The Project Gutenberg EBook of Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly
Magazine, March 1844, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844
       Volume 23, Number 3

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release Date: January 25, 2007 [EBook #20444]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KNICKERBOCKER ***




Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









    T H E  K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII.      MARCH, 1844.      NO. 3.




WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?

BY A THINKING MAN.


This question has often been asked but seldom answered satisfactorily.
Newspaper editors and correspondents have frequently attempted a practical
elucidation of the mystery, by quoting from their own brains the rarest
piece of absurdity which they could imagine, and entitling it
'Transcendentalism.' One good hit of this kind may be well enough, by way
of satire upon the fogginess of certain writers who deem themselves, and
are deemed by the multitude, transcendental _par excellence_. COLERIDGE
however thought that to parody stupidity by way of ridiculing it, only
proves the parodist more stupid than the original blockhead. Still, one
such attempt may be tolerated; but when imitators of the parodist arise
and fill almost every newspaper in the country with similar witticisms,
such efforts become 'flat and unprofitable;' for nothing is easier than to
put words together in a form which conveys no meaning to the reader. It is
a cheap kind of wit, asinine rather than attic, and can be exercised as
well by those who know nothing of the subject as by those best acquainted
with it. Indeed, it is greatly to be doubted whether one in a hundred of
these witty persons know any thing of the matter; for if they possess
sense enough to make them worthy of being ranked among reasonable men, it
could be proved to them in five minutes that they are themselves
transcendentalists, as all thinking men find themselves compelled to be,
whether they know themselves by that name or not.

'Poh!' said a friend, looking over my shoulder; 'you can't prove _me_ a
transcendentalist; I defy you to do it; I despise the name.'

Why so? Let us know what it is that you despise. Is it the sound of the
word? Is it not sufficiently euphonious? Does it not strike your ear as
smoothly as Puseyite, or Presbyterian?

'Nonsense!' said he; 'you don't suppose I am to be misled by the sound of
a word; it is the meaning to which I object. I despise transcendentalism;
therefore I do not wish to be called transcendentalist.'

Very well; but we shall never 'get ahead' unless you define
transcendentalism according to your understanding of the word.

'That request is easily made, but not easily complied with. Have you
Carlyle or Emerson at hand?'

Here I took down a volume of each, and read various sentences and
paragraphs therefrom. These passages are full of transcendental ideas; do
you object to them?

'No,' said my friend; 'for aught I can perceive, they might have been
uttered by any one who was _not_ a transcendentalist. Let me see the
books.'

After turning over the leaves a long while, he selected and read aloud a
passage from Carlyle, one of his very worst; abrupt, nervous, jerking, and
at the same time windy, long-drawn-out, and parenthetical; a period
filling a whole page.

'There,' said he, stopping to take breath, 'if that is not enough to
disgust one with transcendentalism, then I know nothing of the matter.'

A very sensible conclusion. Bless your soul, that is _Carlyle-ism_, not
transcendentalism. You said but now that you were not to be misled by the
sound of a word; and yet you are condemning a principle on account of the
bad style of a writer who is supposed to be governed by it. Is that right?
Would you condemn Christianity because of the weaknesses and sins of one
of its professors?

'Of course not,' replied he; 'I wish to be fair. I cannot express my idea
of the meaning of transcendentalism without tedious circumlocution, and I
begin to despair of proving my position by quotations. It is not on any
particular passage that I rest my case. You have read this work, and will
understand me when I say that it is to its general intent and spirit that
I object, and not merely to the author's style.'

I think I comprehend you. You disregard the mere form in which the author
expresses his thoughts; you go beyond and behind that, and judge him by
the thoughts themselves; not by one or by two, but by the sum and
_substance_ of the whole. You strip off the husk to arrive at the kernel,
and judge of the goodness of the crop by the latter, not the former.

'Just so,' said he; 'that's my meaning precisely. I always strive to
follow that rule in every thing. 'Appearances,' you know, 'are
deceitful.''

That is to say, you go beyond or transcend appearances and circumstances,
and divine the true meaning, the substance, the spirit of that on which
you are about to decide. That is practical transcendentalism, and you are
a transcendentalist.

'I wish you would suggest another name for it,' said my friend, as he went
out of the door; 'I detest the sound of that word.'

I wish we could, said I, but he was out of hearing; I wish we could, for
it is an abominably long word to write.

'I wish we could,' mutters the printer, 'for it is an awfully long word to
print.'

'I wish we could,' is the sober second thought of all; for people will
always condemn transcendentalism until it is called by another name. Such
is the force of prejudice.

'I have been thinking over our conversation of yesterday,' said my friend
next morning, on entering my room.

'Oh, you have been writing it down, have you? Let me see it.' After
looking over the sketch, he remarked:

'You _seem_ to have me fast enough, but after all I believe you conquered
merely by playing upon a word, and in proving me to be a transcendentalist
you only proved me to be a reasonable being; one capable of perceiving,
remembering, combining, comparing and deducing; one who, amid the apparent
contradictions with which we are surrounded, strives to reconcile
appearances and discover principles; and from the outward and visible
learn the inward and spiritual; in fine, arrive at truth. Now every
reasonable man claims to be all that I have avowed myself to be. If this
is to be a transcendentalist, then I am one. When I read that I must hate
my father and mother before I can be a disciple of JESUS, I do not
understand that passage literally; I call to mind other precepts of
CHRIST; I remember the peculiarities of eastern style; I compare these
facts together, and deduce therefrom a very different principle from that
apparently embodied in the passage quoted. When I see the Isle of Shoals
doubled, and the duplicates reversed in the air above the old familiar
rocks, I do not, as I stand on Rye-beach, observing the interesting
phenomenon, believe there are two sets of islands there; but recalling
facts which I have learned, and philosophical truths which I have acquired
and verified, I attribute the appearance to its true cause, refraction of
light. When in passing from room to room in the dark, with my arms
outspread, I run my nose against the edge of a door, I do not therefrom
conclude that my nose is longer than my arms! When I see a man stumble in
the street, I do not at once set him down as a drunkard, not considering
that to be sufficient evidence, although some of our Washingtonian friends
do; but I compare that fact with the state of the streets, and what I know
of his previous life, and judge accordingly.'

Well, said I, you are an excellent transcendentalist; one after my own
heart, in morals, philosophy and religion. To be a transcendentalist is
after all to be _only_ a sensible, unprejudiced man, open to conviction at
all times, and spiritually-minded. I can well understand that, when you
condemn transcendentalism, you object not to the principle, but to the
practice, in the superlative degree, of that principle. Transcendentalism
is but an abstract mode of considering morals, philosophy, religion; an
application of the principles of abstract science to these subjects. All
metaphysicians are transcendentalists, and every one is transcendental so
far as he is metaphysical. There are as many different modifications of
the one as of the other, and probably no two transcendentalists ever
thought alike; their creed is not yet written. You certainly do not
condemn spiritualism, but ultra spiritualism you seem to abhor.

'Precisely so. I did not yesterday give you the meaning which I attached
to transcendentalism; in truth, practically you meant one thing by that
term, and I another, though I now see that in principle they are the same.
The spiritualism which I like, looks through nature and revelation up to
GOD; that which I abhor, condescends hardly to make use of nature at all,
but demands direct converse with GOD, and declares that it enjoys it too;
a sort of continual and _immediate_ revelation. Itself is its own
authority. The ultra-spiritualist contains within himself the fulness of
the Godhead. He allows of nothing external, unless it be brother spirits
like himself. He has abolished nature, and to the uninitiated seems to
have abolished GOD himself, although I am charitable enough to believe
that he has full faith in GOD, after his own fashion. He claims to be
inspired; to be equal to JESUS; nay superior; for one of them lately said:
'Greater is the container than the contained, therefore I am greater than
GOD, for I contain God!' The ultra-spiritualist believes only _by_ and
_through_ and _in_ his own inward light. Let him take care, as Carlyle
says, that his own contemptible tar-link does not, by being held too near
his eyes, extinguish to him the sun of the universe. Now the true
spiritualist makes use not only of his own moral and religious instincts,
but all that can be gathered by the senses from external nature, and all
that can be acquired by untiring consultation with the sages who have gone
before him; and from these materials in the alembic of his mind, with such
power as GOD has given him, he distils truth.'

Truth! Ah, that is the very point in question. 'What is truth?' has been
the ardent inquiry of every honest mind from the days of Adam to the
present time, and the sneering demand of many an unbeliever. Eve sought it
when she tasted the forbidden fruit. But since then, thank GOD! no
prohibition has been uttered against the search after truth, and mankind
have improved their liberty with great industry for six thousand years;
and what is the result? Is truth discovered? How much? and how much of
falsehood is mixed up with what _is_ known to be true? These questions are
constantly suggesting themselves to thinkers, and to answer them is the
labor of their lives. Let them have free scope, ultra-spiritualists and
all. Even these latter go through the same operation which you have just
claimed to be peculiar to the true spiritualist. All do, whether they will
or not, make use of observation, learning, and the inward light. Some
arrive at one result, and some at another, because the elements differ in
each. If any two could be found whose external observations, learning,
intellect and inward light or instincts were precisely equal in volume and
proportion, can it be doubted that these two would arrive at precisely
similar results? But they are _not_ equal; and so one comes to believe in
external authority, and the other refers every thing to a standard which
he thinks he finds within himself. The latter is deemed by the public to
be a representative of pure transcendentalism, and he is condemned
accordingly as self-sufficient.

And privately, between you and me, my good friend, I cannot help thinking
it rather ungrateful in him, after becoming so deeply indebted to his
senses, to books, and the Bible for his spiritual education, to turn round
and despise these means of advancement, and declare that they are mere
non-essential _circumstances_, and that a man may reach the same end by
studying himself _in_ himself. It is as if a man should use a ladder to
reach a lofty crag, and then kick it over contemptuously, and aver that he
could just as well have flown up, and ask the crowd below to break up that
miserable ladder and try their wings. Doubtless they _have_ wings, if they
only knew it. But seriously, I am not inclined to join in the hue-and-cry
against even the ultra-transcendentalist. He has truth mixed up with what
I esteem objectionable, and some truth to which others have not attained;
and as I deem the eclectic the only true mode of philosophy, I am willing
to take truth where I can find it, whether in China or Boston, in
Confucius or Emerson, Kant or Cousin, the Bible or the Koran; and though I
have more reverence for one of these sources than all others, it is only
because I think I find there the greatest amount of truth, sanctioned by
the highest authority. To put the belief in the Bible on any other ground,
is to base it on educational prejudice and superstition; on which
principle the Koran should be as binding on the Mahometan as the Bible on
us. Do we not all finally resort to _ourselves_ in order to decide a
difficult question in morals or religion? and is not the decision more or
less correct accordingly as we refer it to the better or to the baser
portion of our nature?

'Most certainly! I have often said I would not and could not believe in
the Bible, if it commanded us to worship Sin and leave our passions
unbridled.'

Well said! And in so saying, you acknowledge yourself to be governed by
the same principle which actuates the ultra-transcendentalist; the moral
sense or instinct, similar to the 'inward light' of the Friends. After
all, I apprehend the true point in which men differ is, whether this moral
sense is really an instinct, or whether it is evolved and put in operation
by education. How much is due to nature? is the true question. But to
solve it, is important only theoretically, for practically we all act
alike; we cannot, if we would, separate the educational from the natural
moral sense; we cannot _uneducate_ it, and then judge by it, freed from
all circumstantial bias. But whether more or less indebted either to
nature or education, it is to this moral and religious sense that the
ultra-transcendentalist refers every question, and passes judgment
according to its verdict. It is sometimes rather vaguely called the 'Pure
Reason;' but that is only a _term_, hardly a 'mouthful of articulate
wind.'

'You and I shall agree very well together, I see,' replied my friend. 'If
we dispute at all, it will be foolishly about the meaning of a word. All
the world have been doing that ever since the confusion of tongues at
Babel. That great event prophetically shadowed forth the future; for now,
as then, the confusion and disputation is greatest when we are striving
most earnestly to reach heaven by our earth-built contrivances. We may
draw a lesson therefrom; not to be too aspiring for our means; for our
inevitable failure only makes us the more ridiculous, the higher the
position we seem to have attained.'

Very true; but we should never arrive at the height of wisdom, which
consists in knowing our own ignorance and weakness, unless we made full
trial of our powers. The fall of which you speak should give us a modesty
not to be otherwise obtained, and make us very careful how we ridicule
others, seeing how open to it we ourselves are. Every man may build his
tower of Babel, and if he make a right use of his failure, may in the end
be nearer heaven than if he had never made the attempt. Ridicule is no
argument, and should only be used by way of a _jeu d'esprit_, and never on
solemn subjects. It is very hard, I know, for one who has mirthfulness
strongly developed, to restrain himself on all occasions; and what is
solemn to one may not be so to another; hence we should be very charitable
to all; alike to the bigots, the dreamers, and the laughers; to the
builders of theoretic Babel-towers, and the grovellers on the low earth.

'There is one kind of transcendentalism,' replied my friend, 'which you
have not noticed particularly, which consists in believing in nothing
except the spiritual existence of the unbeliever himself, and hardly that.
It believes not in the external world at all.'

