard, a most devout and devoted
missionary, whose end and aim was to make glad the waste-places, and to
cause the wilderness to blossom.

There were as yet, here and there, stubborn patches of snow on the
ground, and a vindictive, sharp-voiced wind, a wounded straggler
belonging to the white king’s retreating army, and his chief object
seemed to be to exhaust the patience of all who were within hearing
wherever he moved, by his rude insulting speeches. But totally unmindful
of him, and maintaining a most dignified silence, Sunlight passed by
him, well knowing that he too would speedily be compelled to follow
whither his master had gone.

Sometimes dark, threatening clouds would flit before her eyes, for a
moment totally obstructing her vision, but a brave heart was that
maiden’s, and when these petty annoyances were passed, she continued on
her way patiently and hopefully as before. An apparently hopeless and
endless task was that Sunlight had undertaken. She must, as it were,
perform the part of resurrectionist. She must breathe life into a
breathless body, and call the seemingly dead forth from their graves.
The labor seemed too vast for her gentle hand, it appeared almost
impossible that she should accomplish it. She was alone, too, in a
strange, unpleasant kind of silence. There was not the voice of even a
bird to cheer her on, and stiff and mute the brooklets lay in their
coffins of ice.

But she is very far from despairing. And her strength is, indeed,
perfectly wonderful. Stealing with quiet steps along the banks of the
little streams, she speaks to them some words apparently powerful as the
“open sesame,” for the waters begin to open their eyes, faintly the
pulse begins to throb, and the heart to beat, and ere long they have
wholly thrown off that cold shroud which enveloped them, while it in
turn becomes part and parcel of their own rejoicing life. Then they set
forth rejoicing in their strength, and glorying in their newly-gained
liberty, careering through the just awakening fields, and astonishing
them by the beautiful soft songs of thanksgiving they unremittingly
sing. The princess is not alone then—one class of prisoners she has
released, and their glad voices cheer and encourage her in her work of
love.

Day after day she returns unweariedly to the great field of her pleasant
labor, and day by day perfects the evidence of her progress. A most
efficient co-worker whom she arouses and entices to join her in her
work, is the gentle spirit of the summer wind. Encouraged and excited by
her smile, he takes the oath of fealty, and heartily strives to aid his
mistress. From the brow of earth he wipes away the tears the stars have
wept, and multitudinous are his kind unceasing offices, for she has
promised him a dominion which shall spread over many rejuvenated
forests, and freshly garmented fields!

In the old woods she lays her hand upon the myriad branches, and on the
softening ground beneath which lie the buried roots. From every bough
she calleth forth the tender buds, and ere long she spreads with kindly
hands a rich, green mantle over all the forests. And in those
“leafy-pavilions,” the returning birds she has summoned from the south,
build their nests, and sing merrily through the long, happy days.

Quickened into life by her presence and word, over all the barren fields
the soft and tender grass springs up; the moss becomes aspiring, too,
even the humble moss, and disowning its gray garments, it dons the more
beautiful and universal green livery. A thousand thousand insects spring
into sudden existence—the voice of the croaking frog is once more found
in tune. Violets bud and blossom, the air grows increasingly more mild;
even the wind learns a sweeter song; the heavens finding it impossible
to resist the general rejoicing which follows the most successful labor
of the missionary, put on a brighter and a more resplendant garment, and
the dear Sunlight is filled with unfeigned rejoicing when she sees how
speedily the regenerating influences of her glance are recognized.

It is spring-time then!

Weeks pass on, but Sunlight does not tarry in her work; the grand
commencement she has made, but the work of perfecting is yet to be done.

Gradually she spreads a richer green over all the meadows; all along the
banks of streams and lakes the grass grows long and soft—the leaves
hang heavier and fuller on the forest boughs—a softer voice whispers
through the day-time and the night—flowers blossom more richly and
abundantly, and the air is filled with their fragrance. Sunlight has
spread the perfection of beauty over earth, and filled with unutterable
affection for the world she has beautified, more warm and tender grow
her embracings—and in return the voices of all the earth go up in a
fervent declaration of love and gratitude to the fair missionary who has
so generously, so gloriously labored for them. The good, beautiful
Sunlight! no wonder all creation loves her, and blesses her; no wonder
that innumerable objects, on all other subjects dull and voiceless,
discover a way in which to sing her praises!

It were idle to attempt a detail of all the _homes and hearts_ that even
in one day she blesses and enlivens by her presence; but let us for a
few moments follow her in her wanderings, perhaps thereby we may gain a
proper appreciation of the labors of this good angel.

It is morning, and she has just alighted on the earth; and see now where
her light feet are first directed. On yonder hill there stands a lofty
building—secure as a fortress, made of stone, and brick, and iron. It
is a gloomy, comfortless looking place; the windows, though it is a warm
summer morning, are fast closed, and bars of iron stretch over them! It
is a prison-house; but, though its inmates are guilty criminals, the
pure and high-born Sunlight does not disdain to visit them. She is
looking through all those grated windows fronting us—will you also look
in?

There is a criminal condemned to death—a hardened villain, whose
unbridled passions have worked his ruin. He is yet far from old, not a
gray hair is there in all that thick black mass which crowns his head!
From his youth up his life has been a life of sin, and little remorse.
Heaven has at last overtaken him, and he will soon fearfully expiate, in
part, his guilt.

Yesterday, justice delivered to him the sentence; he listened to it as
though he heard it in a trance, and ever since they brought him from the
presence of the excited court, he has sat on that hard pallet,
immoveable as now. His food is untouched—he has no time to feel the
wants of nature; his arms are closely, convulsively folded upon his
breast; the black, large eyes, have a fixed and stony glare, in which it
would seem few tears had ever gathered; firmly compressed are the pale
lips; no prayer or sigh, or moan shall issue from them! He knows there
is no way of escape for him—that on such a day, at such an hour, he
will perish by the executioner’s hand; and that dreadful fact it is
which is constantly staring in his face, and writing such a record of
shame and terror in his heart.

He feels no penitence—nothing but anger, that he has stupidly suffered
himself to be overtaken by the hand of the law—that his crimes have
been detected. It is not the fear of God that is before his eyes; it is
not dread of the hereafter which so overpowers him, but hatred of his
fellow men, and a desire to wreak his vengeance on them who have brought
to light his guilt!

Through all the long, dark hours he has rested on his hard bed,
listening to the “voices of the night,” and not one softening thought
has entered his heart, not one repentant sigh has he breathed. It seemed
then as though nothing could arouse him as he so coldly beheld the
reality, death staring him in the face. But now see, there is a faint
glow on the narrow window-pane, and it grows brighter and brighter.
Creeping slowly along the wall it reaches him at last—it falls upon his
breast—it glances over his hard face, where sin has written her
signature with a pen, as of iron—it looks into his stern eyes—that
light arouses him, and while he returns the piercing gaze of the
sunbeam, human feelings are aroused in his breast once more. He rises
from the place where in his rage he had flung himself—he gazes round
the contracted, miserable cell in which he is secured! Alas! and he has
fallen so far that humanity acknowledges the justice of immuring him in
a prison! and as he gazes on the gentle spirit whose presence fills his
cell with light, the recollections of his far-off, innocent
childhood—of his early home, from whence not a great many years ago he
went with the blessing of his old mother sounding in his ears, steals
over him—his heart is softening—his lips tremble—the stolid, hardened
look has passed from his countenance—he is human again—he weeps!
Blessed Sunlight! Fairest and holiest of the missionaries, who come from
the halls of heaven to purify the earth, she has subdued him! Oh, we
will hope that now, since the heart of stone has been changed to one of
flesh, the good, redeeming work may not stop there; we will hope that
when he is standing in his last hour upon the scaffold, when she comes
to him again, it may be with a faith-supported heart that he will behold
in her brightness a token of the blissful rest which awaits his
repentant, pardoned spirit!

Close adjoining this cell there is another which likewise has its guilty
inmate—a miserable, abandoned woman. She is sleeping. For her violation
of the laws both of God and man she is now imprisoned.

She is sleeping, but hers is a troubled slumber, for conscience is at
work night and day in the mind of that woman, accusing and
condemning—yet she sleeps. She is dreaming of the husband of her early
years—of the child in whom, when she was young and innocent, and of
contented mind, her hope and joy centered; she is dreaming of her maiden
home—of her bridal morning. The voices of her former, youthful friends
are ringing in her ears; the innocent thoughts and hopes of girlhood
fill her heart again. She wakens weeping—for in imagination she is
standing once more beside the death-bed of her mother, listening to the
words of warning and counsel that mother forces herself to speak when
she beholds with all a parent’s agony that the girl of her hopes is
treading in the wild paths of shame and sin.

She wakens in tears, with a strange feeling of contrition that she has
seldom or never felt before agitating her bosom, to see the Sunlight
looking down with pitying glance upon her—to see the good spirit whose
mission it is to make glad and bright the earth, deigning to creep
through those prison-bars to speak a word of counsel and hope to her.
Thoughts of her husband, on whose honest name she has cast such
dishonor, and of her deserted, innocent child, come to her full of most
sorrowful reproach. A longing for the restoration of her lost virtue—a
conviction of the peacefulness and happiness and exceeding reward
attending goodness, ever make her unsealed tears flow more freely.
Beside that narrow bed, on the stone floor of her cell, she kneels down
in her sorrow and contrition, and on her knees she breathes forth such a
prayer as never before went from her heart. And the dear Sunlight is
witness of that prayer! She looks upon the kneeling penitent with
joy—and from that now hallowed place she does not steal forth hastily,
leaving the cell dreary and comfortless as before; she is there when the
woman rises from her supplication, as though to assure of the smile of
Heavenly forgiveness, which may yet await her. She remains to give
encouragement to the hope that the corroding stains now resting on her
soul may be ere long effectually wiped away—that reconcilement and love
and peace, are yet for her on earth.

Near this woman’s cell there is another where a youth, unjustly accused,
singularly blameless and innocent in his life, is singing a morning hymn
of praise and adoration. Hemmed in as he is by the prison-wall, deprived
of that freedom which is the good man’s _best_ possession, confined with
guilty men, and bearing himself the heavy imputation of crime, yet is he
supported by the comforting knowledge of his innocence, and by the
assurance that the eye which is strong to pierce the secrets of the
heart, knows his innocence. The dreariness of his confinement does not
fill his soul with terror; his faith is strong in the power and goodness
of his Maker, and so it is with patience he performs the labor
apportioned him, looking confidently for the hour of his release, and
the honorable conviction of his uprightness in the minds of all honest
men.

And when the kindly Sunlight appears before _him_, her presence but
serves to foster these hopes. It is a sweet message of patience and
faith she whispers to him, and after she has departed, through all the
long day its remembrance strengthens and cheers him. Blessed be the good
spirit who remembers to visit these sad, afflicted, guilty ones in the
hour when they are well-nigh forgotten of all the world, and by their
own kin!

Beyond the prison, on the same range of elevated grounds, just without
the city, there is a cemetery—a quiet place where the dead sleep in
peace. And thither Sunlight bends her golden, sandaled feet. How
brightly her shadow lies on the white monuments, and on the grass and
flowers. How quiet and holy is this place, there is no sound of the
tread of living feet to disturb the rest of the slumberers; no human
form at this early hour is treading in this solitary place to muse on
the “vanity of all earthly things,” or to weep over the departed! Oh,
yes! there, by that newly-made grave, where the sod has been placed so
recently, there, where the print of the feet of the funeral-train is yet
fresh on the loosened ground, there stands a child with flowers in her
hand; she has come to lay them on the grave of her mother! The Sunlight
knew that she would meet her there, for every morning since the day the
funeral-train paused there, and laid the loving mother in the dark,
cold, “narrow house,” the little girl has visited that grave, bringing
with her to beautify it, and make it seem a rest more sweet and
cheerful, the flowers from her little garden, which early in the spring
her mother planted there. When the child goes back to the city, the vast
crowds of life will have awakened, and the rush, and jar, and strife,
will have begun; happy were it for all those multitudes, if a voice,
gentle and holy in its teaching as has spoken to that young girl,
whispered also to them, ere they mingled in the whirlpools of business
and pleasure!

Then amid the dwellings of the city Sunlight wanders next. And by no
means is she sure to honor first with her presence the mansions of the
rich; for at such an early hour she would hardly receive a welcome
there; perhaps, however, this is not the sole reason why the very first
place which she chooses to enter is the cot of the humble laborer.
Gently does she lay her fair hand on his rude, weather-worn frame, and
tenderly she kisses his hard-browned face, as a loving mother embraces
her infant. And if the man does not at once awaken at the call of her
royal highness, she does not go away and leave him in _humanly_ anger,
but yet more lovingly does she caress him, thinking meanwhile to
herself, “poor man, he was worn out by his hard work yesterday.” And so
at last by her patient gentleness she succeeds in awakening him—and
when he rubs his eyes, and sees her waiting for him there, with her soft
hand, on which the regal ring is glistening, resting so lovingly upon
him, how he reproaches himself that he has dared to sleep while she was
honoring his poor roof by her presence! and how fervent is the blessing
with which his heart blesses her, as he hastens away to his labor with a
light heart and renewed courage.

Later in the day, peeping into the small windows of the unpretending
school-room, she beckons to the little children to come out and ramble
with her among the fields, to hunt for the ripe strawberries in the
grass, and to gather the violets, and lilies, and wild-geranium flowers
which grow in the shady woods. A beautiful song she sings to the merry
youngsters—a song whose burden has more of wisdom in it than many
gather from their books in the coarse of years—a lesson of reverence of
freedom, and of innocent love for nature.

Sunlight is not content with merely resting like a _visible blessing_ on
the head of the gentle girl whose breast is throbbing with a “love for
all things pure and holy,” she steals into her guileless heart, and
makes _that_ glorious by her smiling there; and the little one laughs
while she lingers, because she fancies that all the future to which she
looks forward, will prove as bright and joyous as the unclouded present.
And as for the king’s daughter, she knows when she hears that joyous
ringing laugh which always welcomes her presence, that it is indeed more
blessed to give than to receive!

The bright-eyed maiden _loves_ children, with all the earnestness of her
soft, true heart, and how earnestly they return her love, let every man
and woman and child answer! She is, indeed, like a kind and gentle elder
friend to them—like a friend whose heart has not grown cold or hard
from much mingling with the world, who knows how to sympathize with them
in their simple joys, who listens to their merry voices with a tender
interest, which time has not been enabled to make cold or false.

Well may the children love her, whose smile is the grand main-spring of
their joy—the constant inspirer of their never-ceasing hope!

Look for a moment into this alms-house. Poor people, the wretchedly
poor, who were rendered at last, by long destitution utterly unable to
work with the rude elements of life, which lay like broken useless tools
around them, are gathered here for rest, that they may gain strength for
a renewal of their conflict! For a few weeks, and perhaps a longer time,
they may dwell in this comfortable shelter, and partake of food, _not_
gathered from the refuse of rich men’s tables—they may partially rest
from their hard, unsatisfactory, unproductive labor. Let us hope that
Sunlight may not speak vainly to them now, as every day she livens up
their new home, let us hope they may understand the cheering messages
she brings to them, and as they learn more of the goodness and justice
of their Creator _than they have ever yet had time_ to learn, perhaps
with more of hope and resignation they will endure their burden. It were
well to go through necessity to a poor-house, even if we can find no
other school in which to learn the grand lesson of endurance and
continuance in well-doing; there, perhaps, it would not be impossible to
understand the messages dear Sunlight delivers every day to our
unappreciating, slow-hearing minds.

Notwithstanding all our boasted democracy, there is scarcely a being on
the face of the earth who embraces with quite such heartiness its
principles, and so understands its precepts as—Sunlight. How graciously
her hand is laid on the matted locks of those children of want; how
lovingly and earnestly is her kiss imprinted on their toil-grimmed
faces—how radiantly her smile envelops them. Ah! well-a-day! would
there were in human hearts as much of genuine love! No sham-tenderness,
nor aristocratic, cold-blooded, _repelling_ fondness, is there in her
embracing, stronger than a _human_ heart’s beating is that which
proclaims the life that is in _her_!

See now in this other place, where helpless orphans are collected and
cared for, children whose parents have died and left them helpless and
dependent on the bounty of the world; Sunlight has not forgotten them
either. Kindly hands and charitable hearts have gathered these little
ones from hovels of sin, and sorrow, and shame, and nurtured by the good
and the wise, in early manhood and womanhood they will be prepared to
struggle for themselves, and to bear their own life-burden.

Day after day the affectionate Sunlight visits these assembled little
ones, and adds her cheerful blessing to that which God has already
pronounced on them, whose love has prompted them out of their abundance
to support and comfort the destitute and friendless.

And there is another place teeming with human life, where this good
friend of earth and her children comes daily, but where there are very
few who may welcome her smiling approach, but few to know certainly of
her departure when she is gone. This is the home for the blind.

How many are the fair young faces and graceful, gentle forms and
innocent hearts, how frequent are the kindly words in that place; and
yet, alas! how small the power to see and know the beauty of the world;
how few the eyes to behold the approaching of the fair daughter of the
sun! The blind live there, but Sunlight does not shun them! When she
enters their dwelling-place unsummoned, and only attended by that glory
with which God has adorned her, they may, it is a fact they often do,
know that something blessed and heavenly is nigh, because they feel it
in their enlivening senses, in the warmth of her caressing. But they may
not touch her hand; and when they speak to her she does not answer them;
and so they know she is not a mortal, but a spirit who may not speak
with an audible voice to them—a spirit though which loves and blesses
them!

Let us follow on further in her path, where polished doors are fastened
against the intruding world. It is a home of fashion, but from the
parlor windows no token of life are seen. The blinds are closed—the
dwelling looks uninhabited. But there _is_ life within, ay, and death,
too! Around the silver door-knob, and circling the door-bell handle,
where the hands of the wealthy and gay have so often rested, (but very
rarely those of the poor and needy,) there is wound a scarf of crape,
and mournfully the death-token flutters in the morning air. For two days
scarcely a form has entered those doors; the sufferers within, however
much they may have rejoiced in display in former days, have no wish that
there may be spectators to their sorrow.

Yet there is one—a not often heeded guest, though a seldom failing
one—who comes to them now they cannot shut her out; she longs to utter
some soothing and consoling word. She penetrates to the very scene of
their grief. She looks into the silent chamber where the father and
mother are weeping over their only child—the child of whom they had
made an idol, whom God, who hath said “thou shalt have _no_ gods but
me,” hath taken away from them. They have with their own hands laid
their child in her coffin, ere long they will see her borne away from
them forever; so it is with unutterable sorrow they stand beside that
little one and gaze on her pale face. The blinds are closed, and the
curtains partly drawn, but through an open shutter the Sunlight enters
the darkened room, and drawing near to the bereaved parents, she lays
her hand, oh, so gently on the forehead of the child!

The clustering curls which fall upon that brow seem almost illuminate
beneath the pressure of that hand—and the mother’s tears fall faster as
she looks on the beautiful little one that will be so soon hidden away
from the pleasant day-light and the hopes of life. But as the father
looks, his sorrow is abated, his voice is lifted up, there is hope in
its tone, he says, “Mary, let us weep no longer over our child, her
spirit has already won a brighter crown than that the sunlight lays upon
her head.”

And the mother’s grief becomes less wild, and humble is the voice with
which she makes answer,

“God help us, it was his to take away who gave.”

And now with more of submission under their affliction, with much of
hope that cheered even in the midst of their bereavement, they will see
their child laid in the funeral-vault to meet their eyes no more until
the resurrection morning—and with chastened hearts, and more
thoughtfully they will tread the path set before them, feeling convinced
and thankful that sorrow has taught them a lesson of wisdom they never
could have learned in a life like that they had lived.

Through the opened Gothic windows of the old church she is speeding, for
what? To make beautiful by her presence the temple of the Lord. See!
before the altar there is gathered a little group, and a maiden and a
youth are answering the binding, “I will,” to a question than which none
more fraught with deep and solemn meaning was ever propounded to mortal
man and woman.

The bridegroom has placed upon his companion’s finger the uniting
ring—she is his wife. You see she has arrayed herself gayly; it is the
great festival of her life—may it not prove the adornment has been for
the ceremony of the sacrifice of all the dearest and best hopes of her
trusting young heart! Around these happy ones are gathered their most
familiar, dearest friends; before them the “solemn priest,” and, hark!
with mingled words of warning, and of counsel, and of blessing, he
pronounces them now man and wife. And upon the newly-wedded ones is
resting the congratulatory smile of Sunlight! She bids them joy in their
love, and gives the bridegroom the comforting assurance that his will
not prove a cross and turbulent bride, for his wedding-day is calm and
bright, and over all the sky there is not one speck of cloud!

But why does the Sunlight linger when the bridal party has gone forth?
She is about the altar and chancel, as though there were others yet who
would need her presence and her blessing there.

Ah! there are steps—another group is approaching the awaiting “holy man
of God.” A woman comes, bearing in her arms a child for baptism. The
font containing the regenerating waters is there in readiness. Troops of
invisible angels are nigh to listen to and make record of the solemn
vows now to be made, and the spirit of the living God is there also, a
witness, merciful in his omnipotence.

There are but few who accompany the woman—she comes in no pomp and
state to dedicate her child to God in baptism; neither is the offering
she brings adorned with the pride of wealth. The mother is poor—the
child an heir of poverty. But will He therefore spurn the gift? “He that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

The father of the child, the husband of the mother is dead—and her
widow’s weeds but “faintly tell the sorrow of her heart.” Therefore it
is with so much the more trustful confidence she has come with her child
to the altar, she will give him into the watchful care of the Almighty
Father of the fatherless! With what a solemn earnest voice she takes
upon herself, for the child, the vow of renouncement of the world and
its sinful desires; and when the sign of the cross is laid upon the brow
of her infant, and the holy waters which typify its regeneration are
poured upon his head, it is with heartfelt gratitude she lifts her heart
to heaven, with heartfelt confidence she implores his watchful love and
care. And all the while on the uncovered head of the child the glance of
the sunlight has rested, as if in token of the acceptance of the
offering the mother has made, in token that the blessing and mercy of
God would be upon that child for whom a holy vow was registered in
heaven, which he must one day redeem, or else pay the fearful penalty.

And now the mother with her child and friends have left the church, and
a sacred quiet reigns there once more; yet the priest lingers by the
altar, still arrayed in his robes of office, and Sunlight also remains.

And, hark! once more the “deep-toned bell” is ringing now—tolling
mournfully—no wedding-peal of joy is that, from out the heart of the
strong iron is rung the stern tale that another mortal hath put on
immortality! Now they come, a long and silent train, and foremost move
the bearers treading heavily; “it is a man they bear”—an aged man, the
measure of whose cup of life was well filled, reaching even the brim;
and following after them are the children, and grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren of the deceased, and the procession is closed by his
many friends and neighbors. Of all that lengthened train there is not
one who set out on the path of life with the dead man. One by one his
early companions passed away, there are none who retain a recollection
of that aged face when it was smooth, and of those locks now so very
white and thin, as they were in earlier years; not one who shared the
hopes of his childhood with him—few who mingled with him in the scenes
remembered now as of the old, old time. Yet the mourners weep, and the
bells toll mournfully.

The old man has finished his course with honor and with joy. Reverenced
and loved, he has gone down to the grave—no, I must not say that, he
has gone upward _to rest on the bosom of his Father_! In boyhood he was
wild, and fearless, and reckless—his manhood, generous and upright,
nobly redeemed his early days—and happy, and peaceful, and honorable,
was his “green old age.” And now he has “gone to his reward”—his race
well run, his labor all fulfilled, it seems strange that any should
weep. They have laid back the coffin-lid that the assembled people may
once more look on their venerated friend. Oh, how peacefully he sleeps,
and lovingly, as on the unconscious infant, the Sunlight, that messenger
of consolation, looks upon the calm, cold face, and the mourner’s grief
is stayed as they behold the brightness which once more illuminates
those lifeless features.

