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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
                VOL. XXX.      March, 1847.      No. 3.


                           Table of Contents

                    Fiction, Literature and Articles

          Thomas Carlyle and His Works
          Law and Love. Or Gaining a Case.
          My Aunt Fabbins’s Old Garret
          Game-Birds of America.—No. V.
          Singleton Snippe. Who Married for a Living
          The Oath of Marion
          Life in New York. A Sketch of a Literary Soiree
          The Islets of the Gulf. Or, Rose Budd.
          Old Maids. Or Kate Wilson’s Morning Visit.
          American Indians
          Review of New Books

                           Poetry and Fashion

          Song
          The Midshipman’s Farewell
          A Prayer
          Heart Struggles
          Fanny
          Lines
          The Love Dial
          The Brickmaker
          To Mrs. A. T.
          Le Follet

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

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[Illustration: drawn by J. Smillie from a sketch by T. Addison Richards
  Graham's Magazine 1844.       Eng^d by Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie
FALLS OF THE TOWALAGA]

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                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

          VOL. XXX.     PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1847.     NO. 3.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     THOMAS CARLYLE AND HIS WORKS.


                          BY HENRY D. THOREAU.


Thomas Carlyle is a Scotchman, born about fifty years ago, “at
Ecclefechan, Annandale,” according to one authority. “His parents ‘good
farmer people,’ his father an elder in the Secession church there, and a
man of strong native sense, whose words were said to ‘nail a subject to
the wall.’” We also hear of his “excellent mother,” still alive, and of
“her fine old covenanting accents, concerting with his transcendental
tones.” He seems to have gone to school at Annan, on the shore of the
Solway Firth, and there, as he himself writes, “heard of famed
professors, of high matters classical, mathematical, a whole Wonderland
of Knowledge,” from Edward Irving, then a young man “fresh from
Edinburgh, with college prizes, &c.”—“come to see our schoolmaster, who
had also been his.” From this place, they say, you can look over into
Wordsworth’s country. Here first he may have become acquainted with
Nature, with woods, such as are there, and rivers and brooks, some of
whose names we have heard, and the last lapses of Atlantic billows. He
got some of his education, too, more or less liberal, out of the
University of Edinburgh, where, according to the same authority, he had
to “support himself,” partly by “private tuition, translations for the
booksellers, &c.,” and afterward, as we are glad to hear, “taught an
academy in Dysart, at the same time that Irving was teaching in
Kirkaldy,” the usual middle passage of a literary life. He was destined
for the church, but not by the powers that rule man’s life; made his
literary début in Fraser’s Magazine, long ago; read here and there in
English and French, with more or less profit, we may suppose, such of us
at least as are not particularly informed, and at length found some
words which spoke to his condition in the German language, and set
himself earnestly to unravel that mystery—with what success many
readers know.

After his marriage he “resided partly at Comely Bank, Edinburgh; and for
a year or two at Craigenputtock, a wild and solitary farm-house in the
upper part of Dumfriesshire,” at which last place, amid barren heather
hills, he was visited by our countryman Emerson. With Emerson he still
corresponds. He was early intimate with Edward Irving, and continued to
be his friend until the latter’s death. Concerning this “freest,
brotherliest, bravest human soul,” and Carlyle’s relation to him, those
whom it concerns will do well to consult a notice of his death in
Fraser’s Magazine for 1835, reprinted in the Miscellanies. He also
corresponded with Goethe. Latterly, we hear, the poet Stirling was his
only intimate acquaintance in England.

He has spent the last quarter of his life in London, writing books; has
the fame, as all readers know, of having made England acquainted with
Germany, in late years, and done much else that is novel and remarkable
in literature. He especially is the literary man of those parts. You may
imagine him living in altogether a retired and simple way, with small
family, in a quiet part of London, called Chelsea, a little out of the
din of commerce, in “Cheyne Row,” there, not far from the “Chelsea
Hospital.” “A little past this, and an old ivy-clad church, with its
buried generations lying around it,” writes one traveler, “you come to
an antique street running at right angles with the Thames, and, a few
steps from the river, you find Carlyle’s name on the door.”

“A Scotch lass ushers you into the second story front chamber, which is
the spacious workshop of the world maker.” Here he sits a long time
together, with many books and papers about him; many new books, we have
been told, on the upper shelves, uncut, with the “author’s respects” in
them; in late months, with many manuscripts in an old English hand, and
innumerable pamphlets, from the public libraries, relating to the
Cromwellian period; now, perhaps, looking out into the street on brick
and pavement, for a change, and now upon some rod of grass ground in the
rear; or, perchance, he steps over to the British Museum, and makes that
his studio for the time. This is the fore part of the day; that is the
way with literary men commonly; and then in the afternoon, we presume,
he takes a short run of a mile or so through the suburbs out into the
country; we think he would run that way, though so short a trip might
not take him to very sylvan or rustic places. In the meanwhile, people
are calling to _see_ him, from various quarters, very few worthy of
being _seen_ by him, “distinguished travelers from America,” not a few,
to all and sundry of whom he gives freely of his yet unwritten rich and
flashing soliloquy, in exchange for whatever they may have to offer;
speaking his English, as they say, with a “broad Scotch accent,”
talking, to their astonishment and to ours, very much as he writes, a
sort of Carlylese, his discourse “coming to its climaxes, ever and anon,
in long, deep, chest-shaking bursts of laughter.”