If you are on _that_ ground, I have done. To talk of that, would be
wasting our time on nothing; or 'our eternity,' for with that sect time is
altogether a delusion. It _may_ be true, but the believer, even in the act
of declaring his faith, must practically prove himself persuaded of the
falsity of his doctrine.

'You wanted a short name for transcendentalism; if a long one will make
_this_ modification of it more odious, let us call it
_Incomprehensibilityosityivityalityationmentnessism_.'

My friend said this with a face nearly as long as the word, made a low
bow, and departed. I took my pen and reduced our conversation to writing.
I hope by this time the reader has a very lucid answer to give to the
question, _What is Transcendentalism?_ It will be a miracle if he can see
one inch farther into the fog-bank than before. I should like to take back
the boast made in the beginning of this paper, that I could prove in five
minutes any reasonable man a transcendentalist. My friend disconcerted my
plan of battle, by taking command of the enemy's forces, instead of
allowing me to marshal them on paper to suit myself; and so a mere
friendly joust ensued, instead of the utter demolition of my adversary,
which I had intended.

And this little circumstance has led me to think, what a miserable
business controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent
looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting
untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his
logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every
such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could
advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of
fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much more of practical truth!
Always supposing the logical combatants did not lose their patience and
resort to material means and knock-down arguments; of which, judging by
the spirit sometimes manifested in theological controversies, there would
really seem to be some danger. Oh! it is a very easy thing to sit in one's
study and demolish an opponent, who after all is generally no opponent at
all, but only a man of straw, dressed up for the occasion with a few
purposely-tattered shreds of the adversary's cast-off garments.

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTE BY THE 'FRIEND.'--The foregoing is a _correct_ sketch of our
conversations, especially as the reporter has, like his congressional
brother, corrected most of the bad grammar, and left out some of the
vulgarisms and colloquialisms, and given me the better side of the
argument in the last conversation; it is _very_ correct. But it seems to
me that the question put at the commencement is as far from being solved
as ever. It is as difficult to be answered as the question, What is
Christianity? to which every sect will return a different reply, and each
prove all the others wrong.

_Portsmouth, (N. H.)_                                            J. K. Jr.




LINES SENT WITH A BOUQUET.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.


  I.

  I've read in legends old of men
    Who hung up fruits and flowers
  Before the altar-shrines of those
    They called Superior Powers:
  It was, I think, a blessed thought
    That things so pure and sweet
  Should be esteemed an offering
    For gods and angels meet.


  II.

  I imitate that charming rite
    In this our sober day,
  And, when I worship, strew sweet flowers
    Along my angel's way:
  And, if my heart's fond prayer be heard,
    The offering I renew;
  For flowers like books have leaves that speak,
    And thoughts of every hue.


  III.

  They are Love's paper, pictured o'er
    With gentle hopes and fears;
  Their blushes are the smiles of Love,
    And their soft dew his tears!
  Ah! more than poet's pen can write
    Or poet's tongue reveal
  Is hidden by their folded buds
    And by their rosy seal.


  IV.

  Mute letters! yet how eloquent!
    Expressive silence dwells
  In every blossom Heaven creates,
    Like sound in ocean shells.
  Press to my flowers thy lips, beloved,
    And then thy heart will see
  Inscribed upon their leaves the words
    I dare not breathe to thee!




THE ALMS HOUSE.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.


It is not my purpose in the following narrative to point out all the evils
arising from the modern practice of relieving the wants of the poor and
destitute which prevails in this country and in England, where the arm of
the law compels that pittance which should be the voluntary donation of
benevolence; one consequence of which system is, that the poor claim
support as a _debt_ due from society at large, and feel no gratitude
toward any of the individuals paying the tax. The payer of the tax, on the
other hand, feeling that he can claim no merit for surrendering that which
is wrung from him by force, and expecting no thanks for the act, and
knowing that in many cases it operates as a bounty on idleness, hates the
ungrateful burthen thus imposed upon him, and strives to reduce it to the
least possible amount. In this way the ties which should bind together the
poor and the rich are sundered. The benevolence of the patron and the
gratitude of the dependent, which formerly existed, is changed to dislike
and suspicion on the one part, and envy and ingratitude on the other.

Doubtless one design of Providence in suffering want and misery to exist
in the world, is that the benevolent virtues should be kept in exercise.
He who was benevolence itself, seemed thus to think, when he said: 'The
poor ye have always with you.' But man in his selfishness virtually says:
'The poor we will not have with us; we will put them out of our sight.'
For in many towns in New-England, and probably in other States, it is
customary to contract with some individual for their support; or, in other
words, to sell them by auction, to him who will support them by the year,
for the least sum per head. To illustrate some of the results of this
system, the following incidents are related from memory, having been
witnessed by me in my native place (an interior town in New-England) at an
age when the feelings are most susceptible. And so deep was the impression
then made on my mind, that I am enabled to vouch for the accuracy of the
details.

A meeting for the purpose of disposing of the poor of the town for the
ensuing year was held at the house of the person who had kept them the
previous year, (and where these unfortunates still were) as well because
it was supposed he would again bid for them, as that those who wished to
become competitors might ascertain their number and condition. It was in
the afternoon of a day in November, one of those dark and dreary days so
common to the season and climate, adding gloom to the surrounding objects,
in themselves sufficiently cheerless. The house was situated on an obscure
road in a remote part of the town, surrounded by level and sandy fields;
and the monotony of the prospect only broken by scattered clumps of
dwarf-pine and shrub-oak; a few stunted apple-trees, the remains of an
orchard which the barren soil had refused to nourish; some half ruinous
out-houses, and a meagre kitchen garden enclosed with a common rough
fence, completed the picture without.

Still more depressing was the scene within. The paupers were collected in
the same room with their more fortunate townsmen, that the bidders might
be enabled to view more closely their condition, and estimate the probable
expense of supporting them through the year. Many considerations entered
as items into this sordid calculation; such as the very lowest amount of
the very coarsest food which would suffice, (not to keep them in comfort,
but to sustain their miserable existence for the next three hundred and
sixty-five days, and yet screen the provider from the odium of having
starved his victims,) the value of the clothes they then wore, and thus
the future expense of their clothing; and other such considerations, which
I will not farther disgust the reader by enumerating.

They were about twenty in number, and not greatly distinguished from the
ordinary poor of a country town in New-England; unless by there being
present three idiot daughters of one poor man, whose low and narrow
foreheads, sunken temples, fixed but dead and unmeaning eyes, half opened
and formless mouths, indicating even to childhood the absence of that
intellectual light, which in those who possess it shines through the
features. Insanity also was there, that most dreadful infliction of
Providence; the purpose of which lies hidden in the darkness which
surrounds His throne. Its unhappy subject was with them, but not of them.
His eyes were fixed upon the scene, but the uncertain fire which illumined
his features was caused by thoughts which had no connection with the
passing scene.

Vice, too, had its representatives; for in a community where wealth is
nearly the only source of distinction, and where Mammon is consequently
worshipped as the true god, the destiny of the unfortunate and of the
vicious is nearly the same. And the 'poor-house' was used, as in other
towns in New-England, as a house of correction, and at this time contained
several professors of vice of each sex. Alas! of that sex which when
corrupt is more dangerous than the other in a like condition, as the most
rich and grateful things are in their decay the most noxious!

The remaining number consisted of the aged and childless widow, the infirm
and friendless old man, the sick, the deformed, and the cripple; the
virtuous poor, in forced and loathed contact with vice and infamy. Those
of society who in life's voyage had been stranded on the bleak and barren
coast of charity, and who were now waiting for death to float them into
the ocean of eternity. While this scene was passing at the alms-house,
another connected with it, and fitted to excite still deeper feelings, was
acting in another part of the town.

A person who was that year one of the select-men,[1] and a deacon in the
church, was delegated by his colleagues to bring to the alms-house the
'lone woman' who forms the chief subject of our homely story. The widow
Selden (a brief history of whom it will be necessary to give) had received
an education suited rather to the respectability and former wealth of her
family, than to its subsequent reduced condition, became in early life the
wife of a merchant of our village, a man of good character and fair
prospects, to whom she was much attached. Traders in New-England where
wealth is so eagerly sought, are, especially in country towns, men of much
consideration, as engaged in a money-making business. Mrs. Selden,
therefore, independently of her personal merits, was not likely to be
neglected. Her company was sought by the best society of our place, and
she exchanged visits on equal terms even with the families of the
clergyman and the village lawyer.

    [1] Men who are yearly selected by the inhabitants to superintend
        the business of the town, and who, among other duties, have
        the charge of managing the poor.

A few years of quiet enjoyment passed, happily varied by the accession of
a fair and delicate little girl, who might be seen at their cheerful meals
seated in her high chair, the common object of their care and attention;
and not only affording in her fragile little person the strongest bond of
union, but the never-tiring subject of conversation. Sad indeed was the
change in this once happy family, when the widow and orphan sat alone at
the cheerless board. Death had entered and taken from them the sun of
their little world. The bereaved wife might have sunk under this calamity,
had not maternal solicitude been mixed with grief. With that admirable
fortitude and submission to duty so common to those of her sex in similar
circumstances, she at once devoted herself with increased solicitude to
the remaining object of her care and affection.

For a time but little change was visible in the family arrangements, for
though a sensitive she was a spirited woman. Her garden, which had been
the pride and delight of her husband, still flourished in perfect
neatness. After the usual time of decent seclusion, she again interchanged
visits with her friends and neighbors, and continued to maintain the stand
in the village society which had always been conceded to her. But this
state of things did not long continue, for alas! the _gathering_ as well
as the _protecting_ hand was removed. Her more aristocratic acquaintances
now began to remark that her table showed less of plenty and variety than
formerly, and that her dress, though perfectly neat, was less new and
fashionable than they expected in _their_ associates; for no where is the
distinction between the rich and poor more rigidly enforced than in
country villages. Most offensively marked is this distinction in the house
of God, where if any where this side the grave ought the rich and the poor
to meet on a level, before Him who regards not the outward estate of his
creatures. But modern Christians have contrived to evade the rebuke of the
apostle by the cunning device of introducing the noisy auctioneer, and
under a show of fairness and equality, 'the man in goodly apparel and
having a gold ring' is assigned the highest seat; and albeit a skeptic, by
the weight of his purse crowds the humble worshippers to the wall and into
the corners of their Father's house.

It was observed that the lone woman declined competition for those seats
so eagerly sought by the more wealthy, and selected those of a humbler
character, and eventually retired to the 'widow's pew,' a pew set apart,
in country churches, for the gratuitous accommodation of those in that
unhappy condition. Sincerely religious, the Christian widow still waited
upon God in the house of prayer, but felt the whole sting of poverty when
slowly and humbly wending her way to her obscure corner, her faded and
well-worn dress was brushed by the new and rich garments of her former
equals as they swept past her to their high seats. The neat and handsome
dwelling with its trim garden was at length resigned for one which barely
sheltered the mother and child from the weather, and was totally devoid of
the cheap luxury of fruit and flowers which had enriched and beautified
their former home.

Time wore on, and Want with its train of sordid attendants visited their
dwelling. Her former associates, one after another declined her society as
an equal. Occasionally calling, they were eloquent in excuses for their
neglect; for when did the prosperous lack an excuse for neglecting the
unfortunate? Counsel and advice were lavished upon her; for I have
observed that advice is the only thing that the rich impart freely to the
poor. Religion too was the frequent subject of their conversation; for how
can benevolence be shown more strongly than by a concern for the
well-being of the soul, which is to exist forever, in comparison with
which, the transient wants of the body are as nothing? Accordingly, the
poor widow, after her scanty meal, and over her dim and cheerless hearth,
was exhorted by her fur-clad and well-fed _friends_, to disregard the
evils of this fleeting life, and receive with resignation the chastenings
of Providence; for we all needed correction, being by nature utterly
sinful and depraved. And after some vague and indefinite offers of
assistance, the good women would take their leave. A way of discharging
duty discovered by modern philanthropists; and when accompanied by the
Societies' tract, seldom fails to convince the unfortunate object of
charity that to Heaven alone should they look for assistance and sympathy.

This lady, as we have intimated, possessed a large share of that generous
spirit so common in her sex, which enabled her to sustain herself amid the
evils which oppressed her. And nobly did the mother strive to shield from
want and ignorance the little orphan, now her only care. Her own education
enabled her in some measure to supply the place of teachers, which she was
unable to employ. And never was maternal care better rewarded than by the
improvement of the gentle being under her charge. But in this blessed
employment the poor mother was interrupted. While health continued, she
had been enabled by the most unremitted exertion to prevent the approach
of absolute want, slight indeed as were her earnings. (The modern
improvements in machinery having destroyed domestic manufacture, properly
so called, and left but little for the female to earn who is not attending
its motions in the noisy factory.) But illness had intervened, and
diminished even that small resource; and it was apparent to all that the
want of suitable food assisted in blanching still more the fair face of
the poor child. Maternal love had conquered the honest pride of the poor
mother so far as to constrain her to accept the slight and uncertain
donations of her neighbors. But this assistance, scanty as it was, could
not continue. The tax-paying husbands of the benevolent ladies who
furnished it, complained that the poor-rates were heavy, and that they had
already helped to pay for a house of refuge for the poor and the
destitute, could not, in addition to this, support them out of it.