Upon the infant, dedicated to God in the days when he lies helplessly at
the portal of life, on the maiden and the youth, entering on a state of
existence, either supremely blessed or supremely cursed in its
_eventuation_, and on the dead old man, whose race so long, and of
mingled pleasure and hardship, is over at last; on these the faithful
Sunlight has pronounced her blessing within the walls of the old church.
But now all the human beings have gone away, the minister with the
funeral train to the burial, and the sexton has fastened the
church-doors and gone too; but still the Sunlight remains, and it seems
as though she were kneeling before the altar now, craving God’s blessing
on all those who have this day stood within His courts, and before His
altar, brought there by joy or sorrow to rejoice or to weep.

Not, however, within the sanctity of walls alone does the Sunlight make
herself visible. Through byways, and in the open street, where the
stream of life goes rushing on violently, does she tread, brightening up
by her presence dark and dismal corners, and enlivening the gloomiest
and dreariest places.

In the intervening places between the high brick dwellings and stores
she stations herself; there, like a priestess, she stands to pronounce a
benediction on all who pass by her. On the blind old beggar, led by a
little child, who pause a moment to rest in the sunshiny place, for they
have walked on wearily amid a heartless crowd, that had but little
feeling for the poverty-stricken old man, whom Heaven deprived of sight;
and on the gaudily decked form of the shameless woman, as a reproach and
condemnation; on the proud, hard man, whose haughty head and iron heart
care little for the Sunlight or for Sorrow, whose honorable name has
safely borne him through the committal of sins and crimes, which, had he
been poor and friendless, would have long ago secured for him a safe
place among convicts and outlaws! Little recks _he_ of Sunlight. A
blessing so freely bestowed on all, as is her smile, is not what he
covets; so through shade and light he hastens, and soon enough he will
arrive at the bourne. What bourne?

There go by the wandering minstrels, men from Scotland with their
bagpipes—Italians with hurdy-gurdy—girls with tamborines, and boys
with violins and banjoes—there are professors of almost all kinds of
instrumental music, and vocal too, a great many of them there are, but
sure, almost all of them, of winning coppers from some who would bribe
them into a state of quietude, and from other some, harmony-loving
souls, who delight in the dulcet sounds such minstrels ever awaken and
give utterance to! And Sunlight blesses _them_!

And here comes an humble, tired-looking woman—a school teacher she is,
whose days are one continued round of wearying, and most monotonous
action. You would scarcely err in your first guess as to her
vocation—it speaks forth in her “dress a little faded,” but so very
neat, but more loudly still in that penetrating glance of her eye, and
in the patient expression of her features. Though she is evidently
hurried, for she has been proceeding at a most rapid pace along the
streets, you could tell she has some appreciation of the glory of
Sunlight, for how she lingers whenever she comes near the places
enlivened by her presence! Her feet, too, press less heavily the
pavement, perhaps she feels as though she were treading on sacred
ground!

Then, there comes another, a little, frail, youthful creature, with
bright, black eyes, (which have obviously a quick recognization power
for “every thing pretty,”) a person of quick and nervous movement, a
seamstress. She has not time often to pause and take note of the
beautiful. Her weeks have in their long train of hours only twelve of
daylight she may call her own! She, too, steps slowly, almost
reverently, over the flags where the princess is stationed, and with an
irresistible sigh thinks of earlier and happier days, when a merry
country child she rejoiced in her delightful freedom, though clad she
was then in most unfashionable garments, and almost she regretted the
day that sent her into the great, selfish city to fashion dresses for
the rich and gay. Poor girl! before she has half passed over the shady
place which succeeds the glimpse of Sunlight, she has forgotten the hope
which for a moment found refuge in her breast, wild as it was, that one
day she might indeed go into the country again, and find there a welcome
and a home; for must not Miss Seraphina’s and Miss Victoria’s dresses be
finished that very night in time for the grand party; and the flounces
are not nearly trimmed, and numberless are the “finishing touches” yet
to be executed.

Alas! before night comes again, when she will go alone, and in the
darkness, through the noisy street, in her weariness and stupidity, (for
continued labor, you know very well, reader, will make the brightest
mind stupid and weak,) she will hurry to her bed, forgetful of her
bright dream of the morning, unmindful of her prayers, in the haste to
close her weak and tired eyes. But in the morning, perhaps, the Sunlight
will give to the overworked girl another gleam of hope, another
blessing.

And now goes by an interesting, white-gloved youth, fresh from “the
bandbox,” as you perceive. Let him pass on; for there is but little
chance that Sunlight will be recognized by _him_, and so _we_ will not
waste our comments, for could he even see where lies the brightness, I
cannot say but the inevitable eye-glass might be raised, and such a
glance of idiocy and impudence be directed toward the gentle daughter of
the mighty king, as would warrant her in annihilating him at once with a
powerful _sunstroke_!

Here comes another, a benevolent, but solemn-featured, portly gentleman,
who seems in musing mood, for he goes slowly along with head bent down.
He is a judge, proceeding toward the scene of his trying duties, feeling
the responsibility which rests upon him, and nerving himself to meet the
solemn and affecting scenes and circumstances which may await him. Oh
may it be that as he passes by those small illuminated places, that a
stronger voice than he has ever heard before may find utterance in his
heart, charging him to remember that the highest attributes of the
Heavenly Judge are mercy and love, and that only as he employs them in
his decisions, can he justly imitate his Divine prototype!

And now there is another going by, whose disappointment is legibly
written on his face. Either of two doleful things has happened to him.
His prayers have been unheard by his “lady-love,” and she looks coldly
upon him, or—scarcely less to be dreaded climax—his first attempt at
literature has met with unqualified failure. Let him but bear in mind
that “faint heart never won fair lady,” or honor in the “literary
world;” let him take one intelligent look at the sweet Sunlight, as so
patiently she stands there before him, and small will be the danger of
his ultimate defeat.

But—but how fast the crowd increases—it is growing late, and between
the increasing crowd of fashionables, and of people of all sorts and
conditions, we are really in danger of being soon unable to distinguish
who of all the host stop for the blessing of Sunlight, and who unmindful
pass by her. And indeed it were an endless task to impose on one’s self
the attempt to speak, or even to think, of the myriads who in their
hours of sorrow, despondency, tribulation or joy, have had occasion to
be thankful for the cheerful smile of glorious Sunlight!

Her mission—ay, never was there one so blest—and never was there so
faithful a missionary! She comes with a message of love for the whole
world! How perfectly she has learned that lesson taught her by our own,
as well as her Almighty Father! How nobly has she obeyed his sublime
precepts, how truly is she the joy-diffuser of the human race!

And now what remaineth to be said? But one thing only.

In a necessarily more contracted sphere of action may there not from
_our_ faces, and _our_ hearts, go forth a beam of light that shall be
powerful to cheer up a desponding spirit, or to encourage a drooping
heart, or to give comfort to a sorrowing soul, or to increase the faith
and courage of a lonely life?

Cannot the sunshine of a human face, in the dark forest of a sad heart,
have power to make the old trees bud, and the birds to sing, and the
violets to spring up and bloom, and the ice-bound streamlets to go free?
From many a love-lit eye, from many a brow from which tender hands have
erased the record of care, from many a rejoicing heart lightened of its
dread burden, there comes to me an answer, “Yes—oh yes!”

Blessed forever be the sweet Sister of Charity, the angelic, untiring
Missionary, the lovely princess—daughter of the Sun!—and, also,
blessed forever be that human heart which doth not disdain to learn the
heavenly lesson Sunlight teaches, ay, twice blessed of God, and of man!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              THERMOPYLÆ.


                       BY MRS. MARY G. HORSFORD.


               ’Twas night; the gleaming starlight fell
                 On helmets flashing high;
               The glancing spears and torrent swell
                 Of armed men sweeping by.

               No clarion’s voice was on the breeze,
                 No trumpet’s stormy blast;
               The hollow moan of distant seas
                 Was echoed as they past.

               With measured step and stealthy tread,
                 In stern and proud array,
               They sought the camp in silence dread
                 Where the slumb’ring Persian lay.

               Then long and loud the battle-shout
                 Rung on the startled air,
               There was fitful torch-light flashing out
                 And sudden arming there.

               The shriek of death and wild despair,
                 And hasting to and fro,
               When like the lion from his lair
                 The Spartan charged the foe.

               Then hand to hand and spear to spear
                 The hostile armies stood;
               The tempest’s note rung loud and clear
                 And shook the solitude.

               And ’mid the fearful tide of fight,
                 Where thousands met to die,
               The lances gleamed athwart the night
                 Like lightning in the sky.

               On! on they swept their land to bless,
                 And fast around their way
               The Persians gathered numberless
                 As leaves in summer’s day.

               Morn dawned upon that battle-field,
                 And shivered spear and lance,
               And banner torn and broken shield
                 Reflected every glance.

               But where were they—those patriots bold,
                 Of bright and fearless eye?
               Each noble heart in death was cold,
                 Each spirit in the sky.

               Fair Greece! of glorious deeds the clime
                 By dauntless valor wrought;
               Of daring minds, and souls sublime,
                 The pioneers of thought!

               No marvel that thy skies should boast
                 A fairer, sunnier blue—
               Departed day illumes the west
                 With many a radiant hue.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            LOST TREASURES.


                              BY P. D. T.


 I am coming, I am coming, when this fitful dream is o’er,
 To meet you, my beloved ones, on that immortal shore,
 Where pain and parting are unknown, and where the ransomed blest
 Shall welcome treasures left on earth, to Heaven’s eternal rest.

 I am with you, I am with you, in the visions of the night,
 I feel each warm hand pressing mine, I meet each eye of light.
 Oh these are precious seasons! they bring you back to me,
 But morning dawns, and with it comes the sad reality.

 I dare not trust my thoughts to dwell on blessings that were mine,
 Or, “hoping against hope,” believe one ray of joy can shine
 Across my path, so dreary now, that late was bright and gay,
 But, meteor-like, hath left more dark the track which marked its way.

 Yet I feel that thou art near me! my guardian angels thou,
 Who fain would chase all sorrow and sadness from my brow.
 For thou hadst strewn my pathway so thick with thornless flowers,
 I quite forgot that _Death_ could come to revel in our bowers.

 But now, I’m oh so lonely! my “household gods” are gone,
 And though my path’s a dreary one, I still must journey on.
 Yet Faith steps forth and whispers—Time flies, look up and see,
 For in his wake swift follows on a blessed eternity.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                       THE BROTHER’S TEMPTATION.


                          BY SYBIL SUTHERLAND.


                               CHAPTER I.

“You look sad to-night, Alice,” was the remark of Mr. Colman as his
young wife entered the sitting-room, and took a seat beside him with a
countenance expressive of unusual dejection; “and where is Maggie this
evening that you have been obliged to take upon yourself the duty of
nursery-maid to our little ones?”

“Maggie has gone upon an errand of mercy—to watch over a sick and
suffering fellow creature,” replied Mrs. Colman. “It is a long story,”
she added, in answer to the look of inquiry which her husband cast upon
her, “but I will endeavor to relate it if you will listen to it
patiently. This morning, Harry, after you had left home, I resolved to
set forth in search of a seamstress who was making some dresses for our
little girl. She had failed to bring them home at the time appointed,
and as I had never employed her before, and knew nothing of her
character, I felt rather anxious concerning the safety of the materials
I had given her to work upon, and determined to go to the dwelling which
she had described as her residence and learn the cause of her
disappointing me. The house was in a miserable street some distance from
here, and I hurried along till I came to it. It was a wretched-looking
dwelling, such as none but the very poorest class would have chosen. The
door stood open, and several ragged little Irish children were playing
upon the steps. I inquired of them if Mrs. Benson, the seamstress lived
there? They did not seem to recognize the name—but they told me that a
young woman who took in sewing hired the back rooms of the third-story.
Following their direction, I ascended three flights of stairs and found
myself at the door of the apartment, where I knocked, and a faint voice
bidding me enter, I unclosed the door and stood upon the threshold. What
a strange and unexpected sight now met my gaze! Upon the floor, almost
at my feet as I entered, lay a young and very beautiful girl apparently
bereft of all consciousness. She looked so thin and pale that at first I
thought her dead, and starting back in horror I was about to leave the
place, when a feeble voice, the same which told me to come in, besought
me to stay. Looking round to discover whence it proceeded, I saw the
emaciated form of a man reclining upon a couch in a distant part of the
room. Hastily I approached him, for I felt it to be my duty to render
what aid I could. As I drew nearer to his bedside, I read the tale of
confirmed disease in that pallid face and in the wild sunken eyes whose
gaze met my own. In a few words he informed me that the maiden who lay
there senseless was his daughter. While busily engaged at her work about
an hour previously, she had fallen from her seat and remained thus in a
state of unconsciousness. He said that his limbs being palsied he was
unable to help her, and so he had lain upon his couch agonized by the
thought that his child was dead, or that she might die for want of
proper assistance. And he now besought me to endeavor to discover if
there were any signs of life, and if possible to restore her to her
senses. The appeal was not in vain. I turned from him to his inanimate
daughter, and raising that light and fragile form in my arms, placed her
upon a couch in a small closet-like apartment adjoining the one I had
first entered. For a long time every means of restoration were vainly
tried—but at length my strenuous efforts were rewarded, and the young
girl once more unclosed her eyes. But she evidently recognized nothing
about her—those dark and strangely beautiful orbs glared wildly around,
while a few broken, incoherent sentences burst from her lips, and as she
sunk again upon the pillow the bright fever flushes rushed to her cheek,
and I knew that her brain was suffering. Great was her parent’s joy that
she once more breathed—but my heart was full of sadness, for I could
not help feeling that her life was in jeopardy. It was my wish to have a
physician summoned, but I knew not how this was to be done, for I dared
not leave my charge, and there was no one near to help me. At this
moment I heard footsteps in the hall, and quickly opening the door,
beheld a boy ascending the stairs. The promise of a piece of silver
easily procured his assent to go for the nearest doctor, and accordingly
he set off, while re-entering the room I resumed my station by the sick
girl’s bedside. In a few minutes the physician arrived and my suspicions
of the nature of the young girl’s disorder were confirmed, for he
pronounced it to be a fever of the brain, and said that his patient
would require constant watching and careful nursing. The father listened
anxiously and attentively to the doctor’s words. His countenance fell as
he caught the last sentences, though he said not a word. It was not till
after giving his prescription, the physician left, promising to call
early on the morrow, that he spoke what was passing in his mind.

“‘Julie must die!’ he said, bowing his head upon his hands, while
bitter, hopeless anguish was depicted upon his face, ‘for I have no
means of obtaining for her the care she needs.’ It was all that passed
his lips, but it spoke volumes to my heart, and my resolution was
instantly taken. I told him that I would not desert his child, that I
would continue with her part of the day, and when I was obliged to leave
that I would send some one to take my place. Oh, Harry! if you could
only have seen how grateful that poor invalid looked! Most amply repaid
was I by that glance for whatever I had undertaken. I remained with the
sick girl several hours longer, and in the intervals when she slumbered,
I had time to observe the appearance of things around me. The furniture
was mean and scanty. There were but two chairs in the room, and the
carpet was worn almost threadbare. Every thing betokened extreme
poverty—but neatness was plainly perceptible in the arrangements of the
apartment, and I felt from the appearance of its occupants that they had
seen more prosperous days. A book lay upon a table close at hand, I took
it up, and discovered it to be a volume of Bryant’s poems. On looking
over the pages, I found several of the most beautiful passages marked.
Upon one of the fly-leaves was written, ‘To Julie—from her father.’ The
book was evidently the young girl’s property. There was also a small
portfolio of drawings upon the table, which evinced signs of both talent
and cultivation. For an hour after the physician’s departure the parent
of Julie—for by her name I may as well call her—showed little
disposition to converse. He seemed exhausted by the emotions of the
day—but I knew that though he said nothing, his gaze was often upon me
when he imagined that I did not observe him. At last he roused himself
to answer some inquiries which I thought it necessary to make. He told
me that he was very poor, and that for more than a year, during which
his infirmity had appeared and increased, his daughter had maintained
him by the proceeds of her needle. He said also that two years
previously he had resided at Baltimore as one of its wealthiest
merchants—but having failed under circumstances that cast a cloud upon
his character, though he was in reality innocent of intentional wrong,
he had left the city of his birth and hastened with Julie, his only
child, to New York, where he would be sure of never more meeting the
scornful gaze of those who had been his friends ere misfortune overlook
him. Here he hoped to procure employment—but fate seemed against him.
Shortly after his arrival in this city, he was seized with a dangerous
illness which left him in his present helpless condition, and his lovely
and accomplished child found herself very unexpectedly thrown upon her
own resources for her support and that of her invalid parent. Bravely
for many months had she borne the burden, but continued anxiety
concerning the means of obtaining life’s necessaries had at last done
its work—and in the delirium of fever, the fair and noble girl now
tossed restlessly upon her bed, a mere wreck of what she had once been.

“This brief sketch of their history, as you may imagine, dear Harry,
interested me greatly. And when, at its conclusion, the speaker again
expressed his fears for the future and his doubts as to the recovery of
his child, for whom he had no power to provide necessary attendance, I
again assured him that I would watch over her until she became quite
well, and that after this I would endeavor to find some more healthy and
suitable employment for her than that in which she had latterly been
engaged.

“Toward the close of the afternoon, being desirous of going home for
awhile, I dispatched the boy whom I have once before mentioned, for
Maggie, that she might supply my place as attendant upon the sick Julie,
until evening, when I proposed to bear her company and resume my post at
the bedside. She came, and her sympathies were soon all enlisted by the
tale which I hurriedly repeated to her. But she decidedly opposed my
wish to return—reminded me of my late indisposition, and declaring that
I was not strong enough to bear the fatigue of sitting up all night,
insisted upon being allowed to exercise her skill as nurse without any
other assistance. I thanked her for her consideration, while I felt that
she was right. So I left her and proceeded home, where, as you may
suppose, I was welcomed most joyfully by little Willie and his sister,
who had mourned incessantly over mamma’s protracted absence.

“And now, Harry, that I have finished my somewhat lengthy narrative,
tell me whether you approve of what I have done and promised to do?”

“Certainly, dearest Alice,” replied Mr. Colman, affectionately pressing
the little hand that rested within his own, “while you continue to
follow, as you have hitherto done, the dictates of your own pure, loving
heart, I can never do aught but applaud you. The present objects of your
benevolence, are I am sure from the account, well worthy of whatever you
may do for them, and I would advise you to persevere in your efforts for
their welfare. But you quite forgot to tell me, my dear, if you
discovered in your _protégé_ the seamstress for whom you were
searching.”

“No, indeed,” she replied, while her countenance wore a look of
vexation, “_my_ seamstress was a very different sort of a being from
this beautiful Julie. Nor do I think that I shall ever discover her, for
just before I returned home I made inquiries as to whether a person
answering her description lived in that house, and was assured that no
one of that name had ever dwelt there. How foolish I was to trust those
dresses to an entire stranger.”

“And pray what may be the name of the family whose history has
interested you so deeply?” asked Mr. Colman.

“The father’s name is Malcolm—Walter Malcolm, as he informed me. With
the daughter’s I believe that I have already acquainted you.”

“Walter Malcolm! Julie Malcolm! And you say they are from Baltimore?” As
he spoke Mr. Colman’s cheek grew suddenly pale, and rising from his seat
he paced the apartment with a hasty and agitated step.

“Why, what is the matter, Harry?” exclaimed his wife in a tone of the
deepest solicitude, as she sprung to his side, “pray tell me what has
moved you thus?” But it was some moments ere he seemed able to reply. At
length with emotion he said—

“Alice, what if I were to tell you that this man—this Walter Malcolm is
my brother—the brother who in my early youth drove me away from his
luxurious home, an orphan and unprotected, to seek my fortune in the
wide, wide world?” Alice Colman started and raised her eyes wonderingly
to her husband’s face, and after a brief silence he resumed with a
sternness unusual to him—

“In that hour, Alice—in that hour of utter desolation, when lonely and
uncared for I left my brother’s roof forever, a fierce, burning desire
for revenge took possession of my soul. In the first bitterness of
despair I called upon Heaven to avenge my wrongs. I wished that Walter’s
wealth might take to itself wings—that one day he might come to me for
bread; and I resolved were this ever the case, to give him—a stone! My
desire has been fulfilled, and my proud and unfeeling brother is now a
beggar at my door!”

He paused—while his wife shuddered and looked appealingly up into his
face.

“Harry!” she exclaimed in a low, earnest tone, “you surely do not mean
that you will not forgive the sorrow your brother’s conduct once caused
you—that you will now look exultingly upon his woes, and turn a deaf
ear to the wants of his sweet and suffering child?”

The reproving expression of the dear face now anxiously upturned to his,
at once recalled the husband to a sense of error, and drawing the form
of the beloved one closer to his side, he said—

“Oh! how fervently should I thank Heaven who has given to me such a
monitor in the hour of temptation! Pardon me, my Alice, if by giving way
to impulse I have wounded your sensitive spirit, and that in the moment
when passion held its sway, I slighted the divine lesson of forgiveness,
through your influence first impressed upon my soul. Nay, dearest, look
not thus surprised, for it was really by your means that the wish to
quell the thirst for revenge upon my brother, entered my heart; and if
you will listen a few seconds I can explain to you the words that at
present may well seem mysterious. You will doubtless remember, Alice,
that some months before our marriage, I experienced a severe fit of
illness. One pleasant Sabbath evening shortly after I was declared
convalescent, I was reclining upon a sofa in the sitting-room at your
uncle’s residence. My spirits were just then very much depressed—I felt
inwardly fretful and uneasy—and as is not uncommon at such a time, many
little circumstances which before had been almost forgotten, rose up in
my mind, and woke anew in my bosom sensations according to their nature,
of pain, anxiety, or indignation. Among other things came forcibly to
view the memory of the grievous wrong I had received at the hands of him
who should have been a parent to me; and a feeling of the deepest hatred
toward my brother stole to my heart, together with a hope that at some
future time a chance might be mine of returning him measure for measure
of the unkindness which he had so unsparingly dealt out to me.

“At that instant, Alice, you re-entered the room from which you had been
a few minutes absent, and at the request of your uncle, opened the
family Bible and began your usual Sabbath-evening duty of reading a
series of chapters from the holy book. There was a passage in the first
which you read that affected me strangely—for it came as a reproof from
Heaven delivered to me through the medium of one of earth’s angels. It
was the following—‘Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto
wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the
Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him
drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.’ The
sentences awed me, coming upon my ear as they did at a period when my
spirit needed the precious warning and rebuke contained in them, and I
breathed a silent prayer to Heaven for strength to enable me to heed it.
The hour of my trial has arrived, and to-day have I again felt the
promptings of the tempter. You cannot imagine with what force these old
feelings have been driven back upon my soul, but, Alice, your voice has
once more stilled the tempest, and I know that I have passed the ordeal
in safety.”