She was told it was her duty to place her daughter in some family to be
brought up as a servant. In vain did she assert her ability to maintain
herself and child when health should return. Her advisers could little
sympathize with her feelings, and reproached her with pride. And she was
now harassed with the fear that her delicate and cultivated little girl
would be torn from her, and made a factory slave or household drudge; for
such power had the laws given to the rulers of the town. But this fear,
miserable as it was, was now overpowered by another. The suggestion had
reached the ear of the unhappy woman that she and her child would be
conveyed to the house of the town's poor, the place we have attempted to
describe. God grant that no fair reader of this homely but too true story
should ever feel the misery which this fear inflicted on the mind of this
friendless mother! Oh, that true Charity had been present in the person of
her best representative on earth, a sensible, affectionate and
liberal-minded woman, to minister to the wants, to soothe the mind of her
unhappy sister-woman, and cheer her exertions for self-support! None such
appeared, and the heart of the poor woman sank within her. Her exertions
were paralyzed; for struggle as she might to avoid it, the alms-house,
with its debased and debasing society, was ever before her eyes as her
ultimate destiny. It was in vain that she endeavored to prepare her mind
for this result. She could endure any degree of privation, but not
degradation and infamy.

Time wore on, without any renewed hints of interference, and she began to
hope that she was forgotten. Delusive hope! It was felt as a disgrace that
she should suffer, when the _law_ had provided a remedy, and they had paid
for it. And it was therefore decreed by the magnates of the town that she
must be removed, and the day had arrived (with which we commenced our
narrative,) on which the paupers were to be disposed of for the coming
year. Deacon S---- was the person deputed by his colleagues, as we have
mentioned, to convey Mrs. Selden and her daughter to the alms-house.

However prepared we may suppose ourselves to meet misfortune, the moment
of its arrival takes us by surprise. We will not attempt to picture the
utter desolation of mind and the despair which filled her heart, when this
man arrived at her door, to convey herself, and oh! far worse, her
innocent and intelligent child, to that scene of vice and debasement.
Although her dislike to the measure was known, yet from her quiet and
reserved manners, little opposition was anticipated. The evils of life had
accumulated upon her in a regular gradation, and she had been enabled to
bear their weight, up to this point, with outward composure; looking
forward to, but yet hoping this last cup of bitterness would never be
presented; or if presented, that some means might be found to avert it.
But the dreadful crisis had arrived. Had the whole board of authority been
present, I should be glad to believe, for the honor of humanity, that they
would have been moved to relent, as they would not have been able to shift
the responsibility from one to the other, as is the wont of such bodies
when the members act separately.

When the poor woman had so far recovered from the first shock as to be
enabled to articulate, she pleaded her ability to maintain herself without
assistance, and her choice rather to starve than be removed. She appealed
to him as the father of a daughter, and painted the ruin which would fall
upon her own, exposed to the corruption and example of the place to which
he was taking her. She appealed to him as a Christian, and reminded him
that they had sat together before the sacred desk, and partaken of the
symbols of the body and blood of the Son of Him who was in a peculiar
manner the father of the widow and orphan. But her auditor was destitute
of the imagination which enables the possessor to enter into the feelings
of another; and these affecting appeals fell dead upon his worldly and
unsympathizing nature. The man even extended his hand to urge her forward
to the conveyance provided! At that moment, when all hope was dead within
her, and the worst that could happen in her opinion had arrived, a change
came over the unhappy woman. She suffered herself unresistingly to be led
forward to her doom. The fine chords of the mind and heart, lately so
intensely strung, had parted; her countenance relaxed, and her features
settled down into a dead, unmeaning apathy; never again, during the short
remainder of her life, to be animated by one gleam of the feelings which
had so lately illumined but to destroy.

My kind, my indulgent mother! Her generous heart needed not the eloquence
of my youthful feelings to induce her to rescue the poor orphan, and to
cherish her as her own child. And never was kindness more richly----

I had proceeded thus far in writing this narrative, when I discovered that
I was overlooked; and a gentle voice over my shoulder said: 'You should
not praise your own wife; it is the same as if you should praise
yourself!'

                                                                 E. B.




APOSTROPHE TO HEALTH.


  HYGEIA! most blest of the powers
    That tenant the mansions divine,
  May I pass in thy presence the hours
    That remain, ere in death I recline!

  Dwell with me, benevolent charm!
    Without the attendance of health
  Not the smiles of affection can warm,
    And dull are the splendors of wealth.

  The pageant of empire is stale
    That lifts men like gods o'er their race,
  And the heart's thrilling impulses fail
    When Love beckons on to the chase.

  Whate'er in itself joy can give,
    Or that springs from sweet respite of pain,
  That mortals or gods can receive,
    Blest HYGEIA! is found in thy train!

  Thy smile kindles up the fresh spring,
    The glad, verdant bloom of the soul;
  Thee absent, our pleasures take wing,
    And Sorrow usurps her control.




ISABEL.


  Hush! her face is chill,
    And the summer blossom.
  Motionless and still,
    Lieth on her bosom.
  On her shroud so white,
    Like snow in winter weather,
  Her marble hands unite,
    Quietly together.

  How like sleep the spell
    On her lids that falleth!
  Wake, sweet Isabel!
    Lo! the morning calleth.
  How _like_ Sleep!--'tis Death!
    Sleep's own gentle brother;
  Heaven holds her breath--
    She is with her mother!




ONE READING FROM TWO POETS.

                ----My imagination
      Carries no favor in it but Bertram's.
      I am undone; there is no living, none,
      If Bertram be away.
                                                           SHAKSPEARE.

      Should GOD create another Eve and I
      Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
      Would never from my heart.
                                                               MILTON.


I have this evening, while seated in my lonely chamber, ventured--not, I
hope, with profane hands--to draw one inappreciable gem from out of the
carcanet of each of the two unrivalled masters of the poetry of our
language. I was curious to see the effect to be produced by a close
juxtaposition of these two exquisite specimens of the soul's light; of the
revealment of its original genius; of the intense brilliancy of its Truth,
falling as it does in one ray upon two objects so diverse in their
character as the virgin love of the retired and comparatively humble but
devoted Helena, and the married constancy of the Father of our race.

The effect reminds me of an _echappee de lumiere_ that I once beheld in
the gallery of the Vatican, when a sudden emergence of light brightened
with the same gleam the calm face of the Virgin of the clouds, (called di
Foligno,) and at the same instant illuminated the whole principal figure
in the Transfiguration of Raffaelle; floating as it does, and tending
almost with a movement upward, in the air of 'the high mountain' where the
miracle took place----as these two grand paintings then stood, side by
side, in the solemn, in the holy quiet of that lofty and sequestered
apartment. O moment! never to be forgotten, never to be obscured by any
lapse of after time!

And thus, although in a less palpable world, do these two passages of
immortal verse, wearing each its beam of golden light, stand in their
effulgence before the sympathies of the observer alive to the charms and
influences of moral beauty! Surely no other poet has the world produced
comparable to Shakspeare for the revelation of the love of the yet
unwedded girl; and who is there to be named with Milton, in the tenderness
and truth with which he has touched upon conjugal relationship; and that
necessity, that inappeasable requirement of intercommunion that
accompanies, as its immediate consequence, the sacrament of the nuptial
rite where there is destined to exist the real, the progressive, the
indissoluble intermarriage of soul with soul!

How effectually and with what truth does the dramatic Bard raise the veil
and exhibit to us the imagination of this retired girl, bred up in all the
deep earnestness of mind that a country life and comparative seclusion
could induce, dwelling and brooding over the form of one individual
brought into intimate association with her, 'seeing him every hour' where
she had little else to interest her, nor any thing to contemplate, but, as
she says,

                              'sit and draw
  His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
  In our heart's table; heart too capable
  Of every trick and line of his sweet favour.

       *     *     *     *     *

                     ----it hurts not him
  That he is loved of me: I follow him not
  With any token of presumptuous suit.
  I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
  Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
  I still pour in the waters of my love
  And lack not to love still.'

Behold her as she sits, the beautiful creation!--delighting to magnify the
qualities of the idol of her affections and to depreciate herself in the
comparison; overlooking, perhaps incapable of once imagining the thought
of his harsh and selfish and impracticable nature, and constantly endowing
him with all the fresher breathings of her spiritual existence--like the
Rainbow of the Waterfall, that clothes, with its own celestial dyes, the
dark and shapeless mass of Rock upon whose bosom it appears to dwell!
faltering, trembling, quivering, fading, disappearing; returning,
resting;--glowing, yet never dazzling; liquid, yet sustained!

                  'It were all one
  That I should love a bright particular star
  And seek to wed it, he is so above me:
  In his bright radiance and collateral light
  Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
  The hind that would be mated by the lion
  Must die for love!

This is the way in which these precious irradiations of joy beam and hover
over man; startled and frightened often out of the presence even of his
image while they thus adorn and decorate him; and then they love him for
what they fondly dream to be the halo of his proper spirit; for the light
and tenderness, the purity, the gentleness, the refinement and grace, that
have their life and element and colour, only in the deep yet overflowing
heart of Woman in her Love!

But then comes Wedlock; and often, with wedlock, comes marriage; or
succeeds it; the marriage that GOD bestowed on man in Eve, when, according
to that scriptural and exquisite conception, _they twain become one_. When
the Rock shall as by a miracle receive into all its crevices, interstices,
and pores, the beautiful existence that has played upon it! When the soul
of man opens at every noble passion in succession and at every pulse, to
embrace, imbibe, absorb, receive, possess, acquire, the being that we call
WOMAN! finds her in every former want, or present wish, or bright, or
unfrequented passage of the soul; now all occupied, all satisfied by her;
fancies thoughts to be his thoughts which are her thoughts; and blesses
himself, when he discovers it, that imaginations in themselves so sweet,
should in some visit of her delicate spirit have been breathed into his
ESSENCE from a source so pure! is near her, when distant; is present with
her, when absent; converses with her, without words; gazes upon her,
without sight; listens to her, without sound; watches her, without motion;
and has not yet lost her balmy presence when Death shall long have removed
forever that precious image from his corporal sense. This is MARRIAGE.

Out of this state descends that profound expression of the soul in Milton,
(GOD make us thankful for him!) when he intends the verb that he escapes
in the passage that adorns my Essay, should be supplied by a pulsation in
the breast of Eve:

                'yet loss of thee
  Would never--from my heart.'

Would never?--would never be torn, out-rooted, obliterated, banished,
extinguished, forgotten, diminished, obscured, from his heart. The throb
of her spirit is to supply the word, or mould the thought, and vivify the
pause so as to satisfy her full affection to its utmost contentment and
desire. _This_ is marriage. This is attainment to that state of more
perfect existence which terrestrial life procures for the soul of man,
never thenceforth in all its future changes to be lost. The incorporeal
mingling, the mystical union of two varied emanations of life; as Light
and Heat intermarry in their offset and passage from the sun; and Truth
and Love from the breast of THE INEFFABLE!

  How can I live without thee! how forego
  Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd
  To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
  Should GOD create another Eve and I
  Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
  Would never from my heart: no, no, I feel
  The link of nature draw me.
  Bone of my bone thou art and from thy state
  Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

And shall the passage of one such soul across the mere brook of Death
dissolve affiances so deep, so latent, and so pure as this? This Life of
Life, is it to be so suddenly quenched in man, and man himself continue to
exist? Shall the soul that lingers here still retaining its identity lose
that which has chiefly formed for it a distinctive being? Or entering into
a happier state of existence shall it be dispossessed of all that treasure
of recollection and delight on which its joys and hopes have been so
largely founded? These long remembrances of mutual beneficence and good,
these intertwining and interwoven affections, and the unbounded and
mingling love of their common offspring, shall these all perish and the
soul itself yet be styled immortal? Or,--shall the first-gone spirit meet
its arriving mate upon the border of that further shore, bless it with the
radiant welcome of celestial companionship and guidance, and lead it on to
higher virtue in a happier state, as it hath beamed upon it and in part
educated it on Earth?----Doubt this not, my Heart! Doubt this not, my
Soul!

                                                          JOHN WATERS.




WHERE IS THE SPIRIT-WORLD?

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.


  Perhaps the World of Spirits
    Is the invisible air,
  And every soul inherits
    Its endless portion there,
  When mortal lays its mortal by,
  And puts on immortality.

  Then round us and above us
    Unseen, the souls of those
  That hate us and that love us
    In motion or repose,
  To plan and work our good or ill,
  As when on earth, are busy still.

  For Enmity surviveth
    This transitory life;
  Spirit with spirit striveth
    In an unending strife;
  All roots of evil planted now
  Eternally shall live and grow.

  So friendship ever liveth
    Immortal as the soul,
  And purer pleasure giveth
    As longer ages roll;
  And hope and joy and inward peace
  Forever heighten and increase!

  Our homes and dwelling-places,
    The country of our birth,
  The old familiar faces
    Endeared to us on earth,
  And every source and scene of joy
  Our spirits' senses shall employ.

  So shall our true affections,
    To earthly objects given,
  Form intimate connections
    Between our world and heaven;
  And all our long existence move
  In an unbroken stream of love.




THE TYRANNY OF AFFECTION.

BY MRS. ENNSLO.


Methinks those who preach up the dignity of human nature, and expatiate
upon its original perfections, must look upon it through magic glasses: to
some perceptions at least, it presents even in its best estate a picture
of such abortive aims, such woful short-comings, such clouded brightness,
that even in those better natures, where we feel sure that the sun of
virtue _does_ shine, the noxious vapors of human frailty, pride in all its
various ramifications, selfishness under its many disguises, prejudice
with its endless excuses, etc., etc., do so envelope it that we cannot
hope to feel the warmth of its rays until some wholesome trial, some
aptly-apportioned cross, clear away these paralyzing influences and force
it into action.

What seems at the first glance freer from this dross than the love of man
to man? the love of the creature for his fellow; the ordained test of his
love to his Creator? What seems more preeminently pure than the affection
of the parent for the child, who owes him not only life but the nurture
which has maintained and elevated that life? Yet even here, even over this
fair garden of peace, the trail of the serpent may be detected. The
tyranny of deep affection is seen in every relation of life: we love a
cherished object, it may be with every fibre of our heart, ay, even
idolatrously; we would willingly spend and be spent to surround the
beloved one with materials for enjoyment; but these materials must be of
_our_ selection; we would sacrifice ourselves to lead them to happiness,
but _we_ must point out the road to them; we will bear every thing, endure
every thing, but the mortification of seeing them receive good at other
hands than our own. Ah! there are some rare exceptions to this rule, but
surely not more than enough to constitute it a rule.

Who that enjoyed the privilege of domestic intercourse with the venerable
and venerated father of the lovely Lucy Lee; he the most beloved as well
as respected inhabitant of the small town of ----; she not only the
prettiest but by far the most winning in her deportment of all the young
female circle of the place, of whom she was beyond all question the
ornament. Who that witnessed the fond pride with which the good old man
gazed upon her, as she glided around him, ministering to his wants with
that watchful ingenuity which characterizes woman's affection; who that
heard the tone of tenderness which marked even the most trifling word
addressed to her; a tenderness that seemed as if it might by its deep
pathos invoke every beneficent spirit to watch over her for good; his
early morning greeting, always accompanied by an upward look, which
proclaimed a daily aspiration of gratitude to the great Giver for the
precious gift; the nightly benediction which ever seemed as if it might
grow into a prayer for her welfare during the hours of darkness; who that
witnessed all this--and they could not be seen together without many such
hourly demonstrations of the father's love for his child shining through
his every word and action--but would have felt assured that this love
fashioned his every plan, and marked his estimate of the things of life?

Ah! of a certainty, it must have been so; her happiness must have been
safe in his keeping; and in truth, happiness had hitherto seemed hers by
prescriptive right. But all lanes however long turn at last, and those
most richly strewn with flowers are generally alas! by far the shortest.
Eighteen summers had flown since that which saw the little Lucy installed
sole possessor and sole solace of her bereaved father's heart; sole pledge
of a love which deeply rooted in a breast no longer subject to the
changeful fancies of youth, (for he had more than attained the prime of
middle-age when the original of the precious little miniature first
enchained his affections,) never revived for any other, but spent itself
in a doting fondness for this fair image of the lost one. Indeed it seemed
that every throb came with a double import from his burdened heart; the
parent's fondness ever mingling a tribute to the memory of her whose life
had been the price of the costly gift.

It is not always that the devotion of a parent is so entirely appreciated
as in this case; all Mr. Lee's efforts to promote his daughter's happiness
were crowned with entire success, and until the period mentioned above, no
one had ever detected on her lovely brow the semblance of a cloud. But the
course of nature cannot be altered; the petted child will one day grow
into the wilful woman; and however it may have been only a pleasant task
to follow the windings of the childish fancy ingenious in its caprice; and
only amusing to submit to the childish tyranny which pursues its own
beau-ideal of sport with reckless pertinacity; there sometimes comes a
change when the spoiled darling takes her first step upon the threshold of
maturity; when, with all the fresh vigor of youth in her untutored will,
she begins to assert her privilege, to cater for her own happiness, and
fashion her future according to the visions of her own fancy. Then comes
in the world with its many and diversified claims; claims so vigorously
enforced, but from which it is the first impulse of the young heart to
turn with loathing: it cannot bear to believe its happy independence of
all such considerations at an end; it does not submit easily to these new
trammels. Ah! how differently has passed the previous life! Something holy
gathers round a child; it seems to move superior to the base claims of the
world and its paltry rewards; and although often, it must be confessed,
the young intellect is early impressed with the idea that its best efforts
should be devoted to the insuring of worldly approbation, still the little
one's course of life is so distinct from the busy race to which we would
train it, that we cannot if we would entirely chain down its thoughts;
nay, we shrink before the pure innocence which cannot even understand our
weakness; and often yield a tribute to its superior dignity by concealing
our own care for such distinctions.

To those too who have seen much of life, and learnt to feel its
hollowness, real childishness of thought and feeling is so refreshing,
that they love rather to prolong the period than to shorten it. To Mr. Lee
the little Lucy seemed so entirely perfect in her infantine simplicity and
purity, that had he breathed a wish for the future, it would probably have
been that she should always continue his _little_ Lucy; he cared for no
change, and as it appeared, perceived none in her. Time passed on however,
and before he had become well aware that the little fairy whose tiny form
must needs so short a while since clamber on his knee to stroke and pat
his cheek, had now shot up into a tall girl, who could take his arm in a
long walk, or canter beside him all the morning on her well trained pony,
there came a change over the course of his quiet household little
startling. Visitors began to throng the hall; not those staid personages
who had hitherto been wont to gather round the warm hearth in winter, or
the sheltered piazza in the hot days of summer, and with feet upreared on
mantel-piece or bannister, discuss the affairs of state, and the price of
crops; new editions of these respected individuals now appeared; nephews
and sons came in their train; young friends, more perhaps than these
gentlemen were before aware of possessing, sought an introduction at their
hands, or came without any, on the plea perhaps of having met at a
tea-party, or some such strong necessity for acquaintanceship with the
fair Lucy; while the good Mr. Lee, often to his not very pleased surprise,
found on awaking from his afternoon's nap, that the book whose contents he
had purposed should perform their daily office of inspiring his dreams had
been laid aside, while the voice which had lulled him to sleep was now
charming other and younger ears in merry though perhaps suppressed
cadences. The variety in these visitors too grew somewhat annoying; new
people came, and Mr. Lee liked not new people. He was a man of warm but
very exclusive feelings; he loved but a few, and he liked no others: his
prejudices were strong, and having lived a very secluded life, the routine
of which presented no very decided obstacle to those prejudices, his
estimate of men and things had not altered with the general course of the
world around him. Liberal to an extreme in his dealings with men, his
intercourse with them, except in matters of business, was confined to a
very limited circle. Absolute in his requisitions from such as approached
him as intimates, his friendship was given only to those who met his views
in every respect; especially whose political opinions coincided with his
own. Indeed this seemed to be with him the one grand test. Though never
meddling in his own person with public life, he had such an abstract love
for its intricacies that he could at all times warm into actual enthusiasm
over a newspaper; a single paragraph from the pen one of his own way of
thinking sufficing to kindle his feelings into a glow of patriotism, while
a civil word of dissent would seem to chill his sympathies for his kind;
strong disapprobation blinding his perceptions to any good possible in
those differing from his established standard. Now it was not to be
expected that the young Lucy's circle would be modelled according to such
restrictions; she loved her kind old father with the clinging fondness of
an unweaned infant for its mother; but though again and again she would,
to gratify him, toil through a whole pamphlet, its meaning as dark to her
perceptions as the close and blurred print to his failing eyes, it may
well be imagined that her girlish brain failed to receive any other
impression from the contents than of their excessive tedium; certainly if
she formed therefrom any opinion regarding his favorite party, it was most
probably the not very flattering one that its members were all especially
tiresome and prolix.

Either from this notion, or a contradiction natural to human nature, it so
happened that among the rivals for the lovely Lucy's smiles, none seemed
to possess such power in riveting her attention as a certain young
gentleman, who although not only the son of a leading man in the
opposition, but holding himself a somewhat prominent place in the ranks of
the condemned party, yet continued with a boldness much to be wondered at
to engross the young lady's time by frequent visits of most unfashionable
length, in spite of Mr. Lee's open vituperations of all the manoeuvres of
the said party. The undaunted aspirant turned a deaf ear however to this,
taking every thing that was said in good part, until one day, when
suddenly his patience seemed to give out.

News had just been received of the marriage of a former school-mate of
Lucy's, the daughter of an old esteemed comrade, orthodox in all his
views, to an individual decidedly in the wrong on the one important point.
First, how astonished, next how entirely shocked, was the good old
gentleman! 'What a falling off! to give his child to ----! Pshaw! what
would the world come to! Where were his principles? where his wisdom?
where his _honor_?' etc., etc. Lucy, frightened perhaps at her father's
vehemence, turned pale. Dr. Kent, the friend and physician of the family,
who chanced to be present, endeavored to calm him, but with little
success; and Mr. Lillburgh, unable as it seemed to join in condemning this
'mis-alliance,' left the house somewhat abruptly. Soon after this,
however, an opportune influx of papers and pamphlets caused a salutary
diversion in Mr. Lee's irritated feelings; and as Lucy's most monopolizing
visitor seemed quite to have disappeared, he could now enjoy his favorite
luxury of drinking in, through the medium of the voice he loved so well,
the words of wisdom he honored so highly.

Whether these tiresome lectures proved too burdensome for her young
spirits, or some other cause operated to injure her health, did not
appear; but just at this time, when Mr. Lee seemed to find his life
especially comfortable and pleasant, his hitherto blooming daughter
gradually began to droop; her spirits, formerly so even, were now
constantly fluctuating: at times she would sit pale and _distraite_ among
a gay and laughing circle of her young associates, while at others, a ring
at the bell, a step in the hall, would suffice to call the color to her
cheek and kindle animation in her eye. It was this variation perhaps,
together with certain animating plans of his own, which rendered her
father insensible to her condition; for by a strange contradiction in the
course of things, he seemed just at this time especially occupied with
forming brilliant plans for her future. Fairly aware now of her being no
longer a child, he would comment upon her dress, urge her to more
ornament, and then with a knowing look speak of his anticipated pleasure
in the society of two expected visitors, one staunch old veteran of the
true faith, and his son, a worthy descendant, one who deserved the smiles
of the fair for the brilliant speech he had made the last session. Poor
Lucy at each reference to this subject would look more and more
uncomfortable; but her father, thinking that she might be perhaps a little
wayward; while he grew daily more enamoured of his plan, redoubled his
tenderness, seeking to study her whims in every other respect. It is cruel
to loose every bond but that which galls most sorely, to pluck away every
thorn but that which pricks most sharply: all the perceptions gather to
that point, and the suffering is in consequence tenfold more acute. Such
were Lucy's sensations, though she was perhaps scarcely conscious of them
herself; while at every demonstration of her father's tenderness, the
feelings which she knew to be rebels to his dearest wishes would seem to
spring up and accuse her of ingratitude. This struggle could not last; at
length the fond father became suddenly aware that some strange blight had
fallen upon his darling, and his whole soul was convulsed at the thought
that evil might possibly threaten her; he felt ready to send a
proclamation through the world to summon all its skill to spend itself for
her restoration. Upon second thoughts he made up his mind that there was
but one man in the world to whom he would confide the precious trust; yes,
he was fully assured that in the brain of Dr. Kent, the only lineal
descendant of Esculapius, were to be found all the best resources of the
art of healing; _he_ must always and on all occasions, be more right than
any one else. Why? But why ask why, when he had formed this opinion ever
since Dr. Kent first assumed the M. D., and had always held it firmly. Dr.
Kent was summoned and soon appeared; the startled girl, sorely against her
will, was called into the room; all the usual ceremony gone through; the
pulse tested, the tongue examined, etc., and then suffered to slip out of
the room. Mr. Lee listened with a beating heart for the doctor's decision:
this last did not deny that the young lady's appearance was strangely
altered since he had last seen her, which indeed was not since the evening
above alluded to, of Mr. Lee's violent irritation against his old friend.
But the cause; the next thing for the doctor to do was to discover the
cause. Now Dr. Kent, although some people did say that he was no student,
had a considerable portion of what is called _mother-wit_; and if he did
not possess the stores of learning which might have been amassed by poring
over his books, he was at least without the abstraction which much
scientific research is thought to occasion; he looked around him with a
shrewd eye, and simply by putting two and two together, often made very
successful calculations. He hesitated, reflected and recollected; 'perhaps
she wanted excitement,' he said; 'perhaps there was too little variety in
her life for one so young.' Mr. Lee assured him that she had always
appeared very indifferent to society; that until very lately she had
always seemed as happy as the day was long, and to desire no other company
than that of the visitors who dropped in upon them occasionally.