Harry Colman ceased, and this time as his gaze met that of his companion
he saw that her eyes were full of tears—but they were tears of grateful
joy. For a little while there was silence between them, but at length
Mr. Colman continued:

“Let me recount to you, Alice, as briefly as possible, a few
circumstances connected with my early history. I have never done so
before, because the effort was a painful one, and there was no exact
necessity for the repetition. As you are aware, I was so unfortunate as
to lose my father when I was a mere infant, and my mother lived only
till I had attained my twelfth year. I was the child of her second
marriage, and she had one son by a previous union who was many years my
senior. At the period of my mother’s death, my brother, Walter Malcolm,
had been married nearly five years, and was now a widower and the father
of one little girl, who had just reached her third summer. Upon her
death-bed my parent left me beneath his care, desiring Walter to attend
to my wants and to be kind and gentle to me when she was no more. As
soon as the funeral was over, my brother took me with him to his own
dwelling. I was now entirely dependent upon him for maintenance. Walter
Malcolm was wealthy, for a large estate had descended to him from his
father, who had also left my mother a life-annuity, which while she
lived had supported us. At her death I was of course unprovided for, for
my own father had possessed no worldly goods to bequeath me. My new home
seemed very different to me from the hearth of my early, sunny
childhood. I was lonely and desolate—for between Walter and myself
brotherly love had never existed. Not that _I_ would have denied him his
meed—but I was too proud to award the gift that I was confident would
never be valued, for my memory could not boast a single instance wherein
he had evinced for me the slightest regard. Nay, I even felt that I was
an object of dislike to him, though I knew not the cause. During my
mother’s life I had been greatly indulged, and it was scarcely to be
wondered at that I was frequently very wayward. Upon such occasions, a
word of love had always been sufficient to control my passionate nature;
but when the sweet affectionate tones that ever had power to calm me,
were hushed in the tomb, my faults were met by my new guardian with
harshness and contempt, and this never failed to rouse a spirit of
continued opposition. There was but one voice in my brother’s household
that ever spoke lovingly to me. It was that of his child—the little
Julie. From the first hour of my residence beneath Walter’s roof, the
little creature had conceived a passionate attachment to me, preferring
my presence to that of her nurse or even her father. And, as you may
imagine, Alice, I did not slight her proffered affection, and during the
three years that we dwelt together the little one was the sole sunbeam
upon my shadowed life-path. How gladly did I greet her graceful bounding
step! How dear was the sound of her clear ringing laughter as I joined
in her sports!—and more precious still were the moments when weary of
play, she would steal to my side, and twining her tiny arms about my
neck, murmur forth, in lisping accents, her sweet child-like terms of
endearment.

“I had reached my fifteenth year when the incident occurred that
separated me from my brother. An error was laid to my charge of which I
was really guiltless—and as I proudly refused to acknowledge and repair
the fault—Walter Malcolm turned me from his dwelling, declaring that
thenceforth and forever he disowned me! Time was merely given me to
collect a few little articles that I could really call my own—I was not
allowed to bid farewell to the child whom I yearned to look upon once
more before I went—and so, an outcast, I passed from that stately
mansion. Alice, I dare not linger over a description of my sensations in
that hour of anguish—for it might perhaps arouse them again within my
soul. You know the rest of my history—the circumstance of my adoption
by your uncle who was then visiting Baltimore, and first beheld me in a
store where I had entered in quest of employment. To him I confided the
facts relating to my former life; he pitied and sympathized with me, and
bore me with him to his own home in this city, and from that day was in
every respect to the lonely orphan all that a kind and generous parent
could be to his only son.”


                              CHAPTER II.

The morning succeeding the events last recorded, at an early hour, Mrs.
Colman was on her way to the dwelling of the now destitute and infirm
Walter Malcolm. She had new motives for the advancement of her
charitable purposes, and her interest in the sick girl had deepened
since she knew her to be the one whose infant steps her own husband had
guided. Hastening up the stairs she knocked at the door, which was soon
opened by Maggie, who looked weary enough with the fatigue of the past
night. The young girl had been very restless, she said, and she believed
that the fever was rapidly progressing. “But is she not a beautiful
creature?” remarked Maggie to her mistress, as she bent over the couch
and parted the rich curls from the fevered brow, “ah, ma’am, I have
nursed many a one before this in sickness—but never a person whose
appearance so won upon me as hers has.”

Alice Colman did not wonder at the observation—but as she now glanced
round the room she met the gaze of Julie’s father, and her morning
salutation to him was full of gentleness and sympathy.

Through the whole of that day Mrs. Colman maintained her station in the
chamber of sickness and poverty. The physician came at the appointed
hour, and gave it as his opinion that Julie was growing rapidly worse
and that there were even doubts whether in any case her life would be
spared. Oh! how the thought of her dying affected Mrs. Colman.

“Let every thing be done that may be of benefit to her,” she said
anxiously to the doctor, “spare no expense whatever if you think you can
by any means preserve her from the grasp of death. I will be answerable
for whatever remuneration you may require.”

And not even content with his advice, she sent for her own family
physician determined to try all the means she could for the preservation
of the life of her husband’s niece. She noticed that Walter Malcolm
looked very pale all day, but attributed it to anxiety for his daughter.
He seemed too languid to converse—but once, as she handed him a glass
of water, he said—“Lady, Heaven will reward your kindness to the
suffering.”

That evening when Alice Colman returned home, her husband surprised her
with the intelligence that Walter Malcolm was aware of her relationship
to him. Before she went there in the morning, Mr. Colman had advised her
on no account to allow his brother to suspect from whom he received the
needful aid, for he feared that Walter still entertained against him the
old feeling of hatred, and that it would awaken unpleasant emotions in
his heart if he knew that the brother he had deserted was now destined
to be his chief reliance. But the caution to his wife was unnecessary.
Walter Malcolm had made inquiries of Maggie concerning the family to
whom he was indebted, and from their minuteness Harry Colman was
confident that he had been recognised. And that his brother had not
forgotten his former aversion to him he deemed evident from the fact
that he had said nothing of his discovery, during the day, to Mrs.
Colman. The latter however thought differently. Julie’s father had
spoken his thanks for that draught of water too earnestly for her to
join in her husband’s belief, and she expressed her conviction that he
repented his past conduct, and that he merely wanted courage to confess
his penitence.

But day after day passed on, and yet there was no allusion to the
subject on the part of Walter Malcolm. Meanwhile his daughter had passed
the crisis of the fever and was declared convalescent. If the appearance
of Julie Malcolm in the hour of delirium had attracted the fancy of
Alice Colman and her nurse, how much more were they drawn toward her
when her mind was freed from the chains that bound it—for gentle and
loving-hearted, her grateful spirit manifested itself in various little
touching ways toward those who had watched over her during her dangerous
illness. When she grew stronger and was able to enter into conversation,
a perfect understanding arose between Mrs. Colman and herself that they
were always to be friends. Alice Colman felt that she already loved
Julie dearly—and the latter was not slow in returning the affection of
one whose timely succor had saved her life. Still the young girl
suspected not that they were kindred by law as in heart.

It was soon settled that when Julie became entirely recovered, she
should undertake the duties of governess to Mrs. Colman’s children, and
this new office was to afford her the means of support. A more suitable
residence had been sought by Alice Colman for Julie and her father, and
they were to remove into it as soon as the former had gained sufficient
strength to bear the fatigue. Two more weeks elapsed ere this last
project was effected—and they were then comfortably settled in their
new abode.

And still there was no sign from Walter Malcolm that he knew of his
brother’s agency in the change wrought in his affairs. He was now
generally reserved when Mrs. Colman was near, and his countenance often
wore a deep shade of gloom.


                              CHAPTER III.

The first day that Julie Malcolm felt equal to the exertion was spent at
the house of her new friend, and then it was that for the first time
since her childhood, Harry Colman beheld his niece. So strongly
impressed upon his mind was the recollection of her early fondness for
him, and the soothing influence which her winning, affectionate ways had
possessed over his spirit, that had he now obeyed the voice of impulse
he would fain have clasped Julie once more to his heart; for though he
now looked upon a beautiful and graceful maiden of eighteen, he could
scarcely view her in any other light than as the darling child whose
caresses had so often comforted him when greeted by every other voice
with coldness. Yet recalling the fact that their relationship could not
be breathed to her by himself, he was obliged to meet her with the
reserve of a perfect stranger. But all formality between them soon
vanished, and an hour after their introduction found them conversing
together with the ease of old acquaintanceship. Nor had Julie forgotten,
in her own frank earnest manner, to thank him again and again for the
services his family had rendered her father and herself—while her soft
dark eyes filled with tears as she spoke of the debt which by gratitude
only she could repay. Harry Colman longed to tell her that _he_ was the
debtor—and that by his wife’s attention to her, Julie had but been
rewarded for the love she had accorded him when all other hearts were
steeled against him.

Mrs. Colman saw with delight her husband’s increasing predeliction for
his niece—for by renewing his former affection for Julie, she hoped to
make the young girl at some future day, the instrument of reconciliation
between the estranged brothers.

The day of Julie’s visit to the Colmans was a happy one to all parties.
Even little Effie Colman and her brother Willie, though at first rather
shy of the lady, who, as they were told, was to initiate them into the
mysteries of the primer, had become very fond of her, and were
exceedingly loath to let her go when the time appointed for her return
home arrived. Then, with her arms entwined about Julie’s neck, little
Effie besought her to say when she was coming to them daily—and the
following week was accordingly named for the commencement of her career
as preceptress to the children.


                              CHAPTER IV.

The morning agreed upon by Julie and Mrs. Colman for the beginning of
the former’s labors arrived, but the young girl did not appear. Knowing
well her eagerness to enter upon her new duties—the eagerness of a
noble spirit to throw off the yoke of dependence—Alice Colman might
well feel anxious at Julie’s non-fulfillment of her promise. For the
first time a thought crossed her mind that the suspicions of her husband
concerning his brother’s continued ill-feeling toward him, might be
just, and that Walter Malcolm had resolved to oppose his daughter’s
constant association with them. But not long would she allow herself to
imagine thus. Perhaps Julie was ill again—or some unforeseen
circumstances had prevented her coming. So Mrs. Colman determined to
wait till the following day, when if the object of her solicitude was
still absent, and she received no message from her, she felt that she
would then be more capable of judging the matter.

It was not until near the close of the afternoon that she was relieved
of uncertainty upon the subject by the reception of a note from Julie.
The latter stated that her father was very ill of a dangerous fever,
brought on, as the physician averred, by distress of mind—and that it
was doubtful whether in his enfeebled condition he could live a week
longer. She added that only a few hours previously he had informed her
that their benefactress was the wife of his brother, and also of the
unfeeling treatment which that brother had received from him. And Julie
said that from the hour when he had learned the circumstance of their
relationship, remorse and the knowledge of his unworthiness to accept
assistance from the one whom he had injured, preyed upon her father’s
spirits, and at last caused the fever that threatened soon to terminate
his existence. His last earthly wish now was to see his brother and ask
forgiveness of the past—and Julie concluded by begging Mrs. Colman to
use all her influence in order to bring her uncle to her parent’s couch,
if it were possible, that very evening.

And that evening Mr. Colman, accompanied his wife to the abode of Walter
Malcolm. The meeting between the brothers was a painful one. There was
mingled shame and penitential sorrow on the part of the elder, while the
countenance of the younger was expressive of the deepest agitation as he
stood by the bedside of him who had cast so dark a cloud upon his youth.
Harry Colman had yielded to the entreaties of Alice for this interview,
while he felt that it would have been wrong to have denied it—but it
was not until he looked upon Walter’s pallid face, and heard that once
stern and familiar voice supplicating forgiveness, even with the humble
avowal that it was undeserved, that the lingering spark of resentment
was entirely extinguished within his breast—and when he breathed the
much-desired word of pardon they were truly heart-felt.

And by returning good for evil he had indeed “heaped coals of fire” upon
the head of his brother.

“From your birth, Harry, you were the object of my bitterest envy and
hatred,” was the confession of Walter Malcolm, “for upon you was freely
lavished the love of that mother whose affection I had never possessed.
She had been forced by her family into a union with my father while her
heart was another’s—and when her husband died and she was free to wed
again, she married the one who had first gained her regard. This was the
key to your superior claim upon our mother’s love. I will not now blame
her for the wrong of partiality, though it was the basis of my demeanor
toward yourself. I should have had sufficient strength of mind to have
resisted its influence—but in this I was sadly deficient. To the last
hour of her life my mother’s chief thought was of you. Yes, even in her
dying moments her principal anxiety was for _your_ future happiness,
while there was but little reference to the welfare of her eldest child.
When she was no more, and you came to dwell beneath my roof, I scrupled
not openly to show the sentiments which during our parent’s life-time I
was obliged to conceal. And I had now an additional cause of dislike. I
secretly accused you of robbing me of the affection of my little girl,
who, as you will perhaps remember, always manifested a decided
preference for your society. I did not reflect that my manner toward her
was often cold and distant, and widely different from your own; and with
such feelings of jealousy concerning you in my heart, it was scarcely to
be wondered that I seized the first opportunity of ridding myself of
your presence. Though I knew you to be guiltless of the fault for which
I blamed you, I drove you from my dwelling, refusing from that moment to
own you as a brother. Nor did I then experience the least remorse for
the act—and during the years that followed I strove to forget that you
had ever existed.

“It was only within the past twelvemonth, when surrounded by poverty,
and the victim of an incurable malady, that as I lay restlessly upon my
bed, the memory of my cruel conduct toward my innocent brother has
pressed heavily upon my mind. Often have I busied my brain with vain
conjectures respecting your fate—whether you still lived—and if you
had escaped the whirlpool of crime and sin within which the young and
unadvised are but too frequently engulfed. When I thought, as I
sometimes did, that you might have fallen—my sensations were those of
the most acute anguish, for I felt that the sin would all be mine, and
that at the judgment day I should be called to the throne of God to hear
him pronounce the fearful penalty for the murder of a brother’s soul.

“At length, through the illness of my daughter, who was very
unexpectedly thrown upon the benevolence of your wife, I obtained from
your servant some information concerning the family to whom I owed so
much, and discovered in the hand stretched forth to aid my child, the
wife of my discarded brother. It would be vain to attempt a description
of my emotions as I learned this fact. Joy that you were not forever
lost, predominated—and then was added shame, and a consciousness of my
own unworthiness to receive the benefits which henceforth you daily
conferred upon me, as I felt that you must have recognized me—for I had
given to your wife an account of my previous life. Each successive
service lavished upon my family by your own, sunk like a weight of lead
upon my heart, while as I saw how generously you repaid me for the evil
I had committed against you, I longed to cast myself at your feet and
supplicate forgiveness. But one thought deterred me. It was the fear
that you might deem me actuated by interested motives—by the desire to
leave my daughter at my death under the care of her now wealthy uncle.
And so, for a time, I set aside the yearning for a reconciliation. But
it returned with double force when this, which I know will be my last
illness, came upon me, and I felt that I could not die happily without
hearing from your lips a pardon for my misdeed.”

The weeping Julie had stood by the bedside listening attentively as her
father spoke, one hand resting affectionately in her uncle’s, while the
other was clasped in that of his wife. Though scarcely six years old
when Harry Colman was dismissed from his brother’s house, she had ever
retained a vivid recollection of the event. She remembered how
passionately she had wept when told by her nurse that she would probably
never again behold her favorite, and how indignant she had felt when
they said that it was owing to his own naughty conduct he had been sent
away—while her ignorance of the fact that her uncle’s name was not the
same as her father’s prevented a recognition of him when they again met.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Walter Malcolm survived a week after the scene just described. Having
made his peace with earthly objects, his last hours were devoted to
solemn preparations for a future state, looking trustfully for the mercy
of Him who listens kindly to the prayer of the penitent. His brother was
constantly with him till his eyes were forever closed in the
death-slumber; and from the day when the remains of her father were
borne to their last resting-place, the orphan Julie found a home with
her uncle, to whose pleasant hearth she was lovingly welcomed, while by
every kind and sympathizing attention her relatives strove to alleviate
the sorrow for a parent’s loss, which at first seemed almost
insupportable.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        THE UNSEPULCHRED RELICS.


                         BY MRS. L. S. GOODWIN.


    “Far out of the usual course of vessels crossing that ocean,
    they discovered an unknown island, covered with majestic trees.
    The captain, with a portion of the crew, went on shore, and
    after traversing its entire circumference without seeing a
    solitary representative of the animal kingdom, were about to
    return to their ship, when the skeleton of a man was found upon
    the beach, and beside it lay a partially constructed boat.”

              Bleaching upon the sands that pave
                An unknown islet strand,
              Where surges bear from mermaid cave
                The music of her band,
              A clayey temple’s ruin lies—
                Of that grand pile a part
              Whereon the Architect Divine
                Displayed His wondrous art;
              Its tenant long since hath obeyed
                The summons to depart.

              Mysterious, as dire, the doom
                That cast a death-scene where
              Deep solitude converts to gloom
                What else were brightly fair:
              Perchance wild waves that made a wreck
                Of some ill-fated bark,
              Giving his valiant comrades all
                To feast the rav’nous shark,
              Swept hither this lone mariner,
                For misery a mark.

              Yon half-completed boat his lot
                In mournful tones doth tell;
              With what assiduous zeal he wrought
                Upon that tiny cell,
              Which promised o’er the billows broad
                The worn one to convey
              Within compassion’s genial realm,
                Where woes find sweet allay;
              ’Twere better e’en the sea should whelm
                Than thus with want hold fray.

              Believe you not that in his pain,
                His agony of soul,
              Flew o’er the dark engirding main
                The thoughts which spurn control?
              Abiding with the cherished ones
                Who blest a far-off home;
              O how his sinking spirit yearned
                To view once more that dome;
              To hear young voices gayly shout
                For joy that he had come.

              He mused how love with pining frame
                Her grief-fount would exhaust,
              As on time’s laggard wing there came
                No tidings of the lost.
              Ah! who may speak the bitter pangs
                That exile’s bosom knew.
              As, day by day, and hour by hour,
                Faint, and yet fainter, grew
              The hope that erst had nerved him on
                His labor to pursue.

              To ply their wonted task, at length,
                Refused his weary hands;
              His form was stretched, bereft of strength.
                Upon the burning sands.
              Haply his latest wish besought
                ’<DW41> kindred dead to lie;
              But fate denied the boon, and death
                Seized him ’neath stranger sky;
              While mercy drew a mystic veil
                ’Twixt him and friendship’s eye.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                       REMINISCENCES OF A READER.


                    BY THE LATE WALTER HERRIES, ESQ.


             Oh! the times will never be again
               As they were when we were young,
             When Scott was writing “Waverlies,”
               And Moore and Byron sung;
             When “Harolds,” “Giaours” and “Corsairs” came
               To charm us every year,
             And “Loves” of “Angels” kissed Tom’s cup,
               While Wordsworth sipped small beer.

             When Campbell drank of Helicon,
               And didn’t _mix_ his _liquor_;
             When Wilson’s strong and steady light
               Had not begun to flicker;
             When Southey, climbing piles of books,
               Mouthed “Curses of Kehama;”
             And Coleridge, in his opium dreams,
               Strange oracles would stammer;

             When Rodgers sent his “Memory,”
               Thus hoping to delight all,
             Before he learned his mission was
               To give “feeds” and invite all;
             When James Montgomery’s “weak tea” strains
               Enchanted pious people,
             Who didn’t mind poetic _haze_,
               If through it loomed a _steeple_.

             When first reviewers teamed to show
               Their judgment without mercy;
             When Blackwood was as young and lithe
               As now he’s old and pursy;
             When Gifford, Jeffrey, and their clan,
               Could fix an author’s doom,
             And Keats was taught how well they knew
               To kill _à coup de plume_.

             Few womenfolk were rushing then
               To the Parnassian mount,
             And seldom was a teacup dipped
               In the Castalian fount;
             Apollo kept no _pursuivant_,
               To cry out “_Place aux Dames_:”
             In life’s round game they held GOOD _hands_,
               And didn’t strive for _palms_.

             Oh! the world will never be again
               What it was when we were young,
             And shattered are the idols now
               To which our boyhood clung;
             Gone are the _giants_ of those days,
               For whom our wreaths we twined,
             And _pigmies_ now _kick up a dust_
               To show the _march of mind_.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            THE GIPSY QUEEN.


                         BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.


                            [SEE ENGRAVING.]

Power, consequence, importance, greatness, are relative terms; they
denote position or attainment, comparable with some other. And hence a
queen is a queen at the head of a band of gipsies as much as if she sat
upon a throne, at the head of a nation whose morning drum beats an
eternal _reveille_. It was therefore, and for another cause yet to be
told, that I lifted my hat with particular deference when I opened
suddenly upon the head woman of a gipsy tribe, as I was passing through
a small piece of woodland. Though, truth to say, I had been looking at
her for some time, an hour previous, as she was giving some directions
to one or two of her ragged and dirty train. Now I had known that woman
in other circumstances. I had seen her in the family, had heard her
commended by the men for her graceful movements, and berated by the
women for exhibiting those movements to the men, and being as free with
her tongue in presence of her female superiors as she had been with her
feet before her male admirers. But neither the admiration of the men nor
the rebuke of the women produced any effect. All that this woman
received from a long sojourn with the people of the village, was a
little loss of the darkness of the skin, and a pretty good understanding
of the wants and weaknesses of society. Everybody knew that she had been
left in exchange for a healthful child—and some years before it had
been discovered that the healthful child would be worth nothing to the
gipsies, and the gipsy girl would, at the first opportunity, return to
her “brethren and kindred according to the flesh.” And such was the
skill which she manifested on her return, such her ability to direct,
such her knowledge of the wants of the villagers, and her power to take
advantage of these wants, that she became the head of the tribe with
which she was associated, and might have directed numerous tribes, could
they have been collected for her guidance.

I could not learn that there was much of a story connected with the life
of the queen, much indeed that would interest the general reader. But
she was a woman—and her heart, a mystery to the uninitiated, would, if
exposed, have been worth a world’s perusal. A woman’s heart—alas! how
few are admitted to loose the seals and open that secret volume! How
very few could understand the revelation if it were made. I could not, I
confess; and it is only when a peculiar light is thrown upon here and
there a pace, that I can acquire even a partial knowledge of what is
manifested. The Queen of the Gipsies, though elevated by right, and
sustained by knowledge, was no less a woman than a queen. She could and
did command male and female, old and young. She was treated with all
that marked distinction which, even among her rude people, continues to
be paid to preeminence. And while she sought to do the best for all, she
received all this homage with that ease, and that apparent absence of
wonder, which denote the right to distinction—this was a part of her
queenly character admirably sustained, natural, easy, dignified. But the
queen was a _woman_. I had heard her give orders, which sent certain of
the most active of the young, male and female, to the other side of the
village, and then she gave employment to the old and the young in the
moving hamlet, and seeing the first depart, and the last busy, she left
the camp, and took her way through the wood. I followed her and traced
her rapid steps to the burying-ground of the town, which stood a
distance from any dwelling.

Seating myself out of view, I saw the queen walk directly to a recently
sodded grave, upon which she looked down for a moment, and then clasping
her hands wildly above her head she threw herself with a subdued cry
upon the grave. I was too far from her to distinguish all the words of
her lament, but they were wild and agonizing.

After a short time the woman arose, and said with a distinct, clear
voice, “With thee and for thee I could have endured the mockery of their
boasted civilization, and suffered the ceremonies of their tame creed.
With thee and for thee I would have foregone my native tribe and my
hereditary rights. So persuasive was thy affection that I could have
forgotten—or at least would not have boasted—that I was of the
glorious race that knows no manacles of body or of mind, but what it
chooses to impose. But thou art gone, and with thee all my attraction to
the idle, wearisome life of thy race. I have returned to my people, and
I may lead them, and power and activity may for a time weaken my agony.
I need no longer sacrifice my love for my race—but yet one sacrifice I
will make, and thy grave shall be the altar. With thee my heart is
buried. To thee do I here swear an eternal fidelity—and year by year
will I lead my tribe hither, that I may pour out my anguish upon the sod
that rises above thee. And I may hope that such devotion may lead the
spirit that made our race for future happiness as for present freedom,
to give thee back to me when I enter on my world of changeless love and
glorious recompense.”

Kneeling again, the Gipsy Queen kissed the grave, and gathered a few
blades of grass and one or two flowers, shook away the tears which she
had let fall upon them, and placing them in her bosom turned and left
the burying-place, and proceeded toward the camp. I left my position by
the other route, and passing through the wood I met her. Her face was
cleared from every cloud, no trace of a tear was evident; she had
prepared herself to meet her party in a way to excite no inquiry.