'Well, we must have something more amusing for her than _visiting_;
something more exciting.' The doctor here mused again for a few moments:
'You say she has seemed happy until very lately?'

'Yes, it is only lately that she has seemed to droop.'

'Well, perhaps she's been particularly dull lately; now by way of
experiment, suppose you at once summon a large party to your house; let it
be a very general invitation; all your acquaintances, that is the young
ones, _her_ acquaintances; all who have ever visited at the house; and as
_you_ may not be able to remember them all, it will be best to direct her
to do it in your name; this will of itself furnish her with a rather
exciting occupation. All this is by way of experiment I say, for it may
_not_ be that she needs amusement, but by the effect that company and
gayety have upon her, which I shall take care to be by and watch. I have a
notion that I shall be enabled to decide upon the character of her
indisposition. One thing however; remember you must give me
_carte-blanche_ as to the course of treatment to be pursued; your
prejudices, you confess you have them, must not hamper me.'

'My prejudices!' replied Mr. Lee; 'why what can they have to do with your
prescriptions? You know me well enough to be aware that I do not undertake
to meddle with matters I do not understand; the art of medicine for
instance, to which I make no pretensions; of course I shall not interfere;
only tell me what is to be done for my child, and you may be very sure no
difficulty will arise on my part, should it be that I must take her to
Egypt or Kamtschatka.'

'It is not probable that I shall call upon you for any such effort; on the
contrary, I have a strong impression that a very simple course will
answer; I was afraid you might not like its simplicity.'

'Really,' said Mr. Lee, 'that is too bad; am I that sort of person? Don't
tantalize me, Doctor, but just tell me what ought to be done for my poor
child, and you must be assured that _I_ will not object.'

'Of course, no father would,' said Dr. Kent.

'Then why the deuce do you imagine for an instant that _I_ would?'

'Nay now,' said the physician, 'it is only a whim of mine, and every one
must be allowed some whims: but good day; remember your promise.'

'Oh yes, only make up your mind at once.'

Great was Lucy's surprise, when upon being again summoned by her father,
she received from him the commission just determined upon. At one moment
to have her pulse felt, and the next to be told that she must prepare for
entertaining a large party! What did it mean? The good father, startled at
her agitation, assured her that he himself felt the want of a little more
society, and that he thought it would do _him_ good to have a company of
gay young people about him for an evening. Lucy was afraid she could not
recollect all her acquaintances. 'Well, no matter; only invite all she
_could_ remember; he should be satisfied with her arrangement of the
affair.'

Whatever may have been the efforts of Lucy's memory, it is certain that
only a moderate number of tickets were sent out for the appointed evening;
indeed it might have been feared that the doctor's experiment could
scarcely have a fair scope in so limited a circle; but finding that his
patient had had her own way in the whole, _he_ seemed to feel quite
assured of success. Before etiquette would have permitted the arrival of
any other guest, he had taken his place close beside the fair mistress of
the revels, and even after the room began to fill, seemed determined to
yield his envied position to no one. Those who said Dr. Kent was no
student, should have seen him then; his eye riveted on her fair young
countenance, there could be no doubt he was conning _that_ closely. At
every fresh arrival, how he watched the eager glance of inquiry! how his
gaze followed the course of the eloquent blood as it left the transparent
cheek, again to burden the disappointed heart!

The doctor was still puzzled; the gay company had by no means yet wrought
the change he looked for; how was this?--but he held to his watch. And now
once more the door was thrown open, and a young gentleman, with a
decidedly hesitating air and step, approached the youthful hostess. Ah!
now the light no longer flickered in her clear blue eye; it literally
danced: the awakened color left her cheek it is true, as before, but how
soon it came again! 'You positively have stood long enough, and must sit
down now,' said Dr. Kent, taking Lucy's hand; not the tip-ends of her
fingers; no, the doctor was not one either to be satisfied with any such
superficial plan of action, or to forego his privileges; on the contrary,
availing himself of his position of friend of the family, he possessed
himself of the whole of the little delicate hand, when, old habit it might
be, leading him to measure with some exactness the slender wrist thereto
belonging, he pressed it most cordially, and after one or two moments of
such demonstration of his affectionate regard, yielded his place beside
her to the last comer.

Mr. Lee now joined him as he lounged upon a sofa, with an air of entire
inattention to what was going on around him, yet turning from time to time
a heedful glance upon Lucy who sat just opposite, replying more by blushes
than words to the depressed tones of young Mr. Lillburgh's voice. 'Well,
Doctor, and how goes on the experiment?' The anxious father tried to speak
calmly, but his voice trembled.

'I am quite satisfied with my _experiment_,' replied Dr. Kent; 'but I will
confess (you know I am a candid man) that the result makes me feel a
little serious.' Dr. Kent knew, as we all have an opportunity of knowing,
that a danger, however startling, for which we are at once provided with a
remedy, is soon scorned; that it must stare us very decidedly in the face,
before we are willing to appreciate the said remedy. 'Yes,' continued he.
'I had no idea of the deep root the disease had taken.'

'Good heavens! my friend,' exclaimed Mr. Lee, grasping Dr. Kent's hand in
the utmost agitation; 'and the remedy you thought of--is the case too
serious for it to be available?'

'I trust not,' replied the Doctor; 'I believe indeed that if I can apply
the proper remedy in time, all may be well; but as I said just now, I am
a candid man, and don't like to raise false hopes: I tell you frankly this
case is not one to be trifled with; it requires nice management: the young
lady is delicate, very delicate; her nervous system is now decidedly
deranged.'

'But don't you think, Doctor, don't you think, my good friend, that she
looks a little better this evening? See how animatedly she is listening to
that young man: by-the-by, who is he?'

'Oh, no matter who he is, so he amuses Miss Lucy. But with regard to her
case; I will study it seriously to-night, and tell you what result I have
come to to-morrow about noon. I shall give all my mind to it, for I know
how precious she must be to you; I know that nothing the world has to
give, can make up to you for the most trifling evil that can assail her.'

'Oh, nothing, nothing; but what tormenting apprehensions you fill me with!
Gracious heaven! my dear Sir, she is my all; my past, my present, my
future are made by her; but you will help me if you can. May Almighty
wisdom aid you!' And the agitated father rushed out of the room, unable
any longer to control himself.

Dr. Kent looked after him with something of commiseration in his
countenance; but being a decided enemy to homeopathic innovation, he had
made up his mind that a strong dose of apprehension was positively
necessary; and now, only gratified at its powerful effect, he resumed his
surveillance with a heartlessly satisfied air. This was no doubt rendered
the more easy to him by Mr. Lee's continued absence from the room: the
young Lucy, thus relieved from the observation which she unconsciously
dreaded, growing more and more at her ease, enabled him to settle his
opinion regarding her completely.

The evening finished, as all evenings will; the night also took its course
as usual; but when on the following morning Dr. Kent appeared according to
promise in his friend's parlor at the appointed hour, he saw at once that
it had been passed by both in a manner very different from those lately
preceding it. Lucy looked as if some new impetus had been given to her
whole being; too much agitated for happiness, yet with animation glowing
in every feature, while the poor old father's care-burdened brow
proclaimed that anxious apprehension had completely usurped the hours
destined to repose. Dr. Kent really began to fear he had been too violent
in his measures; at any rate, feeling sure, as he said to himself, that
the instrument had been wound up to the striking point, he took his old
friend by the arm, saying he wished to speak to him in the next room on
business. Of course Mr. Lee was no sooner out of hearing of his daughter,
than he began to question his visitor with the utmost eagerness; upon
which the doctor slowly and warily proceeded to unfold his suspicions, or
rather his convictions.

It was curious to observe the changes passing over the countenance of the
hearer as Dr. Kent made this disclosure. Pleased surprise was evidently
the first emotion excited, but painful perplexity soon usurped its place.

'My good friend,' said he, as Dr. Kent finished speaking, 'I am greatly
relieved to find that you think the cause of my child's illness so
superficial; but as to the remedy you propose, believe me, I cannot
consent to it; I do not believe it necessary.'

'Believe it or not, as you will; I tell you it _is_ necessary.'

'But I tell you, Doctor, that my child is a part of myself, my own flesh
and blood; and can you counsel me to become an apostate to my own
principles? It has been my dearest thought that I should one day enjoy in
my own seclusion the reflected lustre of my child's brilliant position in
the world, and that that position should be by the side of one whose
course in life my own ripe judgment approves entirely. A man of Mr.
Lillburgh's principles cannot make her happy; I will not believe that he
can. No, I have always cared for my daughter's happiness; I will care for
it still, by settling this matter for her as I best know how. No; again I
say no; my only child shall not be so sacrificed!' And Mr. Lee stamped on
the floor, as if to add force to his speech.

'When you are cool,' said Dr. Kent, looking any thing but cool himself, 'I
will remind you of your promise, your positive promise; there is Mr.
Lillburgh now approaching the house; ask both your heart and conscience
how he ought to be received. Good morning to you.'

Without stopping to consult either of these counsellors, Mr. Lee hastily
rang the bell. 'We are both engaged, and cannot see the gentleman who is
now coming to the door,' said he to the servant. The doorbell was heard at
the instant, and the servant hastened to obey his master's directions.

The doctor was gone. Mr. Lee, pacing the parlor alone, imagined to himself
all sorts of arguments to satisfy his conscience that he was in the right.
Yet, thought he, my little darling must be made happy; all young girls
love trinkets and finery; I will take her out with me this morning, and
she shall indulge every caprice of her pretty fancy; pretty in every thing
else but fixing itself on that Mr. Lillburgh. 'Pshaw! he shall _not_ have
her; call Miss here,' he continued to a servant who entered at the moment.
The servant returned after a few minutes, saying that he had knocked
repeatedly at her door, but received no answer. Vaguely apprehensive of
something wrong, Mr. Lee hastened himself to her chamber; but how was he
shocked on entering, to find his daughter lying senseless in a swoon near
an open window. Ah! what voice whispered him that she had seen and heard
at that window what her delicate nerves could not endure! He raised her
tenderly in his arms, and having with some difficulty restored her to
consciousness, placed her on the bed. 'Good heavens!' thought he, 'can it
be indeed so serious!' But he could not long speculate upon this subject;
Lucy's cheek, but just now so pale and marble-like, soon began to glow
with fever; her pulse, but just restored to action, now told with momently
increasing hurry that illness had seized the delicate frame; the sudden
revulsion from new-born hope to despair had been too much for it. Poor Mr.
Lee! what did his heart say now? Did it yet upbraid him? Dr. Kent, who had
set out on a course of visits, could not at once be found, and the
wretched father sat gazing in agonizing helplessness on his suffering
child until the decline of the day. What would he have given to live over
again the last few hours! At length the physician appeared: 'Now,' said
he, on accosting Mr. Lee, 'do you think I know my own business or not? Do
I make mountains of mole-hills or not? I knew what I was about, didn't I?'

'Alas, yes!' replied the other, in a self-accusing tone, 'and _I_ did not;
but oh! merciful Providence! is it too late now?'

'Too late? Heaven knows, poor young lady! she'd have been better off if
she'd been an ugly twelfth daughter, with no one to trouble themselves
much about her, instead of a beautiful darling, that must have one
particular sort of happiness and no other.'

'Spare me! spare me, my friend!' implored Mr. Lee.

'I wish you had spared yourself,' grumbled Dr. Kent.

The Doctor was, it must be allowed, a little rough; but he had been so
thoroughly annoyed, after having, as he thought, with unparalleled cunning
and discretion detected the difficulty and provided a remedy, to find his
plans thwarted by an obstinate wilfulness, that he could not help boiling
over a little: his kind feelings however soon got the ascendency; the deep
contrition of the poor father touched his heart, and the lovely girl who
had only increased his interest in her by making good his words, received
from him the most attentive care; nor could he doubt that at length his
advice was appreciated, when he heard Mr. Lee take every opportunity of
mentioning Mr. Lillburgh's name with approbation and kindness, always
regretting that he had made such a mistake as to send him away the last
time he had called at the house.

But who may venture to choose their own time for showing kindness? Who
may, having refused to 'do good when it was in the power of his hand to do
it,' resume at will the precious privilege? Dr. Kent, satisfied with his
friend's repentance, was willing to take any step which might avail to
retrieve the mischief; but when this last would have lured back by
civilities the repulsed lover, he was found to have left home the very day
after his mortifying dismissal.

Let those who only by looking _back_ can see the road by which misery
might have been escaped, while _before_ the vista seems quite closed up,
conceive the deep and agonizing perplexity of the anxious father. His
daughter, comforted no doubt by his frequent recurrence to the subject
near her heart, and the manner in which he treated it, slowly raised her
drooping head; but he, (the entire amende being still out of his power)
hung over her night and day, oppressed by a constant sensation of guilt,
scarcely aware of her partial restoration. For some days this ordeal
lasted; there seemed a risk that the lover might in the bitterness of his
disappointment prolong his stay indefinitely; what availed it then that
the prejudice and ambition which had exiled him were now annihilated? The
eagerly coveted-prize for which he would have sacrificed his daughter's
peace, had turned to ashes in his grasp.

But the door to returning happiness was not completely closed. Dr. Kent's
skill, aided no doubt by Lucy's young confidence in her lover's
steadfastness, kept danger at bay, until one of those opportune accidents
of life, which like many of the best things in it look threateningly until
time takes off the veil, occurred in the shape of a fire on the premises
of the wanderer; which news, forcing him to return, the indefatigable Dr.
Kent at once offered to divert his mind from this untoward circumstance,
by taking him to join the family dinner of his friend Mr. Lee. The sequel
may be imagined; on the strength of this friendly invitation, aided no
doubt by sundry blushes and smiles on Lucy's part, Mr. Lillburgh ventured
to resume his visits, and Lucy's cheek always looked so particularly rosy
on such occasions, that Mr. Lee soon became too entirely happy in the
result, to cavil any longer at the cause of her renovated health and
spirits. Sometimes, also, memory would recall for an instant that terrible
period of anxiety, and then he would treat Mr. Lillburgh with such pointed
cordiality, that before very long that young gentleman was emboldened to
take advantage of his civility, and make some disclosure of his _own_
plans for the fair Lucy's happiness, according to the liberty of speech
young gentlemen generally allow themselves when desirous of securing their
own. Mr. Lee had gone too far to recede, and he soon found himself reduced
to the necessity of resting all his hopes for the gratification of his
favorite fancies and prejudices upon the anticipated course through life
of another generation, whose future being happily so distant, promised him
a long period of hope.




THE FRATRICIDE'S DEATH.

A RHAPSODY.

    The following effort of a wild and maddened imagination, rioting
    in its own unreal world, is by the 'AMERICAN OPIUM-EATER,' whose
    remarkable history was given in the KNICKERBOCKER for July, 1842.
    The MS. is stained in several places with the powerful drug, to
    the abuse of which the writer was so irresistibly addicted. The
    subjoined remarks precede the poem: 'This extravaganza is worthy
    of preservation only as 'a psychological curiosity,' like
    COLERIDGE's 'Kubla Khan,' which was composed under similar
    circumstances; if that indeed can be called composition, in which
    all the images rose up before the writer as THINGS, with a
    parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any
    sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking, he appeared to
    have a distinct recollection of the whole: taking his pen, ink and
    paper, he instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here
    preserved. The state of corporeal sleep but intellectual activity,
    during the continuance of which the phenomenon above described
    occurred, was caused by a very large dose of opium, and came upon
    me while reading the 'Confession of a Fratricide,' published by
    the priest who attended him in his last moments. I should warn the
    reader that the fratricide, like the author, could not be said to
    possess the 'mens sana in corpore sano,' both having been
    deranged.'

                                                    ED. KNICKERBOCKER.


  The universe shook as the monarch passed
    On the way to his northern throne;
  His robe of snow around him he cast,
  He rode on the wings of the roaring blast,
    And beneath him dark clouds were blown.

  His furrow'd and hoary brow was wreathed
    With a crown of diamond frost;
  Even space was chill'd wherever he breathed,
  And the last faint smiles which summer bequeathed,
    Ere she left the world, were lost.

  The leaves which wan Autumn's breath had seared
    Stern Winter swept away;
  Dark and dreary all earth appeared--
  The very beams of the bright sun feared
    To pursue their accustom'd way.

  Mirth's merry laugh at that moment fled,
    And Pleasure's fair cheek grew pale:
  The living sat like the stony dead,
  The rough torrent froze in its craggy bed,
    And Heaven's dew turned to hail.

  The forest trees waved their heads on high,
    And shrunk from the storm's fierce stroke;
  The lightning flash'd as from GOD'S own eye,
  The thunderbolt crash'd through the startled sky,
    As it split the defying oak.

  The proud lion trembled and hush'd his roar,
    The tigress crouch'd in fear;
  The angry sea beat the shuddering shore,
  And the deafening voice of the elements' war
    Burst terribly on the ear.

  I stood by the bed where the prisoner lay;
    The lamp gave a fitful light:
  His soul was struggling to pass away;
  Oh, GOD! how I pray'd for the coming of day!
    Death was awful in such a night.

  His cheek was hollow, and sunk, and wan,
    And his lips were thin and blue;
  The unearthly look of that dying man,
  As his tale of horror he thus began,
    Sent a chill my warm heart through:

  'The plague-spots of crime have sunk deep in my heart,
    And withered my whirling brain;
  The deep stamp of murder could never depart
  From this brow, where the Angel of Death's fiery dart
    Had graven the curse of CAIN.

  'Remorse has oft waved his dusky wings
    O'er the path I was doom'd to tread;
  Despair has long frozen Hope's warm springs;
  I have felt the soul's madness which Memory brings,
    When she wakes up the murder'd dead.

  'Tell me not now of GOD'S mercy or love!
    All hope of pardon is past:
  A brother's blood cries for vengeance above;
  This brand on my brow will my foul crime prove--
    _My_ torment for ever must last!

  'Thou needst not tremble; this arm is bound,
    And its iron strength is gone;
  Despair came down in the hollow sound
  Of my fetters, which clank'd on the loathing ground
    Where my wearied limbs I had thrown.

  'I snatched the knife from my jailor's side
    And buried it in my breast,
  But they cruelly staunched the gushing tide,
  And closed the wound, though 'twas deep and wide,
    And _still_ I might not rest!

  'Day after day I had gnawed my chain,
    Till I sharpened the stubborn link;
  But when I had pierced the swollen vein,
  And was writhing in death's last dreadful pain,
    While just on eternity's brink:

  'Even then the leech's skill prevailed;
    I was saved for a darker fate!
  My very guards 'neath my stern glance quailed,
  And with their cloaks their faces veiled
    As they passed the fast-barred grate.

  'I LOVED! Thou know'st not half the power
    Of woman's love-lit eye;
  Her voice can soothe death's gloomy hour,
  Her smiles dispel the clouds which lower
    When Affliction's sea rolls high.

  'My heart seemed cold as the frozen snow
    Which binds dark AEtna's form,
  But _Love_ raged there with the lava's flow,
  And madden'd my soul with the scorching glow
    Of strong passion's thunder-storm.'

  'I told my love: O GOD! even still
    I hear the Tempter's voice,
  Which whispered the thought in my mind, to fill
  My page of crime with a deed of ill
    That made all hell rejoice.

  'I knelt at her feet, and my proud heart burn'd
    When she spoke of my brother's love;
  Affection's warmth to deep hate was turn'd;
  His proffered hand in my wrath I spurn'd--
    Not all his prayers could move.

  'At dead of night to his room I crept,
    As noiseless as the grave;
  Disturbed in his dreams, my brother wept,
  And softly murmur'd _her_ name while he slept;
    _That_ word new fury gave!

  'The sound from his lip had scarcely passed,
    When my dagger pierced his heart:
  One dying look on me he cast--
  That awful look in my soul will last
    When body and soul shall part!

  'When the deed was done, in horror I gazed
    On the face of the murder'd dead;
  His dark and brilliant eye was glazed:
  When I thought for a moment his arm he raised,
    I hid my face in the bed.

  'I could not move from the spot where I stood;
    A chilliness froze my mind:
  My clothes were dyed with my brother's blood,
  The body lay in a crimson flood,
    Which clotted his hair behind!

  'And over my heart that moment pass'd
    A vision of former years,
  Ere sin upon my soul had cast
  It's withering blight, it's poison-blast,
    It's cloud of guilty fears.

  'The home where our youth's first hours flew by,
    In its beauty before me rose;
  The holy love of our mother's eye,
  Our childhood's pure and cloudless sky
    And its light and fleeting woes.

  'When our hearts in strong affection's chain
    Were so closely, fondly tied,
  That our thoughts and feelings, pleasure and pain,
  Were one: why did we not remain
    Through life thus side by side?

  'And my brother's gentle voice then fell
    Upon my tortured ear;
  Those tones I once had loved so well,
  Now wither'd my soul like a flame from hell
    With vain remorse and fear!

  'All, all that memory still had kept
    In her hidden and silent reign,
  My youth's warm feelings, which long had slept,
  Like a torrent of fire that moment swept
    In madness o'er my brain.

  'For before me there _his_ pallid face
    In death's cold stillness lay;
  Even murder could not all efface
  Its beauty, whose sad and shadowy trace
    Still lingered round that clay.

  'Sternly I bent me over the dead,
    And strove my breast to steel,
  When the dagger from hilt to point blood-red,
  Flash'd on my sight, and I madly fled,
    The torture of life to feel.

  'Since that dread hour o'er half the earth
    My weary path has lain;
  I have stood where the mighty Nile has birth,
  Where Ganges rolls his blue waves forth
    In triumph to the main.

  'In the silent forest's gloomy shade
    I have vainly sought for rest;
  My sunless dwelling I have made
  Where the hungry tiger nightly stray'd,
    And the serpent found a nest.

  'But still, where'er I turn'd, there lay
    My brother's lifeless form;
  When I watched the cataract's giant play
  As it flung to the sky its foaming spray,
    When I stood 'midst the rushing storm:

  'Still, still that awful face was shown,
    That dead and soulless eye;
  The breeze's soft and soothing tone
  To _me_ still seemed his parting groan--
    A sound I could not fly!

  'In the fearful silence of the night
    Still by my couch he stood,
  And when morn came forth in splendor bright,
  Still there, between me and the light,
    Was traced that scene of blood!'

       *     *     *     *     *

  He paused: Death's icy hand was laid
    Upon his burning brow;
  That eye, whose fiery glance had made
  His sternest guards shrink back afraid,
    Was glazed and sightless now.

  And o'er his face the grave's dark hue
    Was in fixed shadow cast;
    His spasm-drawn lips more fearful grew
  In the ghastly shade of their lurid blue;
  With a shudder that ran that cold form through,
    The murderer's spirit passed!




SICILIAN SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES.

NUMBER TWO.


We proceed, in another and concluding paper, as promised in the last
number of the KNICKERBOCKER, to direct the reader's attention to the
_Architectural Antiquities of Sicily_, especially those of Grecian
structure, which will be described in the order in which they were
visited. The first are those of Egesta, or Segeste, as it is sometimes
called; a city said to have been built in the remote age of the Siculi,
and which was destroyed by Agathocles, the potter's son, who reduced all
Sicily two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. It lies
about forty or fifty miles from Palermo, among the mountains which cluster
round the famed Mount Erix, on which once stood a temple dedicated to
Venus. On leaving Alcamo, which may be called a city of convents, midway
between Palermo and Segeste, the broad slopes of an ample valley lie
before the traveller, which though almost treeless, are waving with beans,
and grain and grass. In the depth, is a river meandering among fragrant
oleanders; on the left, the valley is intersected by a range of distant
mountains; on the right is a beautiful bay of the Mediterranean. Across
the valley the mountains form a green amphitheatre, and high in its
remotest part is seen the Temple of Segeste, but merely as a point of
light and shade upon the bosom of the mountain. The next view, if he takes
our route, is from the ancient Grecian city of Catafimi, itself perched on
a mountain's top. He looks down a deep luxuriant vale, and on a grassy
knoll about three miles distant, lifted from the depths of the valley by
precipitous crags, stands the solitary temple; and if seen as we saw it,
receiving the last golden rays of the setting sun while all below is
wrapped in shade. The next day, would he visit the temple, his road lies
through the valley of which I have last spoken. And surely he never passed
through such an Arcadian scene as this. Almond and orange trees fill the
air with fragrance; his path struggles through the tangled flowers, the
cistus and the blue convolvulus, and he disturbs the nightingale in her
pleasant haunt. At length, emerging from the valley, and climbing the
steep side of a mountain, he stands before the temple. It is a majestic
pile, about two hundred feet in length and eighty-eight in breadth, having
fourteen columns on each side and six at each end, in all thirty-six
columns, of about six feet in diameter; not fluted, as is usual in Grecian
Doric temples, but having a very peculiar form. It stands on a platform
raised on three gigantic steps. All the columns are standing; the
entablatures and pediments are in pretty good preservation, but it is
roofless, and flowers and weeds are now waving where once trode the
white-robed priests. The breezes from the fragrant mountains and the
distant sea, of which it commands a fine view, sigh through it in harmony
with its sad and solitary grandeur.

On a neighboring hill are the vestiges of the ancient city, a few ruined
towers, probably of the citadel, and a theatre, the stone seats of which
are almost entire; part of the sculptured figure of a faun still remains
on the proscenium; wild shrubs shade a great part of the ruin, and where
manhood and beauty once sat, listening to the tragedies of an Eschylus or
Euripides, the adder and the lizards sun themselves. The next ruins we
visited were those of Selinunte, anciently Selinus or Selinuntium, which
lies on the southern coast of the island. This city was founded by a
colony of Greeks about twenty-five hundred years ago. It was taken during
the Carthaginian wars, and in a great measure destroyed by Hannibal the
son of Giscon, four hundred and nine years before CHRIST. The country on
approaching Selinunte is a dreary plain covered with the palmetto. On
gazing toward the sea, when distant two or three miles, the traveller's
eye catches what he would take for a rocky hill, were it not for a few
mutilated columns which rise above the blue horizon. As he approaches, the
stupendous scene of ruin strikes him with awe. There in a mighty heap lie
column and capital, metope and cornice; and the mind is lost in wonder at
the power that raised these giant structures, and the power that overthrew
them. Only one complete column, and that without its capital, and several
mutilated ones, remain standing of the great temple supposed to be of
Neptune; the rest are prostrate; and all lying in one direction, bear
evidence that they have been thrown down by an earthquake.