[Illustration: THE GIPSEY QUEEN.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine]

The little that I knew of the Gipsy Queen previous to that day, and what
was told me by one who had lived in the village very long, I have set
down. I never saw her after I passed her in the woods. But she made an
impression on my mind that will not be easily removed. And she bore in
her heart motives for action which few but herself and me will ever
know.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         THE BROTHER’S LAMENT.


                        BY MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.


         One moment more, beneath the old elm, Mary,
           Where last we parted in the flowing dell—
         One moment more through twilight tints that vary,
           To gaze upon thy grave, and then, farewell!
         Ere from this spot, and these loved scenes I sever,
           Where still thy lovely spirit seems to stray—
         One look—to fix them on my soul forever—
                   And then away!

         Mary, I know my steps should now be shrinking
           From this sad spot—but on my mournful gaze
         A scene floats up that sets my soul to thinking
           On all the dear delights of other days!
         I’m gazing on the little foot-bridge yonder
           Thrown o’er the stream whose waters purl below,
         Where I so oft have seen thee pause and ponder,
           Leaning thy white brow on thy hand of snow.
         I’m standing on the spot where last we parted,
           Where, as I left thee in the fragrant dell,
         I saw thee turn so oft—half broken-hearted—
           Waving thy hand in token of farewell.
         I start to meet thy footstep light and airy—
           But—the cold grass waves o’er thy sweet young head;
         Would that the shroud that wraps thy fair form, Mary,
                   Wrapped mine instead!

         In vain my heart its bitter thoughts would parry,
           An adder’s grasp about its chords seem curled,
         For you were all I ever thought of, Mary—
           Were all I doted on in this wide world!
         And yet, I’d sigh not while thy fate I ponder,
           Did memory only bring thee to my eyes
         Pale as thou sleepest in the church-yard yonder—
           Or as an angel dazzling from the skies!
         I then at least could treasure each sweet token
           Of thy pure love—and in life’s mad’ning whirl
         Steel my crushed heart—had not thine own been broken,
                   Poor hapless girl!

         But, Mary—Mary, when I think upon thee,
           As when I last beheld thee in thy pride—
         And on the fate—oh God!—to which he won thee—
           I curse the hour that sent me from your side!
         Oh why wert thou so richly, strangely gifted
           With mortal loveliness beyond compare?
         The look of love beneath thy lashes lifted—
           Its fatal sweetness was to thee a snare!
         Yet sleep, my sister—I will not upbraid thee—
           Thou wert too sweet—too innocently dear;
         But he—the exulting demon who betrayed thee—
           He lives, he lives, and I am loitering here!
         Even now some happier fair one’s chains may bind him
           In dalliance sweet—but I’ll avenge thee well!
         Avenge thee?—Yes! a brother’s curse will find him,
           Though he should dive into the deeps of hell!
         I swear it, sister—as thou art forgiven—
           By all our wrongs—by all our severed ties,
         And by the blessedness of yon blue heaven,
           That gives its world of azure to mine eyes!
         By all my love—by every sacred duty
           A brother owes—and by yon heaving sod,
         Thine early grave—and by thy blighted beauty,
           Thou sweetest angel in the realms of God!
         I swear it, by the bursting groans I smother,
           And call on Heaven and thee to nerve me now.
         Mary, look down!—behold thy wretched brother,
                   And bless the vow!

         Sister, my soul its last farewell is taking,
           And I for this had thought it nerved to-night,
         But every chord about my heart seems breaking,
           And blinding tears shut out the glimmering sight.
         One look—one last long look to hill and meadow—
           To the old foot-bridge and the murmuring mill,
         And to the church-yard sleeping in the shadow—
           Cease tears—and let these fond eyes look their fill!
         One look—and now farewell ye scenes that vary
           Beneath the twilight shades that round me flow!
         The charm that bound my wild heart here, was Mary—
                   And she lies low!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         SONNET TO MACHIAVELLI.


                      FROM THE ITALIAN OF MAMIANI.


          Thou mighty one, whose winged words of yore
            Have spread on history’s page Italia’s wars,
            The sad mischances of intestine jars,
          Like beacons blazing where the breakers roar.
          Still canst thou glance out civil discords o’er?
            Some solace for us canst thou not divine?
          Canst thou not oil on troubled waters pour,
            And soothe each petty tyrants ruthless mind?
          Why else unveil the falsehood of our land,
            Which sees not why its tale thou deign’st to tell?
          Why else didst thou with an unsparing hand
            Make bare the wounds whose angry scars will tell
          The lasting shame of ignomy’s brand,
          All petrified at history’s command?

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              THE DARSIES.


                           BY EMMA C. EMBURY.


    _Don Pedro._ I pray you, hold me not responsible for all these
    travelers’ tales. I am but the mouthpiece of others: therefore,
    if I question the infallibility of the Pope, summon me not
    before the Inquisition; if I speak treason against the king,
    clap me not up in the Tower; and if I utter heresy against the
    ladies, let me not be flayed alive by the nails of enraged
    damsels. OLD PLAY.

“There is no use in wasting words, Cousin Charles; you never can
persuade me that men love more devotedly than women.”

“How can you be so unreasonable, Anne? I only want to convince you that
affection being an essential part of woman’s nature, she cannot help
loving something or somebody all her life. The most she does, even in
her most intense devotion, is to _individualize_ the general sentiment
which pervades her character; but when men love, they actually take up a
new nature, and concentrate upon it all their strength of mind and force
of character.”

“You have certainly a droll method of reasoning, cousin; because women
are _loving_ creatures, therefore they cannot love as well as the
rougher sex.”

“You are willful, Anne, and are determined not to understand me. I mean
that love is usually a habitude with women, while with men, if it exists
at all, it is a positive, determinate thing—a graft, as it were, upon
their sturdy natures, and partaking therefore of the strength of the
stock which nourishes it.”

“How can you say so when men are always in love, from the time they quit
the nursery until they are gray-headed, or _married_?”

“Such attachments are mere fancies.”

“Pray, how is one to distinguish between a fancy and a fact in so
delicate a matter?”

“It is difficult to decide at first, because in their inceptive state
they are much alike; but time is the true test. A fancy, a mere
intoxication of the senses, is scarce worth talking about; but in a
genuine manly love there is a depth, a fervor, a disinterestedness, a
devotion, such as woman can never feel—nay, which they can rarely
appreciate.”

“Heresy—rank heresy—Cousin Charles. I appeal to Uncle Lorimer, who has
heard our whole discussion, if you do not deserve excommunication with
‘bell, book and candle,’ for holding such opinions.”

The cousins were sitting together in the twilight, and, as the shadows
of evening deepened around them, the light of the soft-coal fire in the
polished grate gave a beautifully cheerful look of home comfort to the
pleasant apartment. An old gentleman, whose silver hair glittered in the
fire-light, had been sitting in the chimney-nook, and, thus appealed to
by his merry niece, he smiled good-humoredly as he replied—

“If you submit the dispute to me, I must decide against both.”

“Why so?”

“Because you are both too generalizing in your remarks. In this
work-a-day world of ours there is a daily and hourly need of the tender,
watchful, kindly ministry of sympathy and affection; now the peculiar
attributes of woman’s nature are such as fit her for this ministry; and
whether it be a mere habitude or not, it is the quality most needed by
men and most generally possessed by women.”

Anne clapped her hands, and looked triumphantly at her cousin; but Uncle
Lorimer continued—

“I must agree with Charles, however, that when men give out their whole
strength to a genuine affection, it is a more unselfish, magnanimous and
higher emotion than ever could dwell in the bosom of woman. The same
qualities which make her the gentler half of man mingle their leaven in
her affections. For instance, a woman will make any sacrifice for one
whom she loves, she will bear all kinds of privation and suffering for
his sake, but earth holds not the creature more pitilessly exacting of
affection than she is, or more jealously awake to every whisper of
distrust. Another weakness in her character is vanity; and I must
confess I never yet found a woman so much in love with her lover, that
she would not curl her hair and dress in her best to meet the eyes of
other men.”

“Oh! uncle. You are worse than Charles.”

“But perhaps you will like to hear my whole opinion, Anne. I have said
that women possess most of the quality which is required in daily life;
as I am not one of those who pretend to despise _good habits_ because
they are not _heroic virtues_, I think you ought to be satisfied with my
decision.”

“But you attribute so much nobler a quality to men.”

“That is true, but let me comfort you by just whispering in your ear,
that not one man in a thousand is capable of such an affection. True
sentiment is the rarest thing upon earth. To use the language of your
favorite poet—

        Accident, blind contact, and the strong necessity of loving,

often bring together hearts which habit afterward keeps united. Few,
very few, create an ideal in their youth and see it substantialize into
a reality as life goes on. Still fewer of those men who are capable of
real love ever bestow its treasures upon one who can appreciate them. I
think I have never known a single instance of such an attachment being
reciprocated and rewarded.”

“Did you ever know more than one man who possessed this faculty of
loving, uncle?”

“In the course of my long life I have known _three_; and if you choose I
will tell you the history of one of these, to prove my theory.

“Among my earliest school friends and playmates were Edgar and Herbert
Darsie. They were twin-brothers, the only children of a widow, whom I
remember as a tall, pale lady in close mourning, which she never laid
aside till the day of her death. There was little of that resemblance
between the twins which generally makes the pleasant puzzle of mothers
and nurses in similar cases; for, though alike in feature and height,
and even in their peculiarity of gait and manner, yet Edgar had the fair
complexion, blue eyes, and light silken hair of his mother; while
Herbert’s olive complexion, dark eyes, and curling black locks betrayed
the French blood which he derived from his father. They were cheerful,
happy-tempered boys, and possessed a certain natural sweetness of
manner, which made them universal favorites with old and young. Their
mother lived in the retired but handsome style which, in those days, was
considered the proper mode of showing respect for the memory of a
husband. She kept up the establishment exactly as it had been during Mr.
Darsie’s life, and seemed to find her only pleasure in doing precisely
as he would have wished. She was apparently in the enjoyment of a
handsome income, kept her carriage, and had a number of servants, while
the house and grounds exhibited taste as well as no stint of expense.

“The boys were about twelve years of age, when an accident happened to
Herbert, which, though apparently slight at first, finally led to the
most disastrous consequences. While skating, he fell and received some
injury, which, after months of suffering, finally developed itself in an
incurable disease of the spine, entailing upon him a life-time of pain,
and branding him with frightful deformity. The tall, lithe, graceful
boy, whose step had been as light and free as the leap of the greyhound,
was now a dwarfed and distorted <DW36>. As soon as he was able to leave
his sick-room, Mrs. Darsie placed Edgar at boarding-school, and sailed
for Europe, with the intention of giving Herbert the benefit of all the
modern discoveries in medicine. She designed to be absent a year, but,
led on by fallacious hopes, she traveled farther, and remained much
longer than she had anticipated. Three years elapsed before her return,
and to all appearance Herbert had derived little benefit from the
various experiments to which he had been subjected. He was still
dependent on his crutch, and his gnarled and stunted figure presented a
pitiable contrast to the tall and well-knit form of his brother. But his
health was somewhat improved; his paroxysms of pain were less frequent,
and he could now enjoy weeks of comparative ease and comfort.

“The brothers had early been remarkable for their affection for each
other, and their unbroken concord, but their long separation had not
been without its effect upon them. Edgar was gay, active, volatile, and
not destitute of a leaven of selfishness; while Herbert had become
grave, quiet, gentle in manner, and most thoughtful and considerate for
others. To him suffering had been a teacher of all good things, and the
misfortune of being cut off from fellowship with the world had taught
him to find resources within himself. He could not and did not expect
Edgar to sympathize in all his tastes, for he was conscious that their
paths must henceforth be divided ones. He schooled himself to overcome
the pang which this reflection gave to his sensitive spirit, and tried
to find in his brother’s enjoyments of outer life, a pleasure which he
could only receive from the reflection of another’s joy.

“Soon after their return from Europe, Mrs. Darsie received into her
family the orphan child of a poor clergyman, partly from charity, partly
with a view to furnish a companion and attendant for Herbert. Jessie
Graham was a pale, delicate-looking child, about twelve years old, when
she took up her abode with her benefactress. Her thin and almost
transparent cheek, her bloodless lips, and large gray, timid-looking
eyes, spoke of fragile health, and of a certain shyness of character
which might be the result of early anxieties, or perhaps denoted
feebleness of mind and indecision. But she was a sweet-tempered, gentle
little girl, and her compassion for Herbert’s melancholy condition soon
dissipated her shyness toward him, though to every one else, even to
Mrs. Darsie, she was as timid as a startled fawn.

“To divert his lonely hours Herbert undertook her instruction. He was
but a boy of fifteen, but sorrow had given him the stability of manhood;
and never did a more discreet, tender, and watchful Mentor attempt the
training of a female mind. Jessie was docile and intelligent, quickly
acquiring every thing which called forth the perceptive faculties, but
utterly incapable of abstract reasoning or profound reflection. Her mind
possessed a certain activity, and a kind of feminine patience that
enabled her to do full credit to her teacher, without ever attaining to
his high reach of thought. To cultivate her mental powers, to impart to
her a portion of his accomplishments, and to train her moral sense, now
became Herbert’s chief occupation. That such employment of heart and
mind saved him from bitterness and misanthropy there can be no doubt;
but whether he did not pay dearly for his exemption we shall see in the
sequel.

“Time passed on without making any great change in the affairs of the
Darsies. Edgar went through college rather because it was necessary to a
gentlemanly education than from any love for study, and, immediately
after graduating, he set off on the tour of Europe. In the meantime
Herbert continued to lead his usual quiet life, driving out in his low
pony-carriage every day, teaching Jessie all she would learn, and
surrounding himself with pictures of his own painting in the intervals
of his severer studies.

“It was on the anniversary of their birth—the day they attained their
twenty-first year—that the brothers again met upon their own
hearth-stone. Mrs. Darsie’s health had begun to fail, and Edgar, at
Herbert’s suggestion, had unwillingly torn himself from the enjoyments
of Parisian life to return to his quiet home. He found his mother sadly
changed, and evidently suffering from the insidious disease which so
slowly saps the foundations of health and life. Herbert, like all
deformed persons, had early lost the freshness of youth, and he was not
surprised, therefore, to find him looking at least ten years older than
himself, but he was astonished at the intellectual beauty which seemed
to radiate from his noble countenance. To the shapeless form of a
stunted tree he united the head of a demi-god. The beauty of his
classical features, the splendor of his deep, dark eyes, and rich glossy
hair curling in heavy masses round his temples, gave him the appearance
of a magnificently sculptured head joined on to some distorted torso.

“But if Edgar was startled at the change in his mother and brother, how
was he amazed and bewildered when he saw Jesse Graham! The pale, puny,
frightened-looking little girl had expanded into one of the very
loveliest of women. At eighteen Jessie had all that delicate yet fresh
beauty which a painter would select as his model for a youthful Hebe. “A
rose crushed upon ivory” was not too extravagant a simile for her cheek;
her lips were like the berry of the mountain-ash; and her eyes so soft,
so tender, with just enough of their former shyness to make them always
seem appealing in their expression, were like nothing else on earth.”

“You are extravagant, Uncle Lorimer; pray how did you avoid falling in
love with such a creature?” asked Anne, saucily.

“By the best of all preventives—_pre-occupation_. But my story has to
do with others, not with me. Soon after Edgar’s return, his mother took
an opportunity to inform him of her plans with regard to Jessie. She had
watched the progress of Herbert’s attachment to his young pupil, and she
believed it to be fully reciprocated by the docile girl. She had,
therefore, as she thought, fully provided for Herbert’s future
happiness; and, lest Edgar should be attracted by Jessie’s loveliness,
she hastened to tell him that in the beautiful orphan he beheld his
brother’s future wife. Mrs. Darsie was a weak woman, though kind-hearted
and affectionate. She proceeded to inform Edgar how the idea first came
into her head—how she had told Herbert of it—how she had been at first
shocked at the thought of sacrificing Jessie’s youthful loveliness to
such a union—how she discovered his secret love even from his heroic
self-denial—how she had finally succeeded in persuading him that Jessie
really loved him better than any one in the world—and how he had at
last consented to entertain the hope and belief that Jessie might become
his wife without repugnance. To Edgar’s very natural question, whether
Jessie was really willing to marry Herbert, his mother replied that as
yet Jessie knew nothing of their plans, Herbert having forbidden her to
use her influence in the matter, being determined that if he won Jessie,
it should be through her own free and unbiased will.

“Whether it arose from that perverseness in human nature, which teaches
men to value a thing just in proportion to its difficulty of attainment,
or whether Jessie’s loveliness was irresistible to a man of Edgar’s
temperament, I cannot determine; but certain it is, that from that time
he looked upon her with far different eyes than he had at first regarded
her. Edgar was precisely the kind of man who is always successful with
women. His talents and accomplishments were all of the most superficial
kind, but he danced well, sung beautifully, played the guitar
gracefully, and withal was exceedingly handsome. His voice was perfect
music, and when he bent down in a half-caressing manner over a lady’s
chair, flinging back his bright, silken hair, and gazing in her face
with eyes full of dangerous softness, while his rich voice took the
sweetest tone of deference and heart-felt emotion, it was next to
impossible for any woman to resist his fascinations.”

“Was his character a perfectly natural one, uncle, or was this exquisite
manner the result of consummate art?”

“It was natural to him to wish to please, and he aided his natural
attractions by a certain devotedness of manner, which made each
individual to whom he addressed himself _appropriate_ his tenderness as
her own right. Jessie had lived in such close seclusion that she knew
nothing of the world or its ways. It is probable that had Herbert asked
her to become his wife before the return of Edgar, she would have easily
consented, for she certainly loved him very dearly, and long habit of
associating with him had accustomed her to his deformity. To her he was
not the shapeless dwarf, whose crippled limbs scarce bore the weight of
his crooked body. He had been her ideal of excellence—the friend, the
Mentor who had made her orphaned life a blessing, and she could imagine
no stronger, deeper affection than that which he had long since
inspired.

“But after Edgar had been at home a few months, she was conscious of a
great change in her feelings. She loved Herbert as well as ever, but she
had learned the existence of another kind of affection. Edgar’s sweet
words and honied flatteries were unlike any thing she had ever heard
before, and unconscious of any disloyalty to Herbert, she gave herself
up to the enjoyment of this new sensation of happiness.

“Herbert was tried almost beyond his strength, for it was when his
mother lay on what was soon to be her death-bed that he first suspected
the fatal truth respecting his brother and Jessie. A lingering illness,
protracted through many weeks (during which time Herbert was his
mother’s constant companion, while Edgar enjoyed the opportunity of
unrestrained companionship with Jessie,) finally terminated in Mrs.
Darsie’s death; and, as Herbert closed her eyes, he could not but feel
that sinking of the heart which told him that he was now alone upon
earth. Immediately after his mother’s funeral he was taken alarmingly
ill, and for several days his life was considered in imminent danger. It
was not until his recovery that he again saw Jessie Graham, who, in
compliance with the world’s notions of decorum, had left the home of her
childhood on the decease of her benefactress. She had found her
temporary abode in the family of a friend in the neighborhood, and
Herbert’s sick-bed had known no other attendance than that of the
housekeeper and servants. In his first interview with Jessie after his
convalescence, he drew from her a confession, or rather an admission of
her love for Edgar. The manner in which she confided this to him—the
frank, sisterly feeling which seemed to animate her, stung him to the
heart. But he possessed great self-command, and Jessie never suspected
the actual state of _his_ feelings while she confided to him her own.

“As soon as practicable after Herbert’s recovery, his mother’s will was
opened, and then arose a new subject of wonder and dissatisfaction. No
one but Mrs. Darsie and her lawyer had known that she had been merely in
the enjoyment of a life interest in her fortune; but it was now
ascertained that her husband’s estate had been very trifling, and that
her large income was the product of a handsome fortune bequeathed to
Herbert by an old uncle, in consideration of his physical misfortunes.
The yearly product was given to Mrs. Darsie during her life, but at her
death the whole reverted to Herbert. His father’s property, amounting
only to a few thousand dollars, was bequeathed solely to Edgar, and a
legacy of five hundred dollars, (to purchase her wedding-dress, as the
will stated,) marked the testator’s wishes regarding her protégé, Jesse
Graham. Every body was surprised at this development, but no one more so
than the brothers. Why their mother had left them in such close
ignorance of their affairs, it is impossible to say, but they certainly
had no suspicion of the facts until they were thus legally made known.

“One of the first wishes of Herbert’s heart was to see Jessie placed in
her proper position, and he therefore nerved himself to speak to Edgar
on the subject. What was his surprise, therefore, when his brother
treated the whole thing as a boyish affair, and avowed his determination
to spend his pittance (as he termed it) abroad, and then to repair his
fortunes by a wealthy marriage! If ever the gentle spirit of Herbert
entertained a feeling of abhorrence for any living creature, it was at
that moment. His own hopes had been ruthlessly blighted, and Jessie’s
heart estranged from him, merely to gratify a _boyish fancy_!

“What he suffered, and what he felt, however, it is not for me to
attempt describing. He had garnered up all his treasures of affection in
Jessie and his brother. Now Jessie was lost to him, and Edgar was a
villain. How he, with his delicate sensibility, his high sense of honor,
and his stern principles of duty, must have suffered, I leave you to
imagine. But his love for Jessie conquered all other feelings. He knew
that her happiness depended on her union with Edgar, for she was
precisely that kind of character, which, though infirm of purpose in the
outset, yet have a certain tenacity of feeling when once a decision has
been made for them. He revolved many schemes in his mind before he could
form a practicable one, and at last he suffered his frank and candid
nature to lead him with its usual directness to his object. He asked
Edgar to be more explicit in his confidences, and when Edgar declared
that had he been the heir of wealth he would gladly make Jessie his
wife, but that nothing would ever induce him to tie himself down to a
life of privation and poverty, Herbert’s decision was at once made. He
proposed dividing his income with Edgar, on condition that his brother
should marry Jessie, and reside in the home of their childhood, while he
himself should travel into distant lands. But Edgar, with the
quick-sightedness of selfishness, saw how deeply Herbert’s soul was
interested in the matter. Pretending a jealousy of his brother’s
influence over Jessie—a jealousy of which he declared himself ashamed,
yet which he could not subdue—he said that if he had the means he would
marry Jessie, and take her far from all her early associations, but that
he would never let her live in Herbert’s house, or in a place where she
might at any time be subject to his visits.

“Pained as he was by this appearance of distrust, Herbert’s conscience
accused him of cherishing a wicked love for one who was about to become
his brother’s wife, and he therefore submitted meekly to this new trial.
What terms were finally decided upon could only be known at that time to
the two brothers.

“Six months after Mrs. Darsie’s death Edgar was united to Jessie Graham,
in the little village church, and immediately after the ceremony, the
wedding-party left for New York, from whence they sailed a few days
afterward for Havre.

“Herbert dismissed the greater part of the servants, shut up all except
one wing of the large house, sold off the carriage and horses,
(reserving only the little pony-carriage, without which he would have
been deprived of all means of locomotion,) and restricted his expenses
within such narrow limits, that people began to consider him mean and
miserly. He withdrew entirely from society, and lived more utterly alone
than ever. His books, his pictures, his music, were now his only
companions. Yet he did not forget that earth held those to whom even he
might minister. The door of the poorest cottages often opened to admit
the distorted form of the benefactor and friend, but the sunlight on the
rich man’s threshold was never darkened by his shapeless shadow.

“Edgar Darsie went to Paris with his beautiful wife, and there he lived
in luxury and splendor, surrounded by every thing that could minister to
his love of pleasure. Only himself and one other, the lawyer who had
drawn up the papers, knew whence his wealth was derived. Even Jessie
never suspected that Herbert was living with the closest economy in
order that the poor should not suffer from the lavish generosity which
had induced him to secure to his brother more than three-fourths of his
whole income as a bribe to insure her happiness.