The first temple is Grecian Doric, as are all those of which I shall
speak. Its columns are about eleven feet across, and they must have been,
including their capitals, more than sixty feet high. Above these lofty
columns was placed the architrave, one of the stones of which, that we
measured, was twenty-five feet in length, eight in height, and six in
thickness; but another is still larger; forty feet long, seven broad, and
three deep. To transport these enormous masses of stone from their quarry,
which is several miles distant, with a deep valley and river intervening,
would trouble the modern engineer; but to poise and place them on the top
of the columns, seventy feet from the ground, with our mechanical means,
were indeed a great feat. The columns were not of single pieces, but
composed of several, and they now lie, to use an unpoetical phrase, like
rows of enormous cheeses. The great temple was three hundred and
thirty-four feet long, one hundred and fifty-four wide; its porticoes at
each end were four columns in depth, eight in width; a double row on the
sides of the cella or interior edifice, which in all Grecian temples was
the sanctum sanctorum. In _all_, there must have been eighty columns.
There is one remarkable feature about this temple, which is, that none of
the columns were fluted except those of the eastern end. About thirty
paces from this ruin, which the Sicilians call the Pileri di Giganti, or
Pillars of the Giants, are the remains of another temple which was about
two hundred feet long: its entablature was supported by thirty-six fluted
columns of seven feet in diameter and thirty-five feet long, each of a
single piece of stone. Only a few fragments of the columns remain standing
in their places. Treading another thirty paces, you come to a temple which
is of rather larger dimensions than the one last mentioned. The columns of
this were also fluted, but no part of the edifice is standing, except a
solitary pilaster, which was probably a portion of the cella. These
temples were built of a hard but porous stone, of a light color, and were
probably covered with a thin coat of cement. They command an extensive
view both of sea and land, and in their primal days must, with their
tower-like columns, their sculptured entablatures and pediments, have
risen above the scene in majestic grandeur.

Three quarters of a mile from these temples was the ancient port, now
choked with sand, and near it are the remains of edifices supposed to have
been the magazines. On an adjoining hill are remnants of three temples and
two towers, in almost undistinguishable ruin. We left Selinunte with a
lasting but melancholy impression, and were reminded of the lines:

  'Two or three columns and many a stone,
  Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown:

       *     *     *     *     *

  Remnants of things which have passed away,
  Fragments of stone rear'd by creatures of clay!'

Girgenti, anciently called Agragas and Agrigentum, is situated on the
southern coast of Sicily, in a delicious country; the modern city was
built by the Saracens on the summit of a hill upward of eleven hundred
feet above the level of the sea. The site of the ancient city is lower,
and about a mile distant. It was probably founded in the eighth century
before CHRIST. In its flourishing state it contained two hundred thousand
inhabitants, who were celebrated for their hospitality, their love of the
arts and luxurious style of living. Plato was so much struck with the
solidity of their buildings and the sumptuousness of their dinners, that
he said they 'built as though they thought themselves immortal, but ate as
though they never expected to eat again.' The horses of Agrigentum were
celebrated; and one of the citizens returning from the Olympic games, on
entering his native town, was followed by three hundred chariots, each
drawn by four white horses sumptuously caparisoned. The government of this
little state, whose inhabitants never amounted to more than eight hundred
thousand, was at first monarchical, afterward democratic; but neither the
forms of its institutions, nor its riches and grandeur, could save it from
misfortune: it was besieged several times by the Carthaginians, and at
length, after a siege of three years, was taken and sacked by Hannibal,
the son of Giscon. In alluding to these misfortunes, the historian says:
'Yet of all the Sicilian cities, the fate of Agrigentum seemed the most
worthy to be deplored, from the striking contrast of its fallen state with
its recent splendor and prosperity. The natural beauties of Agrigentum
were secured by strength and adorned with elegance; and whoever considered
either the innumerable advantages of the city itself, or the gay
cultivation of the surrounding territory, which abounded in every luxury
of the sea and land, was ready to pronounce the Agrigentines the most
favored inhabitants of the earth. The exuberant fertility of the soil,
particularly the rich luxuriance of the vines and olives, exceeded every
thing that is related of the happiest climates, and furnished the means of
lucrative commerce with the populous coast of Africa, which was sparingly
provided with those valuable plants. The extraordinary wealth of the
Agrigentines was displayed in the magnificence of public edifices and in
the splendid enjoyment of private fortunes. They had begun and almost
completed the celebrated Temple of Jupiter, built in the grandest style of
architecture, employed by the Greeks on the greatest and most solemn
occasions.'

The ancient city of Agragas stood on an elevated platform or table of
land, three sides of which fell off in steep precipices; the fourth side
was surmounted by the lofty hill on which the modern city stands. These
steep precipices were the natural walls of the city, and were made more
available for defence by excavation on the inside, so as to leave a solid
wall of rock rising round the city. On the verge of this platform, which
gradually sinks from east to west, and on the side next the sea, which is
about a mile distant, are seen the remains of no fewer than six temples.
They stood in a general line, but at irregular intervals, and must have
formed one of the most magnificent spectacles that the art of man has ever
presented to the eye. The remains of three other temples exist, but they
lie at a distance from this grand range. On the eastern and highest part
of the platform, where the natural wall of which I have spoken makes an
angle, stood the Temple of Juno Lucina; next came the Temple of Concord;
next the Temple of Hercules, near which was the Temple of Jupiter, called
of the Giants; next came the Temple of Venus, and lastly that of Castor
and Pollux. The approach to the ruins of these temples from the modern
city is over the site of the ancient, now shaded by olive, almond, and
carruba trees. The Temple of Juno is a picturesque ruin; all the columns
on the northern side are standing, also several at the ends, and part of
the entablature; the rest of the building, corroded by time or entirely
prostrate, lies under an exuberant growth of flowers and shrubs.

Descending from this temple, we pass through a sort of wild garden, with
here and there an olive-tree or dark carruba; on the left are the ruins of
the ancient rock-wall, huge fragments of which in places have fallen down
the precipice; other parts are perforated as with windows or loop-holes,
or with deep cell-like excavations: these are the tombs of the ancient
Agrigentines, now tenantless and void. Those window-like apertures were
evidently made so by the action of the elements or the violence of man;
and it is related that in consequence of the Agrigentines having made
their tombs in the walls, they were so much weakened that the
Carthaginians by means of their engines were enabled to batter them down
and obtain an entrance. We now come to the Temple of Concord, one of the
most beautiful specimens of Grecian Doric in existence. It is roofless,
but otherwise almost perfect. It has twenty-four columns; it is, like the
temple of Juno, raised on a platform of several steps, and about one
hundred and fifty-four feet in length and fifty-five in breadth. It seems
that this temple was used in times past for a Christian church, and the
sides of its cella are perforated by arched openings. The next temple is
near one of the ancient city gates, and is supposed to have been dedicated
to Hercules: it was celebrated in ancient times for having in it a fine
picture of Alcmena; but it is now a confused heap of ruin, with only one
column standing, which proves it to have been of larger dimensions than
the temples just mentioned.

Turning a little to the right, we come upon the Temple of Jupiter
Olympius, commonly called of the Giants, the largest sacred edifice in
Sicily, and one of the most stupendous works of the ancients. It was in
length three hundred and sixty-eight feet, in breadth one hundred and
eighty; the breadth or diameter of its columns at the base thirteen feet
four inches; the height of the columns must have been seventy-five feet;
above these rose a massive entablature, and the top of the pediments could
not have been less than one hundred and twenty feet high! The grandeur of
the door and vestibule corresponded to the simple majesty of the whole
building, whose sculptured ornaments represented, with the finished
elegance and laborious accuracy that distinguished each particular figure,
the 'Defeat of the Giants and the Taking of Troy.' In the interior ranged
twenty-four antae, or square pillars, of fifty feet in height; on the top
of each was a sculptured giant twenty-seven feet in height, which with his
hands clasped over his head supported the lofty roof. One can scarcely
conceive any thing more noble and majestic than this wonderful edifice, in
comparison with which, though covering much more ground, St. Peter's in
Rome is a splendid gew-gaw. But what remains of this great temple? A wide
heap of ruin; the interior of which, the columns and walls having fallen
outward, is a flowery field, in which lie some fragments of those huge
giants that once supported the roof. One of these is tolerably entire: the
curls of his hair form a sort of garland: it lies with its face upward,
and when I stood by it, my own head scarcely reached as high as the brow
of the statue. It is composed of several pieces of stone, as are the
columns of this temple, and most of the others of Agrigentum. On every
side of this elevated field lie the walls, entablatures, and columns in
enormous fragments: the capitals of the columns look like huge rocks that
have been hurled there by some violent convulsion of nature.

A short distance from this temple are the ruins of the Temple of Venus,
and another of Castor and Pollux, of which two of the columns and part of
the entablature are entire, and the thin coat of cement or stucco which
covered them is in some parts as perfect as ever. The stone of which the
temples were constructed is of a very porous nature, a sort of tufa, full
of sea-shells, and when seen in the sunlight, of a golden hue; but they
were all covered with stucco, which, judging from what remains, was nearly
as hard as porcelain, and gave a beautiful and finished appearance to the
otherwise rude material. Of the other remains in Agrigentum, the limits of
this article will not allow me to speak. But the reader would ask, how
came these temples in such a state of ruin? On this subject there has been
some dispute; but their destruction may most reasonably be attributed to a
mightier agency than man's. Earthquake has shattered these gorgeous
temples; the time _when_ is not recorded. I am inclined to believe that
they were destroyed, as well as those of Selinus, by the dreadful
earthquakes that shook Italy and Sicily in the dark age of Valens and
Valentinian, three hundred and sixty-five years after CHRIST.

Let us now proceed to Syracuse, once the capital of Sicily, and the
birth-place of the great Archimedes. It was founded by Archias, one of the
Heraclidae, more than seven hundred years before the Christian era, and
according to some authors contained within its walls at one time, one
million two hundred thousand inhabitants; could maintain an army of one
hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, with a navy of five hundred
armed vessels. Little now remains of a place once so populous and so
powerful, save the shrunken modern city of Syracusa, containing about nine
thousand inhabitants, and a few almost unintelligible ruins scattered
among vineyards, olive-groves, and fields of corn, or over the high wastes
of the barren Epipole, on the summit of which the curious will find ruined
walls and fortresses of massive and beautiful masonry. From these the eye
commands the whole site of the ancient city. _There_ lies, at the distance
of three miles, the small island of Ortygia, on which is the modern town;
on its right is the narrow entrance from the sea, which lies beyond, to
the greater harbor, that appears like a beautiful lake, and is about two
miles long and one and a half broad. On the left of the island of Ortygia
is all that remains of the lesser port of Syracuse. On this side the
island is connected with the main land by means of a draw-bridge. In
Ortygia is the famous fountain of Arethusa: the spring is yet clear and
copious; but the only nymphs I was fortunate enough to see were engaged in
the necessary vocation of cleansing the soiled linen of Syracusa. The
remains of a beautiful temple of Minerva form a part of the cathedral
church. Near the small river Anapus are two columns, the remnants of a
temple of Jupiter, which once contained a statue of that god, wearing a
robe of gold; but Dionysius the tyrant stripped it off, saying 'it was too
cold for winter and too hot for summer.' Among the seats of a noble
theatre now stands a mill, that is supplied with water diverted from an
ancient aqueduct close by: a strange metamorphosis indeed! This aqueduct
conveys the water thirty miles. It may have been of Greek construction
originally, but that part of it which I have seen is evidently Saracenic.
The rocky site of Syracuse is in many parts perforated with tombs; the
roads are literally honey-combed with them. There is a street excavated in
the limestone rock which on either side is full of cells, and it may
indeed be said of Syracuse that it is a great burying-ground. The oranges,
vines, and figs of Syracuse are still flourishing, and the earth yet
yields its hundred fold; but its glory is departed, and the traveller
looks in vain for satisfactory vestiges of that mighty city.

There are many other interesting remains of antiquity in Sicily, but I
must hasten to a conclusion. I trust the reader will have found the
subject of this article interesting, although treated briefly and
imperfectly. The traveller is unworthy of his privilege, and forgetful of
duty if he extracts not from the scenes described some moral lesson or
religious truth. The reader has accompanied me in imagination through
classic Sicily. He has seen the lonely temple of Segeste, standing among
the mountains like a widowed thing, mourning in silence the departed.
Where is the multitude that once thronged around its walls? Mount Erix
still battles with the clouds, as in the days of Agathocles. He has
clambered with me among the prostrate columns of Selinunte: _once_, from
beneath those massive porticoes, the Selinuntine, in the pride of his
heart, looked upon the crowded port and distant mountains as we look on
the Hudson, with its white sails and swift steamers, and the neighboring
hills. Where and what are they? The distant mountains stand, but the great
works which he erected to be a living honor to his name and country, are
perished forever. He has lingered with me among the ruins of the splendid
Agrigentum. Its numerous temples are dilapidated, or crumbling on the
earth; its walls, once its vaunted strength, are strewed in shattered
fragments on the steeps around. The dust of its multitudes serves to
fertilize the soil of its ancient site! But the stream still flows which
gave its name to the city, and the hills around yet produce the oil, the
wine, and the grain. We have sojourned for a time among the melancholy
vestiges of Syracuse; the scene of battles far more bloody than this land
has ever known. The army which the Athenians, inflated with pride and
presumption, sent against Syracuse, was here defeated. In yonder
land-locked bay the Athenian fleet, the mightiest that republic had ever
sent forth, and which they believed _invincible_, was destroyed. And the
Roman orator has eloquently said, that not only the navy of Athens, but
the glory and the empire of that republic, suffered shipwreck in the fatal
harbor of Syracuse. It was there the wonderful mechanical skill of
Archimedes was displayed against the Roman fleet, and those quiet waters
have been strewed with the dying and the dead. From this deserted citadel,
called of 'Labdalus,' the eye embraces the whole site of the once populous
Syracuse; and what does it behold? On the distant island of Ortygia, an
insignificant town, with a few small craft at anchor in the bay; nearer, a
desert of rocky hills, a goat-herd, and a few straggling goats. Turning
away from the melancholy scene, we behold afar off the snow-clad AEtna.
What a contrast is this to what we have just reviewed in the mind's eye!
_That_ is the work of God! Since its huge pyramid arose, nation after
nation has possessed its fertile slopes. The Siculi have labored on its
sides; the Greek, the Carthaginian and the Roman; the Norman and the
Saracen have struggled for mastery at its foot; but the roar of the battle
is past; the chariot and the charioteer are mingled in the dust. Yet yon
earth-born giant, fed by continual fires, each century augments, and in
all probability will continue to do so until

  'The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
  The solemn temples, yea the great globe itself
  Shall dissolve, and like the baseless fabric
  Of a vision, leave not a wreck behind!'

May we not in these things read deep lessons applicable to ourselves? The
history of the people whose noble works I have endeavored to describe,
should in the first place teach us how noble a thing it is to construct
works of beauty and utility, not only for our own gratification, but for
the benefit of posterity also. The selfish and unreflecting, even the
modern utilitarian, will perhaps laugh at the thought, and say: 'What
folly to undertake such labors for the benefit of posterity! We will labor
for ourselves.' I would ask such persons, what would have been our state
if the ancients had entertained such grovelling notions? Do they not know
that most of the elegant as well as the useful, is the rich bequest of
these ancients whom they affect to despise? There is not in the whole city
of New-York a house, however lowly, but in some part of it I could point
out a moulding or an ornament that comes from the ancients. But there are
other points of view perhaps of higher consequence. Their temples were
erected to the gods; mistaken as they were in their religious notions, we
Christians may be put to shame by the devotion of the pagan. Not to man
were their temples erected. Man enjoyed their beauty; gazed with
admiration on their exquisite forms, and lingered under their shady
porticoes; but the eye of the god to whom each temple was dedicated was
supposed to be on the work, and the aim of the builders was perfection in
every part; and even that which the eye of the multitude never rested on,
was finished with elaborate care. I would ask, is there such a lofty
feeling among us? Are we willing to expend toil and cost on that which
will never gratify our senses? You will answer no. Is not this then a
lesson to us? Another view of the matter: These works of art were the
objects of veneration and love; city vied with city in their construction;
it was a noble emulation--think you not _nobler_ than the competition for
sordid gold? The citizen gazed with pride upon the marble triumphs of his
native place; he loved it more than ever, and felt his patriotism kindle
as he gazed.

Let us not think that rail-roads and canals are the only works worthy of
modern civilization. If we look to intents, (and what ought we to look
at?) I doubt much but the ancients rose superior to us. We are in the
enjoyment of many advantages of which they knew nothing. The
wonder-working press was unknown to them; and above all, the beautiful
light of Christianity had not been shed on the world. We have the broad
day; they wrought in the twilight gloom. What majestic monuments of art!
what enduring legacies of beauty! what objects to make a man love his
country more and more, could have been erected with the means expended a
few years ago in reckless speculations! Instead of turning with melancholy
loathing to those broken bubbles on which the hopes and fortunes of many
of us were suspended, we could at least look with admiration on the marble
pile, and exclaim, 'I also can be proud of the genius and taste of my
country!' Another lesson we may learn from the fate of ancient states: it
is to beware of presumptuous pride and overweening conceit: these are the
result of inconsiderate ignorance. It was through presumptuous pride that
Athens fell, as I have before intimated. We have reason to fear there are
many, some unconscious of the injury they do, and perhaps with just
intentions, who feed this appetite for undue praise. Others, for mere
popularity or the applause of the day, minister with adroitness the sweet
though poisonous morsel for which our vanity and self-love are
open-mouthed; which (to carry on the simile,) puffs us up with the
comfortable notion that we are superior in every respect to all other
nations, ancient or modern. It would be well to turn a deaf ear to this
syren's song: let us learn if possible to _know_ ourselves; let us
remember that there is no perfection, either in men or their institutions;
and by avoiding a vain and presumptuous spirit, and scanning with a
careful eye the causes of the greatness which under Providence we possess,
we shall be most likely to approach the perfection which we all desire. We
can have little doubt that the Agrigentine considered the institutions of
his country as perfect as we do ours; and the citizens of greater states,
Athens, even Rome itself, indulged in the same pleasing thought. Our only
means of judging of the future is the past. We see that nations have
sprung from obscurity, risen to glory, and decayed. Their rise has in
general been marked by virtue; their decadence by vice, vanity, and
licentiousness. Let us beware!

I would not have the reader censure me for commencing this article as a
traveller and ending it with an attempt to moralize. In reviewing in my
mind the interesting scenes I have endeavored to describe, I have been led
back to the thoughts that arose when I trode among the ruins of prostrate
temples, and they were _connected_ in my mind; and I will venture again to
say, that he is unworthy of the privilege of travelling who gleans not
from the fields he visits some moral lesson or religious truth.

                                                                 T. C.




STANZAS.

WRITTEN AT BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS. BY REV. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN.


  I.

  In Beverly, the building I sought the other day,
  Where forty years ago my sire his infant gave away;
  I sought it, for I coveted where he had placed his foot,
  My honored, sainted father! mine in filial love to put.


  II.

  I entered it: most holy appeared the house of prayer;
  Yet more than common holiness its beauty seemed to wear;
  For there the waters bathed me, and solemn words were said,
  And Father, Son, and Paraclete invoked above my head.


  III.

  Of all the congregation who looked in reverence on,
  The elders and the blooming youth, each worshipper was gone;
  And he, with hairs of winter, whose office 'twas to lave
  My baby brow, and name my name, was hidden in the grave!


  IV.

  What years have passed of sorrow, that hour and this between!
  What moments of enjoyment in that interval I've seen!
  I wept that I had measured the half of being's track;
  I smiled that worlds were poor to bribe the weary pilgrim back.


  V.

  I sighed that in the journey where blessings are so few
  For even the most favored, I but scanty portion knew;
  And chiefly in the season of confidence and pride,
  My youth was forced the dangerous way, without my earthly guide.


  VI.

  Where is my sainted father, who took me in his arms,
  And held me to the minister, and kissed away alarms?
  I feel his presence near me! he blesses me once more!
  Ay, where he gave me up to GOD, just forty years before!




THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

Harry Harson.


CHAPTER XXII.

It was not the failure of his plans, nor the dread of detection, which
broke Rust down. He had been prepared for that, and had nerved himself to
meet it; but it was a blow coming from a quarter where he had not dreamed
of harm, and wounding him where alone he could feel a pang, that crushed
him. There was something so abject in the prostration of that iron-willed
man, who had often endured what would have wrung the very souls of other
men, without exhibiting any other feeling than contempt, that for a moment
awed even the hard man who had struck the blow. In proportion as Rust's
control over his emotions had been great, so now the reaection was
terrible. He seemed paralyzed in body and mind. No cry escaped him, but
his breath rattled as he drew it; his long hair hung loosely over his
face, and upon the floor; his eyes were closed; his features livid and
distorted; and but for his struggling breath, and the spasmodic jerking of
his fingers, he seemed dead.

'Lift him up, Bill,' said Grosket, in a subdued tone. 'It's been too much
for him. Who'd have thought he had a heart?'

Jones smiled grimly, as he said: 'I'm glad you did it, Mr. Grosket. It was
better than murdering him. He wasn't afeard of dying. Is it a fit he's
got?'

Without waiting for a reply, he placed his arms under him and raised him
up. Rust lay heavily against him, his head falling back, and his arms
dangling at his side. They carried him to the bench, and placed him on it,
Grosket standing behind him, and supporting his back.

'I guess he's done for,' said Jones, pushing the hair from his face; 'pity
it wasn't three days ago--that's all.'

'Get some water, or brandy,' said Grosket; 'I suppose we may as well bring
him to. It would be an ugly business if he should die on our hands.'

Jones stooped down, and picking up his great coat, commenced fumbling in
its pocket, and drew out the bottle from which he and Craig had drank, as
they were starting on their expedition on the previous night. He held it
up and looked at it, then muttered: 'It's no use; it's no use.'

'What are you talking about, there?' demanded Grosket, impatiently: 'is it
empty?'

Jones shook it.

'No; there's a drop or two in it. D--n him! I don't like his drinking out
of this bottle, I don't; I use it myself; and blow me, if I don't think
his mouth 'ud p'ison it.'

Grosket cut his scruples short by taking the bottle from him, uncorking
it, and pouring its contents in Rust's mouth.

'It's a waste,' muttered Jones, eyeing his proceedings with a very
dissatisfied look. 'I begrudged it to poor Tim; and cuss _him_, it's going
down _his_ gullet! I hope it'll choke him.'

Grosket paid no attention to him, but supported Rust, occasionally shaking
him by way of stirring up his ideas. Either the liquor or the shakings had
an effect; for the deadly paleness gradually disappeared from Rust's face;
his breath grew less short and gasping; and finally he sat up, and looked
about him. His eye was wandering and vacant, and sad and heart-broken
indeed was his tone.

'My own dear child!' said he, in a voice so mild and winning, and so
teeming with fondness, that none would have recognized it as Rust's. 'I've
had a strange dream, my poor little Mary, about you, whom I have garnered
up in my heart of hearts.'

His voice sank until his words were unintelligible, and then he laughed
feebly, and passed his hand backward and forward in the air, as if
caressing the head of a child. 'Your eyes are very bright, my little girl,
but they beam with happiness; and so they shall, always. So they shall--so
they shall. Kiss me, my own darling!' He extended his arms, and drew them
toward him, as if they enfolded the child, and then bending down his
cheek, rocked to and fro, and sang a song, such as is used in lulling an
infant to sleep.

'My God! He's clean gone mad!' said Jones, staring at him with starting
eyes. 'Dished and done up in ten minutes! That's what I call going to
Bedlam by express.'

Although Grosket uttered not a word of comment, his keen gray eye, bright
as a diamond; his puckered brows; his compressed lips, and his hands
tightly clasped together, showed that he viewed his work with emotions of
the most powerful kind. At length he said, in low tone, as if communing
with himself rather than addressing the only person who seemed capable of
hearing him: 'If he goes mad he'll spoil my scheme. He'll not reap the
whole harvest that I have sown for him. He must live; ay, and in his sane
mind, to feel its full bitterness. I, _I_ have lived,' said he, striking
his breast; '_I_ have borne up against the same curse that now is on him.
_I_ have had the same feeling gnawing at my heart, giving me no rest, no
peace. _He_ must suffer. He _must_ not take refuge from himself in
madness. He _shall_ not,' said he, savagely. 'Ha! ha! who would have
thought that the flint which the old fellow calls his heart had feeling in
it?'

Whether these remarks reached Rust's ear, or whether it was that his mind,
after the first shock of the intelligence was over, was beginning to
rally, is a matter of doubt; but from some cause or other, he suddenly
discontinued his singing, passed his hand across his forehead, held his
long hair back from his face, and stared about him; his eye wandering from
Grosket to Jones, and around the room, and then resting on the floor. He
sat for some time looking steadfastly down, his face gradually regaining
its stern, unbending character; his thin lips compressing themselves,
until his mouth had assumed its usual expression of bitterness, mingled
with resolution.

The two men watched, without speaking, the progress of this metamorphosis.
At last he rose, and turning to Grosket, said in a calm voice:

'You've done your worst; yet you see Michael Rust can bear it;' and then
bowing to him, he said: 'Good bye, Enoch. Whatever may have happened to
_my_ child, _I_ am blameless. _I_ never sold her happiness to gratify my
avarice. If she has become what Enoch's child was, the sin does not lie at
_my_ door. I don't know how it is with _you_.'