“Ten years passed away, dragging their weary length with the lonely and
suffering Herbert, winging their way on golden pinions to Edgar, weaving
their mingled web of dark and bright to the womanly heart of Jessie. She
had witnessed the changes of a fickle nature in her husband—she had
learned to endure indifference, and to meet with fitful affection from
him—she had borne children, and laid them sorrowing in the bosom of
mother earth—she had drunk of the cup of pleasure and found bitterness
in its dregs; and now she stood a weeping mourner beside the dying bed
of that faithless but still beloved husband. Edgar Darsie had inherited
his mother’s disease, together with her beauty. His excesses had
hastened the period of its development, and ten years after his marriage
he was withering like grass before the hunter’s fire, beneath the touch
of consumption. Day after day he faded—his stately form became bowed,
his bright face changed, his silken locks fell away from his hollow
temples. Health was gone, and beauty soon departed.

“With the approach of death came old memories thronging about his heart,
and filling his sick chamber with fantasies and spectres of long by-gone
days. “Take me home! take me home!” was the bitter cry. But his
“_home-wo_” came too late. Never again would he leave his bed until he
was carried to the house appointed for all living. At the first tidings
of his illness Herbert had sailed for Havre, and traveled with all speed
to Paris; but when he arrived there his heart failed him. He remembered
Edgar’s avowed jealousy of him, and the wild, fierce joy which thrilled
his heart when he found himself once more near to Jessie, taught him
that he was not entirely guiltless toward his brother. He accordingly
took lodgings in the same hotel, that he might be near Edgar, in case he
should wish to see him, well knowing that the mode of life in Paris
secured him the most perfect privacy. He made known his present abode to
a certain business-agent, through whose hands letters had usually been
sent to him from Paris, and thus he received from Jessie’s hand constant
tidings of his brother’s condition.

“But this state of things could not last long. His impatience to be with
Edgar led him to seize upon the first faint intimation of a wish to see
him, and he soon found himself welcomed with tears of joy by Jessie
while Edgar thanked him with his eyes—those tender eyes—for his
thoughtful kindness in coming without waiting for a summons. During
three months Herbert shared with Jessie her care and watchfulness over
the invalid. All the lovable qualities of Edgar’s nature were brought
out by his sickness, and Herbert could not help feeling the full force
of those fascinations which had won for him the love of every one.
Weakened in mind as well as in body by his disease, he was like a lovely
and gentle child, so docile, so affectionate, so helpless, so tender,
and so altogether lovely did he appear, as the dark wing of death flung
its shadow broader and deeper above his couch.

“He died with penitence for past misdeeds deep-rooted in his heart, and
prayer for pardon lingering on his lips. He died clasping his brother’s
hand in his, and the last act of his life was a vain attempt to unite
Jessie’s hand in the same grasp. There was no time for the indulgence of
selfish feeling at such a moment. The presence of death had hushed the
whispers of earthly passion, and the grief of both the brother and the
widow was the genuine tribute of affection to the departed.

“As soon as Edgar’s affairs could be arranged, the widow, with her only
surviving child, returned to America under the protection of Herbert.
Ignorant as a child about pecuniary affairs, Jessie left every thing to
Herbert, and consequently never knew at what sacrifice he rescued
Edgar’s good name from obloquy, and paid his enormous debts. Nor did she
ever know that the money which had supported their extravagant
expenditure in Paris, was the free gift of Herbert. But daily and hourly
did she experience Herbert’s considerate kindness. Fearing to awaken her
suspicions relative to his agency in her marriage, he determined to
continue to her an allowance similar to that which he had bestowed upon
his brother. But to do this required new retrenchments, and the
sacrifice of a fine landed property; for Edgar’s lavish prodigality had
cost him so large a portion of his fortune that it now needed the most
careful and judicious management.

“If Herbert hoped to marry his brother’s widow, he at least determined
to leave her free to choose for herself. Jessie found herself pleasantly
domiciled in a new home, with a handsome provision for herself and
child, and surrounded by all the appliances of American comfort before
she had yet recovered from the dull torpor of her grief. For fifteen
years Herbert had lived but for her. During the five years preceding her
marriage his whole soul had been devoted to her; and when afterward he
tried to banish her image, he found though he might dethrone the idol,
the sentiment of loyal love, like a subtile perfume, had diffused itself
through his whole being. Was it strange, then, if he should once more
dream that his love and faith might do more than remove mountains—that
his devotion might veil the unsightliness of his person—that he might
yet be beloved and rewarded?

“Now tell me, Annie, how do you think my story is going to end?”

“In the marriage of Jessie to the devoted Herbert,” replied Annie. “It
is not in the nature of woman to be insensible to such devotion.”

“Remember that Jessie knew nothing of his pecuniary sacrifices, had no
suspicion of his agency in bringing about her marriage; did not dream of
his self-denying, self-forgetting love.”

“But no woman could doubt the true meaning of all his devotedness.”

“He had never flattered her with gentle words; never wooed her in
courtly phrase; never played the lover in the most approved fashion. He
had been the adviser, the Mentor, the steady friend; love had been the
pervading and animating soul of all he thought and all he did, but his
very magnanimity had been as a cloak to conceal his affections. Do you
think a woman like Jessie—an ordinary woman, lovely and gentle, but
withal having no perception of that inner life which so few can
penetrate—do you think she could see through this magnanimous reserve,
and detect the hidden love?”

“Surely, surely!”

“Recollect that she had early learned to pity him for his personal
defects, and though ‘pity’ may be ‘akin to love’ in our sex, yet no
woman ever loves a man she must look down upon with compassion.”

“But his nobler qualities must have commanded her respect.”

“Suppose they were so far above her perceptions as to inspire her with
_awe_ instead of respect? A woman never loves the man she _pities_, nor
will she love the man whose superiority she _fears_. Jessie
compassionated Herbert’s bodily weaknesses, and she had a vague terror
of his stern, uncompromising ideas of right and wrong.”

“Nevertheless, I am sure she married Herbert, uncle.”

“You are mistaken, Annie. Herbert continued his devotion for years; he
learned to love her child as if it were his own, and gave proofs of
disinterestedness and tenderness such as no woman could misinterpret;
but he never offered her his hand.”

“Why not?”

“Because he _knew_ it would be rejected, and he preferred being a
life-long friend, to occupying the position of an unsuccessful suitor.”

“Then I suppose she never married again.”

“You are wrong again, Annie. At forty years of age, when her beauty was
faded, and her character had deteriorated amid the follies of society,
she married a man some ten years her junior, who, tempted by the income
which _Herbert_ had bestowed upon her, flattered her into the belief
that she had inspired him with the most passionate love.”

“And her child?”

“Was adopted by Herbert Darsie, and at his death inherited his estate.”

“Poor, poor Herbert!”

“He suffered the penalty which all must pay who give to earth the high
and holy sentiment which is only meant to make us companion with the
angels in heaven. Not one in a thousand can love thus, and that one
always finds that in the world’s vast desert, he has expended his
strength in vain—‘hewn out broken cisterns which can hold no water.’”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE UNMASKED.


                           BY S. ANNA LEWIS.


       The struggle is over—my pulses once more
       Leap free as the waves on the surf-beaten shore;
       And my spirit looks up to that world of all bliss,
       And heaves not a sigh for the faithless in this.

       ’Twas in Sorrow’s bleak night, when the sky was all dark,
       And the tempest shrieked loud round my storm-beaten bark,
       That arose, ’mid the darkness, thy radiant form,
       Like the rainbow illuming the brow of the storm.

       An angel thou seemedst, that had come to the earth,
       To guide me—to nourish my heart in its dearth;
       And blindly, as Paynim kneels down to his god,
       I have loved thee—have worshiped the earth thou hast trod.

       But this waste of affection—this prodigal part—
       Is over—the mask has been torn from thy heart—
       And back with affright and amazement I shrink—
       At a fount so unholy my soul cannot drink.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: Mormon Temple, Nauvoo]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         MORMON TEMPLE, NAUVOO.


                            [SEE ENGRAVING.]

By permission of Mr. J. R. Smith, we have caused a view of the Mormon
Temple at Nauvoo to be engraved from his splendid Panorama of the
Mississippi, and we give the engraving in this number. As the building
has been recently destroyed by fire, our engraving, the first ever
published, acquires additional value. We copy from Mr. Smith’s
description of the Panorama, the following account of Nauvoo and the
Temple:

“_Nauvoo._—A Mormon city and settlement, now deserted. It is one of the
finest locations for a town upon the river, it being situated at the
second and last rapids below the Falls of St. Anthony, which extend from
this place to Keokuk, a distance of 12 miles. The great Mormon Temple
stands out conspicuous. It is the finest building in the west, and if
paid for would have cost over half a million of dollars. It is built of
a white stone, resembling marble, 80 feet front by 150 deep; 200 feet to
the top of the spire. The caps of the pilasters represent the sun; the
base of them, the half moon with Joe Smith’s profile. The windows
between the pilasters represent stars. A large female figure with a
Bible in one hand is the vane. An inscription on the front, in large
gilt letters, reads as follows:

    “The House of the Lord, built by the Church of Jesus Christ of
    the Latter Day Saints. Commenced April 6, 1841. Holiness to the
    Lord.”

There is in the basement of the temple a large stone-basin, supported by
twelve oxen of colossal size, about fifteen feet high altogether, all of
white stone and respectably carved. A staircase leads up to the top of
the basin. It is the font where all the Mormons were baptized. It is
seen in the Panorama standing aside the Temple, _but in the basement is
its real situation_.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             ROSE WINTERS.


                         A TALE OF FIRST LOVE.


                              BY ESTELLE.


“I shall never have another hour’s happiness as long as I live!”
exclaimed Rose Winters, weeping passionately. “You wouldn’t let me marry
him, father, and now he’s gone to sea, and said he should never come
back.”

“Don’t believe it, Rose,” said Mr. Winters. “He’ll be glad enough to
come back, I’ll warrant you—and the longer he stays away the better,
I’m thinking, it will be for you.”

“It’s not like you, father, to be so unfeeling,” said Rose, sobbing
almost hysterically.

“Nonsense, child—unfeeling, indeed! ay, ay, it may be so in your
judgment, I dare say, but I must judge with the head, and not with the
heart.”

“I think I ought to be allowed to judge for myself, now I’m of _age_,”
answered Rose, with sudden spirit. “I was eighteen my last birthday.”

“True, Rose, you have had great experience of mankind, no doubt. But
come, now, just tell me what you could have done if you had married Bob
Selwyn, with no fortune yourself, and he nothing to depend on but his
hands?”

“We could have done as other people do,” said Rose—“we could have
worked. Have I not always worked at home, father?”

“To be sure you have. You have been a good, industrious girl, Rosy, that
I sha’n’t deny; but your work at home was not like pulling continually
at the rowing oar, which would have been your portion all your life, I’m
afraid, with Robert. I can’t see, for my part, what you wanted to marry
him for.”

“Because I loved him, and he loved me. Didn’t you and mother marry for
love, father?”

Mr. Winters could not forbear laughing at this question, notwithstanding
Rose’s grief—and his natural droll humor struggled with his former
seriousness as he replied, “Well, I must try to remember. It is nearly
twenty years ago, now—so long that you have come of _age_ in the
meanwhile, and fancy you are wiser than your father. But I can tell you
one thing, Rose, if we did marry for love, we had something to begin the
world with, which is quite as necessary. You know the old proverb, ‘When
poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.’”

“I don’t believe any such thing, father. Whoever wrote that proverb
never knew what love was. It was a mean thing in any man to say so; and
what would never have come from a woman, I’ll be bound.”

“Well, well, Rosy, you may dry your eyes. I wish I was as sure of a
fortune for you, as I am that Robert will be back with the ship, if his
life is spared; but if that shouldn’t be the case, you will be young
enough then, and pretty enough, too, to get another beau.”

“I wont have any other!” exclaimed Rose. “I am determined to wait for
him, if he stays twenty years!”—and with this resolution she hastily
turned away and ran to her own room, where, secure from observation, she
might give free vent to her full heart in a long fit of weeping.

We are at a loss to imagine what sort of an impression our rustic
heroine, Rose Winters, has made on the minds of our readers, from her
unceremonious introduction to them through the foregoing dialogue: but
at all events, she is deserving of a more detailed description. She was
the daughter of a respectable farmer on Long Island, who resided in a
country village, situated on the Atlantic ocean, and near a large
seaport town. Mr. Winters was a shrewd, practical man, of strong natural
powers of mind, and excellent plain common sense. Rose was his eldest
and favorite child, and inherited his independent spirit and natural
gifts of understanding, which had been improved in her by a useful and
solid education at a first-rate country school. She was not, perhaps,
strictly beautiful, but her cheeks were bright with the hue of health,
and her dark-blue eyes sparkled with animation, and the joyousness of a
young heart, over which a lasting shadow had never passed, until her
lover left her to try his fortunes on the sea. Her figure was small, but
of exquisite proportions, and her steps sprang elastic with the
unchecked spirits of happy childhood. She was always agreeable and
entertaining without effort, for her words flowed in the easiest manner
possible, from a mouth which nature had made perfect; and then there was
nothing on earth more inspiring than her merry laugh, which seemed like
the very chorus of joy, and insensibly imparted a portion of her own
gayety to all around her. Rose had but little of imagination in her
heart or feelings. She was a young, gay creature, full of spirits and
activity, and only actuated by the every-day scenes of life, from which
she extracted mirth and enjoyment to diffuse unsparingly among all who
came within her influence. There was also a truthfulness and integrity
in her nature, which could not fail to give beauty, strength, and
elevation to her thoughts and character. The visions of romance which so
often pervert the minds of the young, and throw a false coloring over
the world, were all unknown to Rose. She had been nurtured amid scenes
where there was but little to excite or enrich the imagination, but much
to awaken bold and lofty sentiments. Born and brought up within sight
and sound of the grand and magnificent ocean, she delighted to gaze on
its rolling and breaking billows, and listen to its ceaseless sounding
roar, which had often been the solemn lullaby to her nightly slumbers.
The wide and level fields outspread before her native home, and the few
bare hills which skirted here and there the distant outline, were but
little calculated to inspire those enchanting, but unreal dreams, which
seem insensibly to arise amid the mountain scenery so wildly beautiful
and picturesque in many parts of our western world.

Rose had never been twenty miles from her father’s dwelling. All that
she knew of the world had been learned in her own village, which was an
occasional resort for a small number of strangers during the heat of
summer; but its situation was too remote to be very generally visited
before there were either railroads or steamboats to facilitate and add
comfort and convenience to traveling. Communication with New York, which
was the nearest city, was at that time tedious and fatiguing, as the
road lay for many miles through sandy woods, or over a bleak and rough
country. By water, the journey was performed in sloops, taking from
three days to a week to accomplish the voyage. In consequence of these
disadvantages, the transient sojourners in the village consisted chiefly
of sportsmen, who sought its solitary retreat for the purpose of
enjoying the game which was formerly found there in great abundance. The
birds were seldom frightened away from the lanes and meadows, excepting
by the gun of the stranger, who, having once found his way to that
lonely yet delightful part of the country, returned again and again, not
only to scare the plover from their haunts, but to enjoy the refreshing
and invigorating breezes from the ocean, and revel in the luxury of
freedom from fashion and restraint. There was a primitive simplicity in
the manners of the inhabitants of the village which was peculiarly
pleasing; and in which school Rose had received her first model. She was
easy and unaffected, because seeking to appear no higher nor better than
she really was. Among her associates, she was a universal favorite. Her
presence was sure to be in requisition at all the balls or merry-makings
in the neighborhood, for nothing of the kind could go off well, unless
Rose Winters, with her quick wit, irresistible good humor, and gay
spirits, made one of the party. Her father, though a man of severe
morals and true piety, was far from being puritanical in his views or
feelings. He loved to see Rose happy, and enjoyed the sunny atmosphere
which her never-failing cheerfulness and vivacity spread around the
household dwelling. The bright sallies which flashed from her lips,
instead of being checked by the farmer, frequently occasioned a repartee
of wit from him, which gave Rose a habit of sharpening her own against
her father’s weapons. Thus it was that she learned to respect her parent
without fearing him. She knew him to be possessed of the most inflexible
principles of truth and rectitude; and that his jocose and lively
temperament could never induce him to swerve for a moment from the
straight-forward course of honesty and honor. In his judgment she placed
the most unbounded confidence; and it was only in the one instance in
which her heart rebelled against it, that she yielded to its mandate
with bitter and unsatisfied feelings. Her mother, whom we have not yet
mentioned, had been dead several years; and three sisters, considerably
younger than herself, partook more of her care than her confidence. It
thus happened that her father had been her companion, more than is
usually the case in such relationships. She had been accustomed to
consult him in all affairs of consequence; and self-dependent as she was
by nature, she durst not incur the responsibility of acting in direct
opposition to his counsels. In this slight sketch we have endeavored to
give a faint outline of the character of our heroine, unlike, we are
sensible, to the usual heroines of romance; but the portrait is drawn
from real life, with its beauties unflattered, and its blemishes
unconcealed; and we leave it as it is to make what impression it may on
the opinions of others.

Robert Selwyn was a native of the same village. He was a few years older
than Rose, but had been accustomed to mingle in all the country
pleasures and amusements of which she had been for a time the principal
attraction. His handsome form, his manly and pleasing countenance, and
his gay and careless manners, were his only passports to favor. He had
no fortune to assist him in winning his way, but he had energy and
ambition, which were yet to be aroused into action. There was a distant
connection between the families of Winters and Selwyn, which served as a
plea for frequent and familiar intercourse. Rose called him Cousin
Robert, and under that name he was received as a sort of privileged
guest at her father’s house. The farmer always welcomed him; and Rose
chatted and laughed and flirted with him, until at last the flirtation
ended in a serious attachment. Mr. Winters, with all his habitual
foresight, had not looked for this result. To part with Rose, was an
event for which he had made no calculation, and he could not persuade
himself to believe that her affections were irrevocably engaged. The
application of her lover, therefore, for his consent to their marriage,
was met by a decided refusal.

“Pooh, pooh, Robert,” said he, in answer to his solicitation, “I wonder
what you would do with a wife. Tell me first, how you expect to make a
living for yourself, let alone Rose?”

“Why, if I can do nothing else, sir,” said Selwyn, “I can follow the
sea, and at least get a living out of the whales. You know others here
have got rich that way.”

“Yes, yes, Robert, but it’s a hard life, and not much to your taste, I
reckon.”

“It might not be my choice, Mr. Winters; but I’m not afraid of hardships
any more than other men—and I should think nothing hard with Rose.”

“Oh, that’s the way all young men talk when they’re in love; but have
you no other plan than that?”

“Yes, sir—I thought of either setting up a store, or trying to get the
school, as the old master is going away. I believe I know about as much
as he does.”

Mr. Winters laughed as he replied, “Very likely you may, Robert, and be
no Solomon either; but it wont answer. Set up a store on credit, and
break next year; and as for school-keeping—no, no, I must see some
surer prospect of your being able to support a wife, before you can have
Rose with my consent.”

“But, Mr. Winters, none of our girls here expect to marry rich. I wonder
where they’d find husbands, if they looked for money! not in this town,
I am sure.”

“There must be something to look to, though, either money or business.
Take my word for it, young man, you would find love but light stuff to
live upon without something more substantial along with it.”

Selwyn was silent for a few moments, and then said in a tone of severe
disappointment, “Well, I must say, sir, that I did not look for this
refusal. You never objected to my visits to Rose.”

“No, but I wish I had, since neither of you have as much sense as I
thought for. I have been to blame, and am sorry for it; but there has
been enough said now, Robert—all the talking in the world will not
alter my mind at present.”

It was after this conversation that Selwyn, finding the farmer
inflexible, and Rose determined to sacrifice her love rather than
disobey her father, formed the resolution to go out in a whaling ship,
just about to leave the port. Rose sought in vain to dissuade him. He
told her his mind was made up. “If you wont have me, Rose,” said he, “I
may as well be on the ocean as the land, for I shall never marry any one
else; but I shall not hold you bound—for most likely I shall never
return.”

“I didn’t expect to hear you say such a thing as that, Cousin Robert,”
answered Rose, with her eyes full of tears; “but you may hold me bound
or not, just as you please, I shall wait for you. If you should forget
me, I could never believe in the love of any man afterward.”

The ship sailed unexpectedly, and Selwyn, much to his disappointment,
was obliged to depart without again seeing Rose; and the sudden news
that he had gone, occasioned the burst of feeling in her, with which our
story opened.

We must now pass over a few anxious and tedious years. Rose waited and
dreamed of her lover’s return, until her spirits flagged, and her young
heart grew sick with “hope deferred.” Mr. Winters was puzzled and
confounded. He had mistaken his daughter’s disposition, and was not
prepared for the depth of feeling and affection which she had garnered
in her bosom. That his bright and merry Rose should suddenly become the
reflective and thinking being, and perform her household duties with
methodical and earnest care, instead of flying like a bird from room to
room, and singing or laughing off a thousand grotesque mistakes, which
before were continually occurring under her management, was to him a
matter of serious consideration. In truth he did not much like the
change; for what was gained in order and regularity in his house, was
lost in that inexhaustible fund of animating gayety which had been wont
to beguile him at sight of the fatigue of daily labor, and cast an
unfailing charm over his retired dwelling. Not that Rose had altogether
sunk into the sober and serious mood—that it was not in her nature to
do—but an indescribable change had passed over her former manner, which
had somewhat of a depressing influence on her family. She could not help
laughing and being lively, any more than she could help the beating of
her pulse, or the breath that came without her will or agency; but there
was something missing in the inward spring from which her spirits
flowed. It was the heart’s happiness—and the spring, in consequence,
sometimes yielded bitter waters.

Three years had fulfilled their annual revolutions, before the ship
returned in which Selwyn had embarked, and then, alas! it returned
without him. The voyage had been a most disastrous one. They had been
nearly shipwrecked, after being but a few months out, and had been
obliged to put in at one of the islands in the Pacific to repair and
refit. This operation necessarily detained them a long time; and the
second year of the voyage, Selwyn got sick and discouraged, and left
them at a port where they had stopped to winter, and went to London. It
was hinted that he was wild and reckless, and would never do any thing
for want of stability and perseverance. Rose was indignant at these
innuendos. Her sense of justice and generosity spurned the meanness of
traducing the absent, and her woman’s love shielded him in her own mind
from every attack on his reputation. She received a letter from him
shortly afterward, the first he had written since his departure. The
general tone of it was sad and desponding, but it breathed the most
unabated affection toward herself, while at the same time it set her
perfectly free from her engagement to him.

“I cannot ask you, dear Rose,” he wrote, “to wait for me, when it is so
uncertain if I ever can return to claim your promise. I have made
nothing by this voyage, and am determined never to see your father again
until I can give him a satisfactory answer to his question of ‘how I am
to support a wife.’”

Rose wept over the letter, and then consigned it to her most secret
hiding-place, and returned with unshaken resolution to her usual train
of duties. She had lost none of her beauty, for the healthful exercise
of necessary and constant employment, preserved the bloom on her cheek,
and kept her from giving way to useless repining. Among the beaux of the
village, she continued to have her full share of admirers; and there was
one of the number, Edward Burton, an enterprising and promising young
man, who sought earnestly to gain her hand. It was all in vain. Rose was
deaf to his entreaties, and laughed at his remonstrances, until he was
obliged to give up his suit.

In the meanwhile Robert Selwyn was seeking encouragement and advancement
from a foreign people. He continued to follow the sea, but without
returning to his native place. He went out from London, and had risen by
the usual gradation of ship-officers, lastly to captain. At the
expiration of three more years, Rose received another letter from him;
but the time of meeting seemed still further and further in the future.
He knew not when he should return. His employers kept him constantly
engaged, and he hoped in the end to realize an independence; but it
might be long yet before it was accomplished.

Such was the burden of the letter, and Rose decided promptly on a new
course of action for herself. She had long had it in her mind to leave
home. Her eldest sister was fully competent to take her place in the
management of the house, and the other two were old enough to be
companions and assistants; but Rose felt that she should have to
encounter the opposition of her father. She therefore determined on
making all her arrangements to go before apprising him of her intention.
Much, indeed, then, was the farmer astonished when Rose took her seat by
his side, after he had finished his evening meal, and addressed him as
follows:

“Father, I am going to New York to live.”

“Going to New York to live!” repeated he, slowly, as if unable or
unwilling to comprehend her words, “Why what has put that notion in your
head, Rose?”

“I’ve been thinking of it for a year, father, but put off telling you
till the time came. Last summer, when Mrs. Sandford was here, she often
advised me to go to New York; and a few days ago I had a letter from
her. She says she can get me a situation as teacher in a school, where I
shall have many advantages, and I have made up my mind to accept it.”

“You ought to have consulted me about it first, Rose; I’m doubtful if it
will be for the best.”

“Well, I shall do it for the best,” answered Rose, “and if it shouldn’t
turn out so, I can’t help it. You know I’m too much like you, father, to
give up any thing I judge to be right; and I hope you wont blame me for
leaving home now, since Betsey is quite as good a housekeeper as I am.”

Mr. Winters bent his eyes downward, and was silent. It was not his habit
to betray any outward emotion, but there was grief in his heart. His
fortitude was sorely tried. The departure of Rose would cause a sad
break in his home enjoyments, and the philosophy of the man was
destroyed for the moment, by the feelings of the father. Inwardly he
struggled, till unable to control himself longer, he rose quickly, and
snatching his hat, went out from the house.

After some time, he returned calm and composed, and simply remarked to
his daughter, “You say you’ve decided to go, Rose, so there’s no use in
arguing—but you’ll find a great change in a city life. If you shouldn’t
like it, come back to your old home—that’s all. Now call the girls in
to prayers—it’s nigh bed-time.”

Rose did as she was bid—and that night the farmer prayed earnestly and
fervently for the child who was about to quit his protection, and
committed her to the watchful care of Him who neither slumbers nor
sleeps. The prayer over, he retired immediately to his pillow, which was
wet before morning with an old man’s unwonted tears.

In the course of the following month, Rose was duly installed in the
authority of her new station. Her active and energetic mind, on which
the useful branches of education had been thoroughly grounded, soon
comprehended all the mysteries of her office, while her sprightliness
and good humor, joined to her unusual decision of character, fitted her
admirably for her occupation. The first term of her initiation, however,
passed wearily away. Her spirit pined in the confinement to which she
had voluntarily subjected herself—and with a feeling of _home-sickness_
gnawing at her heart, she repaired to her patroness, Mrs. Sandford, to
tell her that she could remain no longer. “I get thinking of my father,”
said she, “when I ought to be attending to the lessons—and sometimes my
mind gets so confused, that I almost imagine myself mad, and the school
a bedlam. Indeed, Mrs. Sandford, I cannot engage for another quarter. I
find I was not made for a city life, after all. The confusion distracts
me, and the high houses and narrow streets, make me gloomy and
low-spirited. I feel as if I couldn’t breathe in the smoke and dust
here. Oh, if you only knew how I long for the pure air of the country,
and the sight, once more, of the wild, free ocean.”

“But, my dear child,” said the lady, “you cannot think of returning now,
in the depth of winter. The communication by water is closed, and you
know it is a three days’ journey by land in the best of traveling. At
present, they say the roads are nearly impassable. Come, take my advice
and content yourself till spring. Believe me, you will not find every
thing as you expect when you return to the country. A short absence from
home, often produces a great change in our own minds, and we are led to
view the same objects in a different light. New impressions of life and
manners frequently destroy the power of old associations to bring back
past happiness; and we are left to experience a painful disappointment,
without being at first sensible that the change is in ourselves. We can
never be again what we were before.”

Rose listened attentively, and though far from being fully convinced by
the reasoning of Mrs. Sandford, she bent her will to a seeming
necessity, and consented to remain. Naturally buoyant, she rallied her
spirits, and overcame her transient depression. Interested continually
in receiving as well as imparting knowledge, she said no more about
returning home until the summer vacation left her at liberty to revisit
her native town. Then it was that she understood the change which the
more experienced woman of the world had sought to picture to her
imagination. She was once more in the bosom of her family; on the very
spot where life had opened to her with such bright anticipations of
happiness. The same scenes were around her. The extended range of level
country, and “The sea, the open sea,” with its mountainous and heaving
billows, presented itself, as in former days, to her unobstructed view.
What then was lost? It was the simple taste, the unsophisticated mind,
the feelings untainted with the world, and, most of all, the heart at
peace! She was no longer contented. The quietude and sameness of the
country left her too much time for thought; and her restless spirit
wandered again to the thronged and bustling city, and the ceaseless
routine of her labors in the school as a sort of necessary means of
relief. The sight of the ocean grew painful to her, from its reminding
her too forcibly of her absent lover. Selwyn wrote not, came not. Some
said he was married in London, and there came not a word from himself to
contradict the report.

Edward Burton took advantage of it to renew the offer of his hand to
Rose.

“No,” answered she, decidedly, “if Cousin Robert is really married, as
people say, my faith in man’s love is destroyed forever. I hope you will
never ask me again, Edward, for my answer will always be the same.”

So Burton gave her up, and consoled himself by marrying another; and
Rose returned to New York, and again devoted herself to the arduous task
of teaching, which often filled her heart with weariness; yet no one
would have imagined her to be a disappointed girl. _Love-sick_ she was
not; she had too much strength of mind—but she was true-hearted and
constant. Nine years had elapsed since she had heard a word of Selwyn,
and she knew not whether he were living or dead. They had been parted
_fifteen years_; and who will wonder that time had robbed her of some of
her early bloom; but there was an added expression of intellect in her
countenance, and a certain refinement of manner imperceptibly acquired,
which she had never possessed in her father’s house: so that altogether
she was more attractive, more to be admired at thirty-three years of
age, than when she first appeared at eighteen as a country belle.

And where was Robert Selwyn, while by slow gradations from year to year
this change had been silently wrought in his heart’s first idol. His
migrations in the meantime had been many, and his fortunes varied.
Profits and loss were for some years nearly balanced in his accounts,
but at length the brighter side predominated. Misfortunes and mishaps
were cleared away from his horizon, and his sails swept onward through a
tide of unexpected success. It was then that he began to weary of his
long, self-imposed exile, and turn his thoughts and wishes to home and
“native land.” Energetic in purpose, and prompt in action, he no sooner
formed the resolution of returning than it was put in execution. The
voyage, quickly accomplished, he once more found himself among his old
friends and townsmen, who shook him heartily by the hand, and welcomed
him back with right good will. Some author remarks, that “one of the
greatest pleasures in life, is to be born in a small town, where one is
acquainted with all the inhabitants, and a remembrance clings to every
house.” He no doubt felt this on his first arrival, and his satisfaction
was unalloyed; for, like Rose, he had yet to know himself as he now was.
Most of his youthful companions were married, and settled down into
steady, sober-minded, every-day sort of people—having made but little
improvement either in mind or manners; but they were not slow to
perceive that the Selwyn who had just returned, was quite a different
man from the Selwyn they had formerly known. There was certainly a
change in him, but in what it consisted, they found it impossible to
decide. He lacked nothing in cordiality—he assumed no airs of
superiority—he was neither _elegant_ nor _fashionable_—but he was not
what he used to be. Perhaps it was that he had acquired more manliness
of character; and there was the least bit more of dignity in his
manners; he was the smallest possible degree more guarded in his
expressions; and his frank and easy address was entirely free from the
most distant approach to awkwardness. It is true, he was still the gay
and jovial sailor, noble-spirited and generous to a fault—but he was
more the gentleman, more the man of the world than before he went to
foreign parts; and upon the whole, the conclusion was that he was
greatly improved, and would most likely turn out to be quite a credit to
the town. He had certainly grown handsomer, as he had grown older. His
face wore no traces of any inward discontent or disappointment, and it
is probable that he had worn his love either lightly or hopefully in his
heart. His first inquiry, after his return, however, was for Rose; and
hearing she was in New York, he hastened thither to meet her. It was at
the close of a summer afternoon when he found himself at the door of the
house where he was told she boarded. He inquired for her, walked in, and
sat down in the parlor in the dim light of the fading day, which was
rendered more obscure in the shadow of the curtained windows.

Rose had gone to her room fatigued and somewhat dispirited. The name of
her visiter was unannounced, and as she descended with a languid step to
the parlor, she was little prepared for the surprise that awaited her.

Selwyn rose at her entrance with a confused and doubtful air. “I beg
your pardon, madam,” said he, “I called to see Miss Winters—Rose
Winters—I understood she was here.”

“And so she is, Cousin Robert!” exclaimed Rose. “She is before you, and
yet you do not know her. Am I altered so very much, then?”

The question was accompanied with a painful blush, from the
consciousness that the bloom of youth in which he had left her, had
passed away forever.

Selwyn sprang toward her and caught her hand.

“Rose, my own dear Rose,” said he, with real feeling, “forgive me. No,
you are not altered; but if you were, I should know your voice among a
thousand.”

“Ah, I know I have grown old, cousin,” said Rose, struggling to recover
herself, “how could it be otherwise, when so many years have passed
since we met.”

“Well, Rosy, look at me! Has my age stood still, do you think? Look at
the crow’s feet and the gray hair, and tell me if you love me the less
for them. You would be the same to me, if you were twice as old as you
are; for you see I have come back for no earthly reason but to marry
you, unless your own consent is as hard to obtain now as your father’s
was before.”

“Why, your friends said you were married in London.”

“No, not my _friends_, Rose. It must have been my _enemies_ who said
that; but _you_ knew better. Didn’t I tell you I would never marry any
one but you?”

“Yes, fifteen years ago, Cousin Robert—but the promise might be
outlawed by this time, for all I knew. You do not pretend to say that
you thought my faith in your word would hold out, without even receiving
a line from you the last nine years.”

“Why not pretend to say it, coz, when I know it has. Deny it now if you
can.”

“But why didn’t you write to me, Robert?”

“Because I’m no writer, and meant to come myself. You said you’d wait
for me—and I knew you never broke your word. So now, my sweet little
flower, I’ve come to claim you, like a blunt sailor, as I am, with few
words, but a heart full of love, and what is better, something to live
on beside.”

“You are in a great hurry now,” said Rose, laughing and blushing.
“Suppose you wait a little, seeing you learnt the art so well in your
absence. Why I have not had a chance yet to ask you what kept you away
so long.”

“Never mind that, coz. There ’ill be plenty of time hereafter. Answer my
question first, whether you mean to have me or not, and let me know
which way to shape my course. If you’ve changed your mind, and lost your
affection for me, just say so at once, and I’m off to sea in the first
ship. You’ll never be troubled with me again.”

“What an unreasonable man you are,” said Rose, “just as impatient and
headstrong as before you went away.”

“You knew all my faults, dearest, long, long ago,” said Selwyn. “They
did not hinder you from loving me once. Love me still, Rose, as you once
did. Be mine, as you promised you would before we parted, and you shall
make me what you please.”

Rose was silent. Her lover’s arm was around her, and memory was holding
its mirror to her mind: and when she did speak at length, her voice was
low and indistinct, and her words nearly unintelligible. The spirit of
them may be guessed, however, from the fact that Selwyn did not go to
sea, and she resigned her situation as teacher, and returned with him to
her former home. The wedding was soon after celebrated with the sanction
of her father, and but one source of regret to Rose, that the old
minister, who in her youthful days was the pastor of her native village,
had been removed in the meanwhile to another world, and the ceremony of
her marriage was performed by a stranger.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: THE MINIATURE.]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE ZOPILOTES.


                          BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.


    [A Mexican soldier, being grievously wounded in one of the
    battles of Hidalgo, was deserted by his victorious companions.
    Unable to defend himself against the numerous Zopilotes, or
    vultures, which hovered around him, he put an end to his life
    with his own hand.]

          I feel the motion of each heavy wing—
            I hear the rustling of the air they cleave—
          The shadows they, like sombre phantoms, fling
          Closely around and o’er me, hovering,
            Beget wild fears, which busy fancies weave
                  Into a dreadful certainty.

          I hear the war-cry on the distant field!
            I see the dust, by charging squadrons cart;
          The cannon’s blaze, the flash of burnished steel;
          Bright banner’s wave, the rapid march and wheel,
            Where every step may be, perhaps, the last
                  A soldier e’er may take.

          Closely, more closely, still I see them sweep,
            Their wings are furled, and eagerly, they tread,
          Yet silently, as one who walks in sleep,
          Swiftly, as tyrant monsters of the deep
            Rush on their helpless prey, which seems to dread
                  Far, far too much to fly.

          Ye whom I loved, my brethren of the sword,
            With whom I left my distant mountain-home,
          Come, come to me. Alas! no single word
          I speak will ever by your ears be heard,
            Where battle cries, the trump and stirring drum,
                  Salute your victory.

          Was it for this I left my mother’s side,
            And bade to her I loved a last adieu,
          The dark-eyed girl I won to be my bride?
          Was it to watch this warm, empurpled tide
            Of life come gurgling, like a fountain, through
                  My rent and gaping breast?

          Wounded, alone, upon the field of strife,
            The shouts of victory upon mine ear,
          My comrades joyous, or bereft of life,
          Martyrs, with fame and glory ever rife—
            I do not dread to die alone e’en here,
                  As yon brave men have died.

          But oh, great God! I would not feel the beak
            Of yon dark vulture tear away my heart;
          Not that I wish my failing strength to eke—
          A soldier’s death it was my joy to seek,
            Wounded, alone, I have no other art
                  To save me. Let me die.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     HISTORY OF THE COSTUME OF MEN,


   DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.


                          BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.


                      (_Continued from page 198._)

Nor does the following present a much greater difference, and, but for
the ear-rings and knee-breeches, would pass muster even now amid our
infinite varieties of _palelots_, _sacks_ and _Hongroises_. The
boot-black represented in the cut is a miniature _bonnet-rouge_.

[Illustration]

It is worth while to state that costumes, like opinions, reproduce
themselves. As the ideas which were once in vogue, and have been
abandoned, return and resume their influence and orthodoxy, so do the
costumes of other days continually reappear, it is true, with a
difference often striking enough, for men no longer wear either coats of
mail or inexpressibles of velvet, yet the Norman cloak of the Black
Prince, and the _sack_ of Lauzun, the handsome French colonel, who,
during our own Revolutionary war, turned the heads and carried away the
hearts of half the women of Philadelphia, are still every day to be
seen.

The same thing is observable in female costume. The long waists, tight
sleeves and full skirts of old times have returned, and even the
ungainly ruffs of Queen Elizabeth’s age have shown a disposition to
return. The mode of dressing the hair is also retracing itself, so that
there is little real difference between the traditional court-dress of
former times and that of every-day life worn at present, except the
train.

The following is a caricature of that day, but scarcely more outré than
the bearded creatures from time to time seen in our own streets. It may
be remarked that the passion for hair on the face always is consequent
on a war. In the time of Henri IV, all the world was bearded; so during
the days of Cromwell were his ironsides, and now men who never saw a
shot fired, force the sublime into the ridiculous, by parading a
moustache in every thoroughfare throughout the country.

[Illustration]

Who knows but that our own Mexican war may exert an influence on dress,
and that some day the Ranchero’s striped blanket and broad-brimmed hat
may become the fashion. Men will stalk about the streets in boots of
cow-hide, and instead of hunting with dogs and rifles, the _lazo_ or
_lariette_ will be adopted universally. All the world knows that
immediately after the return of the army of the Duke of Wellington to
England, from Waterloo, the military black stock was adopted, and it may
be that the green pantaloons with the brown stripe, now worn, are an
imitation of the dress of the Mexican veterans who were defeated at
Cherebusco. The same may be said of the cloth caps, with the covers of
oil-skin, now so much in vogue. It may be remarked that this article of
dress has always followed the _tenue_ of the army, the flat cap
replacing the hussar’s, as the latter did the old gig-top leather
apparatus.

Other nations of Europe did not participate in the French Revolution,
but became imitators of the costumes it created. We have now come to the
period of the Directory, which exerted its influence on costume, or
rather the influence of which was reflected by the costume of the day.

The Directory and Consulate saw all France seized with fury for the
antique. These were the days of the _Romaines_ and _Atheniennes_, when
David was toiling with the pencil to effect a reform of costume, and
when Talma sought to introduce correct ideas of dress on the stage. The
men of Paris still adhered to the English costume, which, fortified by
their _fiat_, became that of the world. They compromised their English
predilections, however, so far as to wear their hair _à la Titus_ or _à
la Caracalla_, what that was may be seen from the following engraving.

[Illustration]

They seemed, however, to struggle to make this costume as unbecoming as
possible, wearing the coats loose, the collars immense, the breasts
small, and such pantaloons and _shocking bad_ hats as were never seen
before or since. The costume of a dandy of 1798 consisted of a blue
coat, a white waistcoat, open in the breast, a finely worked
shirt-bosom, fastened with a diamond pin, a huge muslin cravat, Nankin
pantaloons, with black stripes down the seams, and thrust into the
boots. (In society the boot was replaced by a small and pointed shoe.)
The everlasting bludgeon was as indispensable in the street as the boots
and the hat. To young Thelusson, when thus dressed and armed, Madame de
Stael, who wore an oriental _toilette_, said, “Citizen, you bear the
sceptre of ridicule.” “Madame,” replied he, “you are certainly competent
to award it to whom you please.” Never were there so many strange
costumes seen in any one city as in Paris at that time, when _peruques_,
powder, hair _à la Titus_, cocked and round hats all were mingled
together. Costume was indeed republican if the government was despotic.

                                            [_Conclusion in our next._

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        THE BEAUTIFUL OF EARTH.


   All Nature’s beauteous forms, of light, of earth, or air, or sky,
   Compare not with the flexile frame, the lustrous, speaking eye;
   The opening flower, the rainbow tint, the blue and star-lit dome,
   Are things of naught, in contrast with the angels of our home:
   All gentle acts, all noble thoughts, of Heaven-directed birth,
   Are centered in the fair and good, the beautiful of earth.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         WILD-BIRDS OF AMERICA.


                          BY PROFESSOR FROST.


[Illustration: CAROLINA OR MOCKING WREN.]

This interesting bird is strictly southern in its habits, being rarely
found north of Maryland and Delaware, while it abounds during the whole
year in the warmer states. Occasionally it strays to the vicinity of
Philadelphia and even of New York; but this is so seldom that the
indefatigable Wilson never found its nest north of the Maryland line.
Like the House-Wren it is a sprightly, industrious and familiar bird,
and a general favorite in the neighborhood where it abounds. Other
qualities render its nature so ambiguous that some have hesitated to
place it among the Wrens. One of the most remarkable of these is its
power of imitating the songs of other birds. With much sweetness and
accuracy it blends its own notes with the simple twittering of the
Ground-Robin, the harsh noise of the Woodpecker, the trilling of the
Blackbird and Warbler, and the whistling of the Cardinal. These are its
favorite imitations; but its powers of mimicry embrace the songs of
almost all our forest-birds. But notwithstanding this capriciousness in
sounds, the Carolina Wren is said to have a favorite theme, repeated
more regularly than any other. Nuttall thus pleasantly describes it.
“This was the first sound that I heard from him, delivered with great
spirit, though in the dreary month of January. This sweet and melodious
ditty, _tsee-toot_, _tsee-toot_, _tsee-toot_, and sometimes _tsee-toot_,
_tsee toot-seet_, was usually uttered in a somewhat plaintive or tender
strain, varied at each repetition with the most delightful and delicate
tones, of which no conception can be formed without experience. That
this song has a sentimental air may be conceived from its interpretation
by the youths of the country, who pretend to hear it say, _sweet-heart_,
_sweet-heart_, _sweet_! nor is the illusion more than the natural truth,
for, usually, this affectionate ditty is answered by its mate, sometimes
in the same note, at others in a different call. In most cases, it will
be remarked, that the phrases of our songster are uttered in 3s; by this
means it will be generally practicable to distinguish its performance
from that of other birds, and particularly from the Cardinal Grosbeak,
whose expression it often closely imitates, both in power and delivery.
I shall never, I believe, forget the soothing satisfaction and amusement
I derived from this little constant and unwearied minstrel, my sole
vocal companion through many weary miles of a vast, desolate, and
otherwise cheerless wilderness.”

The food of the Carolina Wren consists of the insects found in old
timber, and along the banks of streams, places which it delights to
frequent. It is found among the thick cypress swamps of the south even
in the middle of winter. It can see well in the dark, sometimes
searching food in caves, where to most other day birds objects would be
undistinguishable. Its building places are a barn, or stable, some old
decayed tree, or even a post-fence. The female lays from five to eight
eggs, of a dusky white, mottled with brown. Two broods are raised in a
season, and sometimes even three. The adult bird is five and a quarter
inches long, of a chestnut brown, beautifully mottled with black and
other colors. The female differs little in color from the male.

[Illustration: THE CARDINAL BIRD.]

This bird is known under the names of Virginia Red Bird, Virginia
Nightingale and Crested Red Bird. It is one of the most beautiful of
American songsters, and in power and sweetness of tone it has been
compared with the Nightingale. The species belongs mostly to the United
States and Mexico, but has been found in considerable numbers in the
West Indies, Central America and Colombia. Although delighting in a
southern clime, it is sometimes observed in Pennsylvania, and even New
England.

Being migratory, it often flies in large flocks, presenting a splendid
appearance, especially when moving in relief over a clear sky, and in
the rays of the sun. At other times several of these birds are found
associated with Sparrows, Snow-Birds and other half domestic species.
When alone his favorite haunts are the corn-field, small clumps of
trees, and the borders of shaded rivulets. Corn is their favorite food,
in addition to which they eat seeds of fruit, grain and insects. They
are easily domesticated, even when taken quite old, and require very
little trouble in order to thrive well. Loss of color, however, has
often been the result of long confinement, although with care this might
perhaps be obviated. They are lively in the cage, and maintain their
powers of song to the last. Numbers of them are carried to France and
England, where they are highly esteemed. Their time of song lasts from
March to September.

The Cardinal Bird’s song consists of a favorite stanza often repeated,
with boldness, variety of tone and richness. Its whistling somewhat
resembles that of the human voice, though its energy is much greater. In
his native grove, his voice rises above almost every other songster
except the Mocking-Bird. The powers of the female are almost equal to
those of the male, of whom she is a most constant and affectionate
partner.

Latham admits that the notes of the Cardinal “are almost equal to those
of the Nightingale,” the sweetest of the feathered minstrels of Europe.
But, says Nuttall, “the style of their performance is wholly different.
The bold martial strains of the Red Bird, though relieved by tender and
exquisite touches, possess not the enchanting pathos, the elevated and
varied expression of the far-famed Philomel, nor yet those contrasted
tones, which, in the solemn stillness of the growing night, fall at
times into a soothing whisper, or slowly rise and quicken into a loud
and cheering warble.”

The Cardinal Bird measures eight inches in length, and eleven from the
tip of one wing to that of the other. The whole upper parts are of a
dull dusky-red, except the sides of the neck, head and lower parts,
which are of a clear vermilion. The chin, front and lores black. The
head is ornamented with a high pointed crest. The bill is coral red, and
the legs and feet are pale ash color. The female is somewhat less than
the male, and a little different in color. Both sexes are noted for
affection to their young, and to each other; but so jealous are the
males that they have often been known to destroy those of their own sex.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              JENNY LIND.


                           BY MISS M. SAWIN.


     A world’s sweet enchantress, unbounded in fame,
     O how shall I sing of so peerless a name—
     Thy tones, from the wilds of a picturesque land,
     The billows of ocean have borne to our strand;
     Though I ne’er have beheld thee, yet bound in thy spell,
     My bosom thine echoes still onward would swell—
     Would enshrine in my song the sweet soul of thy strains,
     Till fresh incense should rise from our mountains and plains.
     Though long on the altar thou’st kindled the fire,
     Oh how shall it burn on the strings of the lyre!
     ’Tis the music of Nature sublimed in thy lays
     Which has won thee thy guerdon of lore and of praise;
     ’Tis hence that the depths of the spirit it thrills,
     That responses start forth from mountains and hills,
     That no barriers the flight of thine echoes can bind,
     Which are borne o’er the earth on the wings of the wind.

     There is glowing within us, all restless, a lyre,
     Which would swell like an angel’s its anthems of fire,
     But the shroud of mortality fetters its strings—
     Yet thou while on earth hast unfolded thy wings,
     Canst dwell with the fairies in chalice of flowers,
     And glide with the wood nymphs in deep sylvan bowers;
     Canst float with the moonbeams in dew-silvered trees,
     And rise on the wings of the morn’s fragrant breeze,
     While sunbeams are waking the rapturous lays
     Of dew-drops and birds, and yet all ’neath their blaze;
     Canst hover o’er ocean when storm it enthrones,
     And bear from the foam-crested surges their tones;
     When dark are the skies and the thunder-clouds lower,
     With the eagle’s bold flight to the mountain’s crest soar;
     The streams of the forest to their fountains canst wind,
     And caverns resounding in solitude find;
     Enshrined in thy spirit their voices canst keep,
     Sublimed by thine alchemy subtile and deep,
     At thy will from thy spirit their harmonies sweep,
     And I ween thou hast soared to the portals of Heaven,
     Or some angel a tone to thy praises has given.

     O, Jenny, the brightest cynosure below!
     The fount in thy bosom must here cease to flow;
     Like the sear leaves of autumn which shroud the old years,
     Thy harp-strings must perish ’mid wailings and tears;
     Thy lovers who bend at thy purity’s shrine,
     Enchained by the spells of thy carols divine,
     When no temple’s proud arches resound with thy strain,
     In the wilds of thy forests shall seek thee in vain;
     But when from thy tomb they despairing return,
     In lyres immortal thine echoes shall burn.
     Alas! that thy music should ever here die,
     Should leave the sad earth and ascend to the sky;
     Yet when thou art fled to the seraphim throng
     Will fancy yet list to thy glorified song,
     Will dream that no harp on the heavenly plains
     Has music so sweet as are there thy high strains.
     Though we never may list while on earth to thy lays,
     For the boon of thy being high Heaven we’ll praise;
     Where thy strains are ascending must Paradise be—
     Humanity’s scale is exalted in thee.

     There is a tone in my bosom as yet unexpressed,
     And fain would I bid it to ever there rest,
     But the woes of the earth for its utterance plead,
     Then may it go forth as a merciful deed:—
     O, Jenny, while shining so brilliant on high,
     Like the Lyrian star on the vault of the sky,
     While the peers of the realms bow in homage to thee,
     Dost never thy race in their miseries see?
     To the charm of thy music we ever would yield,
     By thee would be borne to Elysium’s field,
     And forgetful that wrong or that wo were on earth,
     Forever would list to thine angel-like mirth.
     But the heart fraught with sympathies true, must embrace
     The lowest as well as the stars of our race—
     Round the poor and the wretched in bitterness twine—
     On devotion’s wings rise to where pure seraphs shine;—
     In our pathway to Heaven we encounter the thorn,
     Each brother’s woes feel and the proud tyrant’s scorn—
     The way that our holy Redeemer has trod
     But leads us through tears to the throne of our God.
     I know that thine own gushing spirit is free
     As the winds that o’ersweep the high mountains and sea;
     Thy genius has burst from all species of chains,
     And freedom unbounded swells forth in thy strains;
     But while ever exulting on fetterless wing,
     Wouldst not the blest boon to each lorn spirit bring?
     Thy music, which thrills to the depths of the heart,
     Might bid us to deeds of true chivalry start;
     Might bid the kind fountain in proud bosoms flow,
     To heal the crushed hearts that are writhing in wo.
     Both Knowledge and Virtue like angels descend,
     The sad thralls of Sin and of Darkness to rend,
     Perchance that the tyrant may yield to thy charms,
     And avert the dread doom of the Future’s alarms,
     Till unwilling vassals no more bend the knee,
     But rise at his bidding and ever be free.
     And the gold thou hast won by the charm of thy name,
     To its splendor might add the philanthropist’s fame,
     Till many an oasis from deserts shall spring,
     When the arches of Heaven with thy praises shall ring.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              STORM-LINES.


                          BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.


When the rains of November are dark on the hills, and the pine-trees
  incessantly roar
To the sound of the wind-beaten crags, and the floods that in foam through
  their black channels pour:

When the breaker-lined coast stretches dimly afar, through the desolate
  waste of the gale,
And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from the deep, like a
  mariner's wail:

When the gray sky drops low, and the forest is bare, and the laborer is
  housed from the storm,
And the world is a blank, save the light of his home through the gust
  shining redly and warm:—

Go thou forth, if the brim of thy heart with its tropical fullness of life
  overflow—
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, and no shadow reminds thee
  of wo!

Leave the home of thy love; leave thy labors of fame; in the rain and the
  darkness go forth,
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive from the cheerless
  expanse of the North.

Thou shalt turn from the cup that was mantling before; thou shalt hear the
  eternal despair
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, from the hills and the
  sea and the air!

Thou shalt hear how the Earth, the maternal, laments for the children she
  nurtured with tears—
How the forest but deepens its wail and the breakers their roar, with the
  march of the years!

Then the gleam of thy hearth-fire shall dwindle away, sad the lips of thy
  loved ones be still:
And thy soul shall lament in the moan of the storm, sounding wide on the
  shelterless hill.

All the woes of existence shall stand at thy heart, and the sad eyes of
  myriads implore,
In the darkness and storm of their being, the ray, streaming out through
  thy radiant door.

Look again: how that star of thy Paradise dims, through the warm tears,
  unwittingly shed—
Thou art man, and a sorrow so bitterly wrung, never fell on the dust of
  the Dead!

Let the rain of the midnight beat cold on thy cheek, and the proud pulses
  chill in thy frame,
Till the love of thy bosom is grateful and sad, and thou turn'st from the
  mockery of Fame!

Take with humble acceptance the gifts of thy life; bid thy joy brim the
  fountain of tears;
For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gathers promise of
  happier years!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.


    _The Child of the Sea and Other Poems. By Mrs. S. Anna Lewis,
    Author of “Records of the Heart,” etc. etc. New York: George P.
    Putnam._

A large edition of “Records of the Heart” was sold in a few months, and
the fair author stepped at once into a very enviable position. “The
Child of the Sea,” etc. will add much to her poetical fame. The poem
which gives name to the volume, and occupies most of it, is a romantic
and passionate narrative, and embodies all the main features of Mrs.
Lewis’s thought as well as manner. The story is well conducted and
somewhat elaborately handled; the style, or general tone, is nervous,
free, dashing—much in the way of Maria del Occidente—but the principal
ground for praise is to be found in the great aggregate of quotable
passages. The opening lines, for example, are singularly vivid:

        Where blooms the myrtle and the olive flings
          Its aromatic breath upon the air—
        Where the sad Bird of Night forever sings
          Meet anthems for the Children of Despair.

The _themes_ of the poem—a few lines farther on—are summed up in words
of Byronic pith and vigor:—

                             ——youthful Love,
        Ill-starred, yet trustful, truthful and sublime
        As ever angels chronicled above—
        The sorrowings of Beauty in her prime—
        Virtue’s reward—the punishment of Crime—
        The dark, inscrutable decrees of Fate—
        Despair, untold before in prose or rhyme.

                 *        *        *        *        *

We give a few more instances of what we term “quotable”
passages—thoughtful, vivid, pungent or vigorous:

    Fresh blows the breeze on Tarick’s burnished bay—
    The silent sea-mews bend them through the spray—
    The beauty-freighted barges bound afar
    To the soft music of the gay guitar. . . . . .

                 *        *        *        *        *

    The olive children of the Indian Sea.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    That rayless realm where Fancy never beams—
    That Nothingness beyond the Land of Dreams.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    Folded his arms across his sable vest
    As if to keep the heart within his breast.

                 *        *        *        *        *

            ——Violets lifting up their azure eyes
    Like timid virgins whom Love’s steps surprise.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    And all is hushed—so still—so silent there
    That one might hear an angel wing the air.

                 *        *        *        *        *

            ——There are times when the sick soul
    Lies calm amid the storms that ’round it roll,
    Indifferent to Fate or to what haven
    By the terrific tempest it is driven.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    The dahlias, leaning from the golden vase,
    Peer pensively into her pallid face,
    While the sweet songster o’er the oaken door
    Looks through his grate and warbles “weep no more!”

                 *        *        *        *        *

            ——beauteous in her misery—
    A jewel sparkling up through the dark sea
    Of Sorrow.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    Delirium’s world of fantasy and pain,
    Where hung the fiery moon and stars of blood
    And phantom ships rolled on the rolling flood.

“_Isabelle or The Broken Heart_” occupies some 40 pages, and is fully as
good as “The Child of the Sea”—although in a very different way. There
is less elaboration, perhaps, but not less true polish, and even more
imagination.

The “Miscellaneous Poems” are, of course, varied in merit. Some of them
have been public favorites for a long time. “My Study,” especially, has
been often quoted and requoted. It is terse and vigorous. From “The
Beleagured Heart” we extract a quatrain of very forcible originality:

        I hear the mournful moans of joy—
          _Hope, sobbing while she cheers_—
        Like dew descending from the leaf
          The dropping of Love’s tears.

The volume is most exquisitely printed and bound—one of the most
beautiful books of the season.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The History of England, from the Accession of James II. By
    Thomas Babington Macaulay. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vols. 1
    and 2. 8vo._

No person, of whig or tory politics, could in the present age, propose
to himself the task of writing the history of England, without feeling
the delicacy and responsibility of his undertaking, and the necessity of
exercising a different class of powers from those which may have given
sparkle and point to his partisan efforts. The importance of the
principles involved in the events and characters coming under his view,
and their wide applications to contemporary controversies, would be sure
to bring down upon the unlucky advocate a storm of moral and immoral
indignation. It would seem on the first blush that Macaulay, with all
his vast and vivified erudition, was not a writer calculated to
experience the full force of a historian’s duties, or to display in the
analysis and judgment of events that intellectual conscientiousness
which is a rare quality even in powerful minds. His historical essays
bear as unmistakable marks of partisanship as ability, and are
especially characterized by a merciless severity, which, in the name of
justice, too often loses the insight us well as the toleration which
come from charity. Sir James Macintosh, toward the commencement of his
career, referred to him as “a writer of consummate ability, who has
failed in little but in the respect due to the abilities and character
of his opponents.” Though as a partisan, Macaulay was a partisan on the
right side, on the side of liberty and truth, the unmeasured scorn he
poured, hot from his heart, on tyrants and bigots, and the fierce, swift
sweep of his generalizations, often made his cooler readers suspicious
of his accuracy when most dazzled and delighted by his brilliancy. In
the present history a great change is manifest. The petulance, the
flippancy, the dogmatism of the essayist, are hardly observable, and in
their place we have the solid judgment of the historian. There is a
general lowering of the tone in which persons and principles are
considered, consequent upon the change in the writer’s position from an
antagonist to a judge. The style, while it has no lack of the force,
richness, variety, directness and brilliancy, which characterized the
diction of the essayist, has likewise a sweetness, gravity and composure
which the essayist never displayed. Though the writer’s opinions are
radically the same as ever, they are somewhat modified by being seen
through a less extravagant expression, and by being restored to their
proper relations. In fact, the history presents Macaulay as a wiser and
more comprehensive man than his essays, and if we sometimes miss the
generous warmth and intensity, and the daring sweep of his earlier
compositions, we also miss their declamatory contemptuousness and mental
bombast.

The volumes which the Harpers have given to us in so elegant a form,
(vulgarized a little by Dr. Webster’s ortho-graphical crotchets,) close
with the proceedings of the Convention which gave the crown to William
and Mary. A long historical introduction, containing a view of English
history previous to the reign of James II., and a view of England, in
its manners, customs, literature and people at the time of his
accession, occupy the larger portion of the first volume, and are almost
unmatched, certainly unexcelled, in historical literature, for the
combination of condensed richness of matter with popularity of style.
Then follows the narrative of the three years of folly and madness which
produced the revolution of 1688, and hurled James II. from his throne.
This narrative is detailed with a minuteness which leaves nothing untold
necessary to the complete apprehension of the subject in all its
bearings, and it evinces on almost every page not only singular felicity
in narration, but great power of original and striking observation.
Masterly generalization, and sagacity in seizing and luminousness in
unfolding the principles of events. The whole history has the interest
of a grand dramatic poem, in which the movement of the story and
delineation of the characters are managed with consummate skill. The
portraits of Charles II., James II., Danby, Rochester, Sunderland,
Godolphin, Halifax, Churchill, and especially William of Orange, are
altogether superior to any which have previously appeared. Halifax and
King William seem to be Macaulay’s favorites, and he has surprised many
of his readers by his comparative coolness to Russell, Sydney, and the
whig patriots generally.

The history closes with an eloquent passage on the “glorious” Revolution
of 1688. It appears to us that the meanness and lowness which Macaulay
has developed in the actors in the event, impress the reader with a
different notion of it. The whole thing has a jobby air, in which no
commanding genius is observable, and no sacrifices seem to have been
made. Indeed Macaulay himself, in one of his essays, remarks truly that
the only sacrifices made in the Revolution, “was the sacrifice which
Churchill made of honor and Anne of natural affection.” That the
Revolution, in its results, was one of the most glorious recorded in
human annals, there can be little doubt, but it had its birth in such
odious treachery, and was conducted by men so deficient in elevation of
mind or even common honesty, that its story is little calculated to
kindle sympathy, or awaken admiration.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace
    of Paris. By Lord Mahon. Edited by Henry Reed, Professor of
    English Literature in the University of Pennsylvania. New York:
    D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 8vo._

The author of this history is all English nobleman of large historical
acquirements, who has managed to produce two or three valuable works
demanding great study and research, without interfering with his duties
as a member of Parliament, though, doubtless with some interference with
his pleasures as a member of the English aristocracy. The present work
is valuable for its accuracy, and interesting from its giving a
connected view of the history of England during a period but little
known except by the empty abstracts of stupid compilers, or the
brilliant but prejudiced letters and memoirs of contemporary writers and
statesmen. It comprehends the administrations of Harley and Bolingbroke,
of Stanhope, Walpole, Carteret, Newcastle and Chatham, thus including
the latter years of the reign of Queen Anne and the reigns of George I.
and II. The period covers a wide field of characters and events, and
Lord Mahon has been especially successful in unraveling the threads of
the foreign policy of England, and indicating the difficulties
experienced by her statesmen in sustaining the House of Hanover on the
throne. In a narrative point of view the best portions of the history
are those relating to the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. It is almost
needless to say that Professor Reed has added much to the value and
interest of the work by his elucidative notes.

But the richness of Lord Mahon’s materials and the interest of his
subject cannot conceal the fact that he lacks both the heart and the
brain of an able historian, and that he is essentially a common-place
man. The reflections he appends to some of his narratives are commonly
such obvious truisms, or such poor apologies for reason, that the reader
is made painfully aware of his being in the company of a mediocre
gentleman, who, while he always means well, never means much. Lord Mahon
is deficient equally in historical science and historical imagination,
and his work equally barren of profound principles and vivid pictures. A
moderate tory, he holds the hearsays of his creed with a lazy
acquiescence, without sufficient passion to be a bigot, and without
sufficient logic to be a sophist. When he is tempted into historical
parallels, or disquisitions on the changes of parties, as in that
passage where he essays to prove that a modern whig is synonymous with a
tory of Queen Anne’s day, he adopts the argumentation of Fluellen rather
than Chillingworth—shows that “there is a mountain in Wales and a
mountain in Macedon,” and leaves the reader to mourn over the
misdirection of the human faculties. In his estimate of literature he is
still worse. The disquisition on the literature of Queen Anne’s time, in
the present history, is a medley of mingled commonplace, which has been
worn to rags, and critical nonsense, which has been long exploded. His
history, therefore, must be considered simply as a useful narrative of
important events, and carefully distinguished from those of Guizot and
Thierrey, of Hallam and Macaulay, of Prescott and Bancroft.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal in the Province of
    Massachusetts Bay, 1678-9. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1
    vol. 16mo._

This beautifully printed volume sustains both the reputation of its
publishers for printing handsome books, and its reputed author for
writing good ones. It is generally attributed to Whittier, and it
certainly displays throughout the shrewdness with which that poet
observes, and the facility with which he idealizes events. Here is a
volume bringing up to the eye with the vividness of reality the scenes
and characters of a past age, and making us as familiar with them as if
we had ridden by the side of Margaret in her journey from Boston to
Newbury, and yet through the whole book runs a vein of pure poetry,
lending a consecrating light to scenes which might possess but little
interest if actually observed. The quaint spelling undoubtedly adds to
the illusion of its antiquity, but what makes it really seem old is its
primitive sentiment and bold delineations. Margaret herself is a most
bewitching piece of saintliness, with the sweetness and purity of one of
Jeremy Taylor’s sermons, and as full of genial humanity as of beautiful
devotion. Placed as she is amid the collision of opposite fanaticisms,
the austere fanaticism of the Puritan and the vehement fanaticism of the
Quaker, she shines both by her own virtues and by contrast with the
harsh qualities by which she is surrounded. The book provokes a
comparison with the Diary of Lady Willoughby, and that comparison it
will more than stand, being superior to that charming volume in the
range of its persons and events, and equal to it in the conception of
the leading character. The author has shown especial art in modifying
every thing, by the supposed medium of mind through which it passes—the
heroine telling the whole story in her own words—and at the same time
preserving every thing in its essential life. This is a difficult and
delicate process of representation, but Whittier has performed it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Democracy in France. By Monsieur Guizot, Late Prime Minister.
    New York: D. Appleton & Co._

This little volume is well worthy the reputation of one of the greatest
historians, philosophers and statesmen at the age—in other words, of
the reputation of Guizot. It is marked by preeminent ability in
statement, analysis, argumentation and composition, and we doubt not
will exert some considerable influence on the politics of France. In his
preface the author avers that nothing in the volume bears the impress of
his personal situation, and he adds, “While events of such magnitude are
passing before his eyes, a man who did not forget himself would deserve
to be forever forgotten.” The book justifies the author’s assertion. It
is simply an examination of things without regard to persons, and is as
philosophic in its tone as in its method. The chapters on The Social
Republic and The Elements of Society are masterpieces of analysis and
statement, and well deserve the attentive study of all who think or
prattle on social science. It seems to us that the present volume is
sufficient to convince all candid minds, that whatever may be the faults
and errors of Guizot as a statesman, he has no equal among the men at
present dominant in France. Since his fall that country has been
governed, or misgoverned, by soldiers and sentimentalists, with a pistol
in one hand and the Rights of Man in the other, and is a standing
monument of the madness of trusting the state to men of “second rate
ability and first rate incapacity.” The Red Republicans have principles;
M. Guizot has principles; the legitimists have principles; but the
present dynasty has the peculiar character of being, in an intellectual
sense, the most thoroughly unprincipled government that French ingenuity
could have formed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Oregon and California. By J. Quinn Thornton. New York: Harper &
    Brothers, 1849._

A pleasant book, well written, and containing much information just now,
peculiarly valuable in relation to Oregon and California. Many strange
phases of life in the wilderness and prairie, are described by one who
knows its peculiar hardships and pleasures. The terrible sufferings, the
awful stories told of the early emigrants, are faithfully given, and, if
official accounts be true, are scarcely exaggerated. A valuable appendix
on the gold country is added, undoubtedly to be relied on. The book is
well illustrated in wood.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Parterre, a Collection of Flowers Culled by the Wayside. By
    D. W. Belisle. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippencott & Co., 1849._

A pretty looking volume, very creditable to the publishers in a
typographical point of view, and containing a number of poems of various
lengths, on a variety of subjects. The longest, Wallenpaupack, is an
attempt, and a very creditable one also, to commemorate an incident of
the history of the North American Indian, a source of poetical subjects
too much neglected. The book is well worth attention. It may not be
uninteresting to state that the type has all been set up by the author.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Roland Cashel. By Charles Lever. Illustrated by Phiz. New York:
    Harper & Brothers._

This is probably the best novel of one of the most popular novelists of
the day. Lever has not much solidity of mind, and accordingly never
produces any masterpieces of characterization or passion, but he has a
quicksilver spirit of frolic and drollery, and an intensity of mirthful
feeling which have made some critics place him on a level with Dickens.
The present volume will more than sustain the reputation which his
former frolicksome audacities have attained.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            EDITOR’S TABLE.


                      “GRAHAM” TO “JEREMY SHORT.”


MY DEAR JEREMY,—In my last I promised you a reminding hint, a sketch
reflective and suggestive of mining operations, as an offset to the
brilliant visions of “Gold Placers,” which haunt the mind, sleeping and
waking, of Uncle Sam’s children. While multitudes are making haste to
grow rich, by going around the Horn, and at the terminus of their long
voyage will find themselves coming out of the little end of it, you and
I may amuse ourselves over a subject somewhat kindred—a retrospective
folly—feeling the while a good deal like the boy on getting rid of the
jumping tooth-ache—“a _heap_ better” are we, “now it is over.”

_Copper!_ You have heard of it before, I believe? and may have about you
a memorandum of a few thousands, entered on the credit side, not
available now at your bankers. It was a very happy delusion, was it not?
I’ll warrant me that you had already planned your cottage orné and had
the walks laid out, and the shrubbery planted quite tastefully and
imaginatively picturesque. Several castles, with steeples rather airy,
of my own, were toppled down, and elegantly bronzed as they were, are
quite useless now for purposes of reproduction, so that we may say, that
we have had some of the advantages of wealth without a present care in
disposing of it. The servant girl who wished for riches “that she might
ride in her carriage and feel like missus,” had the delights of
anticipation only, poor soul! while ours are embodied in the delicious
reflection of having passed that “missus” on the road, with a pair of
fast trotters—taking the air with quite an air, at the rate of “two
forty.”

“Come easy, go fast,” was the remark of an old German Uncle, who, having
made a fortune by hard knocks at the anvil, looked with a quiet smile at
these thousands in perspective. In regard to the _horses_, the old
gentleman was right—but as the _money_ never came, I think his premises
were altogether wrong. One thing is certain, real estate rose very
rapidly in our vicinity at that time, and as several lots went off at
spanking prices, to be kept out of our clutches, we may be said to have
been benefactors to the sellers and conveyancers. So that _copper_—the
vilest of metal—may, in some crucibles, be transformed into gold. But
not to anticipate.

                 *        *        *        *        *

_Grubemout_ had been upon the mountain-side, which overlooks the
delightful village of Fleeceington, for a month or more, making careful
chiselings from rocks, and excavations at their sides. UPTOSNUFF carried
his pick-axe and his basket. The “collection” gradually swelled upon
their hands, until it became quite formidable; and the “choice
specimens,” were without number, rich, and without reason, _rare_.
DRAWITWELL, the host of “The Hawk and Buzzard,” had his eye upon their
movements, and always made it a point to take a peep at their basket
when they descended in the evening. He was an open-eyed sort of an old
lark, who had had his own way in the village at election times and at
trainings, by virtue of a colonelcy and aidship to the governor—a cheap
sort of payment for service rendered—and he felt as if nothing of
importance ought to transpire in the place, unless he had a hand in it.
Drawitwell did not like the air of mystery with which his lodgers
slipped the covered basket up stairs, after they had performed their
ablutions; nor the roaring noise made overhead, as the “specimens” were
poured into the two great chests, previously prepared; and he was just
the man to get at the bottom of a mare’s nest. So, by virtue of
appliances best known to himself, he contrived to get a look at the
collected specimens, and made up his mind at once that the thing was too
slily managed by half, and that if there was wealth in the rocks he
would have a finger in the transaction. “_He would at any rate._”

Crispin, the village cobbler, had thrown _his_ eyes from his lapstone,
across the creek, and up the hill-side, to take note of the motions of
“the wandering stone-crackers,” as he called them, and his brain was in
a pother.

The blacksmith had sharpened their pick more than once, which had put on
edge his curiosity, and had “contrived to pick their brains, while they
pecked the rocks,” as he jocosely remarked, and _he_ had smelt metal in
their movements.

Over their evening ale, at the tavern, the probabilities and
possibilities of gold or silver being found in the mountain, were
discussed with various degrees of profundity, and the certainty that
something of the kind was there, was most sagely resolved on. Time, in
whose crucible all doubts are solved, soon confirmed their sagacity by a
“copper button” presented to the landlord with the compliments of
Uptosnuff, with hints, but not positive injunctions as to secrecy. He
knew his man.

“What do you think of that?” asked Drawitwell, of his cronies the same
evening, with an air of authority, holding up the copper button. “What
_do_ you think of that, my lads?”

“_Hellow!_” exclaimed the bewildered cobbler, “landlord, why—why is
_that goold_?”

“Gold, you fool! No, it’s _not_ gold—but it’s a precious sight more
valuable—because there is a great deal more of it used.”

“Why what on earth is it, then?” asked the blacksmith, in amazement.

“It’s _Copper_! my lads! COPPER!!”

“COPPER!!”

“Yes, I reckon it is!—and the genuine metal, too! And the mountain is
as full of it as an egg is of meat! Only melt down one of the rocks up
there, and you’ll see how it will fly out!”

To have stopped the spread of such information as this, would have
surpassed the ingenuity of our clerical friend, who was opposed to the
Magnetic Telegraph, as “a device of the devil.” There was a California
excitement in a village, with California itself in their own mountain.
_He_ would have been a lucky traveler, who could have had his horse shod
for a guinea, or a bridle-rein mended for double the amount.

“You see, my lads!” says Drawitwell, haranguing the crowd, “they are
going to do the fair thing by us, they have bought the land, and are
getting their act of incorporation ready, and we are all to have shares
in it at a reasonable rate—and I reckon I’ll have a _few_, or money
must be scarce in Fleeceington. There’ll be high times at the “Hawk and
Buzzard”, _now_, I should say, when every man in this prosperous village
can be an owner, for a small sum, in one of the richest mines on the
face of the earth. You see it’s going to be most unconscionable high,
too—it’s now twenty-two cents a pound—for the government is
advertising for it in the newspapers—no doubt to make bullets with to
match the infernal poisonous Mexicans. Gad, we’ll give the rascals a
taste of their own physic, _now_, I reckon! And then don’t they make
water-pipes with it now, and sheetings. And don’t they cover houses with
it, and ships; and I guess the time is not far off when government will
have her mint on this spot—and what’s to hinder us, _then_ from
spending our own coppers, bran new, ha! ha! If any body here has got a
farm for sale, I’m his man!”

As for buying farms, the thing was perfectly absurd now, and Drawitwell
should have known it; for who could tell that there was not a
copper-mine under every one of them. It was not to be supposed either
that the good people of Fleeceington could keep the knowledge of such
extraordinary wealth all to themselves, and our usually quiet city was
all agog, with the wondrous stories of the extent and richness of the
mines; and to confirm its truth, Grubemout and Uptosnuff were here with
the charter, and the script elegantly engraved, and any number of
specimens, and copper-buttons confirmatory.

In a day or two a few shares were in the market at “a slight advance on
the original cost.” Capitalists had been up who thought they “knew a
thing or two”—and gudgeons began to nibble, the knowing ones among the
number. The market advanced. One, two, three, four hundred per cent. was
quickly achieved as competitors increased; and considering that the
first cost was perhaps a dollar an acre, for an unwooded, untillable,
rocky hillside, curved up and set down at a dollar per square foot as
“original cost,” the profit was tempting—the market active—ditto the
original holders. There was a fierce avidity for a stock which advanced
at such rapid strides, and the reckless became crazy, the cautious
reckless and visionary. “The Board”—knowing dogs—looked on for a while
doubtfully, but in amazement. The “Outsiders” indulged in ecstasies and
fanciful millions. Thousands were added up upon stock-books, as if they
were “trifles light as air”—_and they were_. Merchants cut the
shop—lawyers the red tape and sheep-skin—editors told the messenger
for copy to “go to the devil”—and all became “gentlemen on ’change.”
Healths were drunk “to the United Copper-Heads”—and champagne and
Havanas “suffered some.” Fun and puns flashed fast and furious—and all
this the while the great bubble rose up, expanding and beautifying as it
ascended.

It was not to be expected that a single mountain should contain all this
good luck exclusively, and in various quarters envious copper-rocks
poked their noses out, quite seductively to anxious companies, who
formed upon the spot. One gigantic intellect proposed the formation of a
company to shovel the sand off of the whole State of New Jersey, so as
to get at the substratum, at once and emphatically. Copper became
substantially the _great_ business of life—the _only_ business of the
board—the _board_ being in fact rather a small affair while _copper_
abounded.

Sharp occupied _his_ time in buying up superfluous real estate, which
seemed to have been infected by copper, and showed a disposition to
_rise_—and he was afraid it might go up and never come down again. The
conveyancers assured him that he ought to take it—like a sportsman—on
the wing, right and left. He did, and clapped a heavy mortgage on it to
keep it steady.

That disturbed the figures on Flat’s memorandum—for he hoped to have
bought and paid for it with his expected profit on copper, and to have
staggered somebody else’s property with a mortgage from the surplus. It
was provoking.

Jones and Wilkins resolved to “take a shy at the copper anyway, while it
was going;” but the stock of all the companies seemed shy of them. They
“bid ten dollars through a broker”—it was twelve. “Bid twelve”—it was
fourteen. Wilkins had had enough of it. He believed it was “only a
bubble blown up to catch the eyes of fools. He was done with it.” But
Jones was down in the morning, as merry as a lark, and as early. He
“knew some of the outsiders, and thought he would catch some of them
before the morning was over.” He did—and went home to dinner, having
made “a fortunate hit.”

“Five hundred shares,” said he, “at fifteen, and the last sale ‘after
board,’ nineteen and a half! Four dollars and fifty cents per share.
Five aught is _naught_; five fives are twenty-five, five fours are
twenty, and two are twenty-two. Twenty-two hundred and fifty
dollars—that will do for one day, _I_ should say. Wilkins would like me
to give _him_ half, as we were to have gone in together yesterday, but I
wonder what Wilkins ever did for me, that I should give _him_ eleven
hundred and twenty-five dollars! Not _quite_ so green!”

The next morning Grubemout brought down some specimens, which “he
thought” would yield forty per cent. _if they were assayed_, and thought
that they ought to make an assessment of a dollar a share, so as to put
on more hands and drive out the ore. Jones said that “that was right
enough.”

The assessment was called in, at which the stock hesitated for a day or
two—made a start and went on—but a second installment being urged, it
faltered a little, and then stopped. At the third it “_declined_ a
shade,” at which the “bears” gave a shake and a growl.

But Grubemout had—in the nick of time—“just received a letter from the
mines of the most important nature, which it would not do to show in
‘the street,’ or the stock would be balooning it—Uptosnuff had _just
made a cross-cut_.”

“The deuce he has!” exclaimed Jones, rather nervously. “What is _that_?”

“A cross-cut, you see,” says Grubemout, “is nothing more than ‘a shaft’
run at right angles past the old one we have been working. He struck
some glorious ‘deposites,’ and—”

“Why I thought you always said there was _a vein_, Grubemout? These
deposites are confoundedly leaky and treacherous affairs.”

“And so there _is_ a vein, my boy, and we are just getting into it;
deposites are always the first thing we look for in copper mining. As
long as we have them we get on swimmingly; but you are so confoundedly
skittish! I was just going to tell you, that in making the ‘cross-cut,’
Uptosnuff has struck ‘_the master vein_!’ and found an old ‘_drift_’ in
the mountain, which you will see after a while, is important. In it he
found old hatchets, and hammers, and images in copper, supposed to have
been the rude efforts at mining and smelting by the Indians long
ago—say before the Dutch had taken Holland, or achieved the renowned
name of Knickerbockers, and had gone home copper-fastened.”

Information so desirable as this would work its way out somehow, and
gentlemen would now bet you a trifle—say champagne and cigars—that a
dividend of twenty-five per cent. would be declared on the stock the
first year; or would _give_ you a hundred dollars for agreeing to pay
the annual dividend on a hundred shares.

Jones is “satisfied _now_,” and forthwith buys five hundred shares more,
as do other Joneses, and Browns, and Greens. Outsiders became as plenty
as gooseberries, and as verdant; and it would seem, from the number of
shares reported _at_ the Board, and “_after_,” that certificates had
quadrupled, and never _could_ multiply fast enough to supply the demand.
Indeed, as one old gentleman was heard to end a prolonged whistle, by
exclaiming—“GAS!” the market became so inflated that the Joneses,
Browns, and Greens, declined the attempt of _cornering_ the stock, in
despair.

“The company,” called for an additional installment at once. “Why, what
the deuce,” asks Jones, “does the company want with _more_ installments?
Haven’t they got copper enough!”

“Copper _ore_, my dear fellow,” responded Grubemout. “Yes, _lots_ of it.
But Uptosnuff wasn’t brought up in a Cornish mine for nothing. The
furnaces at Baltimore and Boston want it for half-price, but as they are
nearly _out_, we intend to make them _smoke_, ha! ha! But we must go to
the expense of an “_adate_” in the meanwhile.”

“Why, what’s the use of _that_—what good will that do?” asks Jones.
“What _is_ an _adate_, anyway?”

Poor Jones had a good deal yet to learn about copper-mining, and felt
naturally alarmed at these ominous terms. The “cross-cut” was the
beginning of puzzlers. He had yet to see—I may as well say he
ultimately did see, “the drift,” to help along “the pumps,” as well as
the adate with installments, and to become familiar with a variety of
mining lore, which assists knowledge in its acquisition, by obligingly
allowing us to pay for it. But I believe he never _did_ understand “what
they wanted with so many work-shops—_he_ thought they were _miners_!”

“An _adate_, Jones, is only a drain to relieve the mine when it is
overcharged with water.”

“Oh! is that all!”

But this calling in of installments seems to be a sort of patent
condenser in the stock market, and shows with how much force a given
quantity of air can be squeezed into a given compass.

Grubemout was as active as a bee at sunrise, and offered his advice
gratuitously—but “confidentially”—to any number of anxious
_inquirers_—but some of _them_ having a copper-mine of their own, by
the attractive and _taking_ name of “_Penny_-wise Company,” and others
having taken a snap with the “Alligator Mountain Company,” and not
liking the bite they received, shook their heads at Fleeceington and
looked knowing—the “New Jersey” chaps were quite sprightly, for as
their _title_ covered the whole State, they had a fair chance of
_realizing_ something when the “Mammoth Shoveling Company” got to work,
and lifted the crust off.

Grubemout assured them—“on his honor”—that “the Company did not intend
to sell an ounce of its ore to the furnaces. They intended to have ‘_a
crushing machine_’ of their own erected at once, and proceed in a style
that would soon settle the whole business.”

Jones was “ready for any number of crushers or mashers, grinders or
pounders. Head up the creek—dam it! Put up the water-works and the
mill-wheel, and give it to the _blasted_ furnaces! Carry the war into
Africa!” said he.

The installment to carry on the adate was paid, though it depressed the
stock, but Jones could not see how having paid the company five thousand
dollars in installments should depress _his_ stock in the market. “Hang
it!” said he, “the company is that much richer in property and
excavations, and don’t I belong to the company—haven’t I a thousand
shares? It’s only paying money out of one pocket, and putting into the
other. Wilkins may laugh, but he’s a fool! That’s a capital idea about
the furnace. You’re a boy, Uptosnuff—_you_ are?”

The installment for _crushing_ purposes was soon called in also, and
paid, though the stock looked sickly, and trembled as if it had the
ague, or had passed through a crushing process on its own hook. It was
just composing itself when Uptosnuff discovered that it was of the
highest importance to the company to have a small engine and an iron
pump erected at the mines at once, _as the richest ore is always found
below water level_!

Jones—the active, energetic Jones—“had no doubt of it at all. The
Cornish miners assured him, when he was up, that as soon as they got
below water level, they would come to something that couldn’t be trifled
with. If Wilkins wasn’t a fool he would go in soon, before it gets out.”

Uptosnuff, too, had had a quantity of the late ore assayed, and
Professor Stuffemwell, Geologist to Her Majesty, thought it would _do_
bravely. If ore that yielded fifty per cent. would not, he would like to
know how her majesty’s subjects got rich, after paying the miners, on
mines that yield but fifteen per cent.

Copper buttons now replenished the pockets of dealers, and the stock
made several violent gasps and starts for a desirable existence. But it
was consumptive—evidently going into a rapid decline. The crushing
process and the iron pump having depressed its spirits, and exhausted
still further its vital energy.

Grubemout thought that if the buttons were pressed into _bars_, and
shown upon Change it might be encouraging, and mitigate the violence of
the disease; but some wag of a broker suggested that it was “_a_ BAR
_sinister_;” which remark sinister ruffled the backs of the _bars_,
caused the bulls to toss their horns unpleasantly, and shook still
further the liveliness of the stock, which drooped visibly under the
imputation.

Even _Jones_—the ardent, trustful Jones—got earnestly anxious about
the state of the patient, and “suggested a consultation.”

_Brown_ was full of good intentions, but “pleaded debility of the
pocket, which, under heavy depletion, was rather low.”

_Green_ was a little vivacious, and “suggested a new _cross-cut_.”

_Grubemout_ was pleased with the idea, and hinted at “a new
installment.”

_Uptosnuff_ had “missed the stage, and was unable to get down to the
meeting.”

_Wilkins_, in answer to a pressing invitation to “_come in_,” was “busy
selling goods.”

_Sharp_ would not attend—“he had never had any thing to do with the
rascally copper, and found his real estate bad enough just now.”

_Flat_ “had enough of copper stock—it was not very heavy, to be sure,
having rather a tendency to dissolve into air, its original element, but
he was satisfied.”

_The Stock_ grew feebler after consultation, as patients are apt to, in
critical cases, from want of remedy.

_The Bulls_ looked surly, as if they had been disappointed in pasture.

_The Bears_ were as frisky as it is possible to be on a frosty morning,
and were so much in their own element, that you looked involuntarily
around for floating icebergs—and copper in this temperature of the
atmosphere sunk into a torpor.

_On Change_, in this changing world of ours, copper looked blue.

_The Outsiders_ had rubbed out their pencil-marks on stock memorandums,
and dissipating the written evidence of thousands that had vanished into
air, they themselves vanished. It was needless to say any thing to
_them_ about copper, they “never had any thing to do with it, beyond a
hundred shares or so, which they sold out before the bubble looked like
bursting.” Stockdom was desolate, save that a few of the bears showed
their teeth, and grinned as furiously as if they had just arrived fresh
from the Polar regions, and had brought any quantity of wet blankets
with them. Yet they looked as if they would rather than not that any
dealer in copper should take hold of them. The bulls were more
plentiful—looked savage but knowing, but showed no disposition to dash
at imaginary enemies in scarlet, having rather a taste left for their
friends, the Browns and the Greens, who were urgently entreated to “come
_in again_, and help sustain the market.”

The case was desperate, and desperate remedies were resolved on. It was
deemed advisable to “ask _the opinion_ of the directors!”

The directors “_have_ no opinion of the stock! They never _had_,” of
their own. They trusted to Grubemout, to Uptosnuff, to the Cornish
miners. Their geological and mineralogical education, had been
shockingly neglected in their youth, and they have verified the fact, by
having on their hands, a thousand shares apiece at high prices, by
having assisted to sustain the market in the various stages of the
experiment. But “they _would_ like to know who were the ‘original’
stockholders of the company who did them the honor to elect them.”

Grubemout “thought it of the highest importance that they _should_ know,
and as the original book of minutes was up at the mines and as he was
going up by the next stage, would write and send them.”

It would be, perhaps, as well to give his letter:

                                     _Fleeceington, Dec. 10, 18—._

    GENTLEMEN,—I arrived safely at the mines last evening, after
    rather a fatiguing journey by stage, and found, to my
    unspeakable amazement, that Uptosnuff had exhausted the vein,
    and that as no more deposites are to be found he had thought it
    advisable to abandon the mine. The tools, viz., four pickaxes,
    three shovels, and two wheelbarrows—rather dilapidated—the
    property of the company, I have put under shelter, to preserve
    them from the weather—subject to your order or disposal. The
    iron pump I should have removed also, but being rather heavy in
    the absence of the hands—who have gone back to their farms—I
    found it impossible to take in. It cannot, however, suffer from
    rust more than ten per cent., and as the original cost was but
    seventy dollars, the loss to the company will be inconsiderable.
    There is a trifle of two hundred dollars due, for boarding the
    hands, to the host of the “Roaring Lion,” who will forward you
    his account by this mail. As Uptosnuff and myself have suffered
    a great deal from anxiety, and exposure in the mines of the
    company, we deem it proper to seek a more genial clime. Any
    little complimentary remuneration which you may see proper to
    bestow on us, you will please enclose to Mr. Drawitwell, of the
    Hawk and Buzzard, to whom we are indebted for various little
    civilities, in the shape of breakfast, dinner and supper, for
    the past six months, and which no doubt the generosity of your
    complimentary donation will amply cover.

    Enclosed are “the original minutes.” Uptosnuff wishes to be
    remembered _by_ you. I join in the same prayer.

                                           Yours, as ever,
                                    CHRISTIAN GRUBEMOUT, _Pres’t._

                 *        *        *        *        *

To the Directors, Stockholders, etc.

P. S. Please ask Jones to think of us. Not that it is any of our
business, but would like to know whether he ever divided with
Wilkins—it would be civil, you know. Regards to the Bulls. Uptosnuff
says ditto to the Bears, for there is no knowing when one may want a
friend, and civility costs nothing.

                                                                 C. G.

                 *        *        *        *        *

MINUTES, FIRST MEETING.—At a large and enthusiastic meeting of the
joyous and delighted inhabitants of the charming and romantic village of
Fleeceington, held at “The Hawk and Buzzard Hotel,” to elect officers
for the newly discovered, freshly chartered, and highly valuable and
productive Copper Mine, just incorporated by an act of the Legislature,
under the name, style and title, to wit:

                 *        *        *        *        *

    “_The Grand Open Sesame and United Catchem Copper Mining,
    Crushing, Stamping, Pumping and Smelting Company_,”

    Christian Grubemout, Eliakim Uptosnuff, J. Drawitwell, T.
    Crispin and John Smith, the original incorporators of the
    Company, after regaling themselves, proceeded to the election of
    officers, and knowing that in the goodly city of Philadelphia
    there were a number of persons by the names of Jones, Brown and
    Green, and not a few Sharps and Flats, they, in order to avoid
    giving offence, placed in a hat the whole of the names, as
    above, found in the _Directory_, (significant of the office they
    were to hold,) and drew the following first three names, A.
    Jones, B. Flat, C. Green, _directing_ them to supply vacancies,
    and to fill additions to the number of five; adding in the
    meanwhile the names of the first two corporators, as
    _ex-officio_ directors, to conduct silently the operations of
    the mines, and to enlighten the others as to the true plan of
    working copper-mines profitably and efficiently.

                           (Signed)          C. GRUBEMOUT, _Pres’t._
         E. UPTOSNUFF, _Sec’ry._

                 *        *        *        *        *

The cleverness and explicitness of the whole transaction showed that it
had _been done_ neatly; and the Directors with singular unanimity felt
themselves included in the operation.

There can be no doubt that Grubemout and Uptosnuff are among the
“placers” in California. The one being undeniably the man who sold the
two barrels of brandy, by installments of a thimblefull at a time, for
$14,000—the other, with positive certainty, we aver to have been the
man who “confidentially” communicated the following _item_ to the
newspaper press, and he must have been there to have seen it:

                 *        *        *        *        *

    “_The Biggest Lump Yet?_—The following is about the latest news
    from the gold diggins that we have seen recorded in the
    ‘papers:’ A runaway soldier is said to have discovered a lump or
    a rock of gold that weighed 889 pounds and 11½ ounces; he was
    afraid to leave it, and mounted guard upon it, and at the latest
    dates he had sat there 17 days; had offered $27,000 for a plate
    of pork and beans, but had been indignantly refused, and laughed
    at for the niggardliness of his offer, by parties going further
    on, where this article was said to be _more abundant_!”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Jones is among the lame ducks, and pretty roughly plucked at that. But
he still avers that if the furnaces had only paid a good price for the
ore at the outset, or Wilkins had only helped him to sustain the market
when he asked him, he should have been the master of a pretty snug
little fortune. If he only had it _now_, he would charter a steamer, and
take his own freight and passengers for the gold mines.

The Hawk and Buzzard appears to have been “_pidgeoned_,” for the last
time I passed that way the house was shut up. The business having amused
itself by stepping over to the Roaring Lion, while the Hawk and Buzzard
had flown to the city, “to watch the market.”

Crispin “would only like to have one of those fellows tied for a while,
until he had expressed his opinion on him with a stirrup.”

Smith appears to be solicitous to “make them intimately acquainted with
the red-hot end of a poker—he’d _smelt_ ’em, _dam_ ’em, and _crush_ ’em
too!”

The “Dam,” the “Drift,” the “Cross-Cut,” the “Iron Pump” and the
“Adate,” you can see as you go wood-cock shooting next August—but the
“Steam-Engine” and the “Mill-Wheel” never arrived, owing to some
informality in the order given to the mechanics.

“THE CRUSHER,” it is supposed, is in California with its friends.

                                                                G.R.G.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         ADIEU, MY NATIVE LAND.


                        WORDS BY D. W. BELISLE.

                ARRANGED FOR THE PIANO, BY JAMES PIPER.

[Illustration]

                     My native land adieu;
                       Ye blooming, sunlit hills,
                     Ye mountains tipped with blue,
                       And lovely, dancing rills,
                     My

[Illustration]

              heart is sad to part with scenes like you,
              Ye much loved haunts of youth, adieu, adieu.


                    SECOND VERSE.

             Sweet Memory, how my soul
               Beats at thy magic touch!
             ’Tis strange that thy control
               Can make us bear so much;
             For, while my thoughts in sadness turn to you,
             My heart in silence breathes a fond adieu!

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Grammar has been
maintained as in the original. Punctuation has been corrected without
note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For
illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to
condition of the originals available for preparation of the ebook.

Page 217, in the “Scientfic Halls,” ==> in the “Scientific Halls,”
Page 219, and platted his long ==> and plaited his long
Page 219, nicely platted queues ==> nicely plaited queues
Page 222, courtiers whom Lí ==> courtiers with whom Lí
Page 222, assidiously _rubbing his_ ==> assiduously _rubbing his_
Page 224, I hav n’t it ==> I haven’t it
Page 225, has no othe ==> has no other
Page 227, to entercept the ==> to intercept the
Page 227, below. Unforfortunately, the ==> below. Unfortunately, the
Page 236, many rejuvinated forests, ==> many rejuvenated forests,
Page 238, and wild-geraneum flowers ==> and wild-geranium flowers
Page 239, fair daugher of the ==> fair daughter of the
Page 241, be poweful to cheer ==> be powerful to cheer
Page 244, fly-leaves was writen ==> fly-leaves was written
Page 251, was therefor, and ==> was therefore, and
Page 254, free and unbiassed ==> free and unbiased
Page 256, beloved and rewared ==> beloved and rewarded
Page 269, T’is hence that ==> ’Tis hence that
Page 275, Havn’t they got ==> Haven’t they got
Page 276, number off five; ==> number of five;
Page 276, The Bigest Lump ==> The Biggest Lump





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4,
April 1849, by Various

*** 