He goes to Scotland sometimes to visit his native heath-clad hills,
having some interest still in the earth there; such names as
Craigenputtock and Ecclefechan, which we have already quoted, stand for
habitable places there to him; or he rides to the seacoast of England in
his vacations, upon his horse Yankee, bought by the sale of his books
here, as we have been told.

How, after all, he gets his living; what proportion of his daily bread
he earns by day-labor or job-work with his pen, what he inherits, what
steals—questions whose answers are so significant, and not to be
omitted in his biography—we, alas! are unable to answer here. It may be
worth the while to state that he is not a Reformer, in our sense of the
term, eats, drinks, and sleeps, thinks and believes, professes and
practices, not according to the New England standard, nor to the Old
English wholly. Nevertheless, we are told that he is a sort of lion in
certain quarters there, “an amicable centre for men of the most opposite
opinions,” and “listened to as an oracle,” “smoking his perpetual pipe.”

A rather tall, gaunt figure, with intent face, dark hair and complexion,
and the air of a student; not altogether well in body, from sitting too
long in his workhouse, he, born in the border country and descended from
moss-troopers, it may be. We have seen several pictures of him here;
one, a full length portrait, with hat and overall, if it did not tell us
much, told the fewest lies; another, we remember, was well said to have
“too combed a look;” one other also we have seen in which we discern
some features of the man we are thinking of; but the only ones worth
remembering, after all, are those which he has unconsciously drawn of
himself.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When we remember how these volumes came over to us, with their
encouragement and provocation from mouth to mouth, and what commotion
they created in many private breasts, we wonder that the country did not
ring, from shore to shore, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with its
greeting; and the Boons and Crockets of the West make haste to hail him,
whose wide humanity embraces them too. Of all that the packets have
brought over to us, has there been any richer cargo than this? What else
has been English news for so long a season? What else, of late years,
has been England to us—to us who read books, we mean? Unless we
remembered it as the scene where the age of Wordsworth was spending
itself, and a few younger muses were trying their wings, and from time
to time, as the residence of Landon; Carlyle alone, since the death of
Coleridge, has kept the promise of England. It is the best apology for
all the bustle and the sin of commerce, that it has made us acquainted
with the thoughts of this man. Commerce would not concern us much if it
were not for such results as this. New England owes him a debt which she
will be slow to recognize. His earlier essays reached us at a time when
Coleridge’s were the only recent words which had made any notable
impression so far, and they found a field unoccupied by him, before yet
any words of moment had been uttered in our midst. He had this
advantage, too, in a teacher, that he stood near to his pupils; and he
has no doubt afforded reasonable encouragement and sympathy to many an
independent but solitary thinker. Through him, as usher, we have been
latterly, in a great measure, made acquainted with what philosophy and
criticism the nineteenth century had to offer—admitted, so to speak, to
the privileges of the century; and what he may yet have to say, is still
expected here with more interest than any thing else from that quarter.

It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that
the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who
comes to our shores, is likely to get more dinners and speeches of
welcome than he can well dispose of, but the best books, if noticed at
all, meet with coldness and suspicion, or, what is worse, gratuitous,
off-hand criticism. It is plain that the reviewers, both here and
abroad, do not know how to dispose of this man. They approach him too
easily, as if he were one of the men of letters about town, who grace
Mr. Somebody’s administration, merely; but he already belongs to
literature, and depends neither on the favor of reviewers, nor the
honesty of book-sellers, nor the pleasure of readers for his success. He
has more to impart than to receive from his generation. He is another
such a strong and finished workman in his craft as Samuel Johnson was,
and like him, makes the literary class respectable. As few are yet out
of their apprenticeship, or even if they learn to be able writers, are
at the same time able and valuable thinkers. The aged and critical eye,
especially, is incapacitated to appreciate the works of this author. To
such their meaning is impalpable and evanescent, and they seem to abound
only in obstinate mannerisms, Germanisms, and whimsical ravings of all
kinds, with now and then an unaccountably true and sensible remark. On
the strength of this last, Carlyle is admitted to have what is called
genius. We hardly know an old man to whom these volumes are not
hopelessly sealed. The language, they say, is foolishness and a
stumbling-block to them; but to many a clear-headed boy, they are
plainest English, and despatched with such hasty relish as his bread and
milk. The fathers wonder how it is that the children take to this diet
so readily, and digest it with so little difficulty. They shake their
heads with mistrust at their free and easy delight, and remark that “Mr.
Carlyle is a very learned man;” for they, too, not to be out of fashion,
have got grammar and dictionary, if the truth were known, and with the
best faith cudgelled their brains to get a little way into the jungle,
and they could not but confess, as often as they found the clue, that it
was as intricate as Blackstone to follow, if you read it honestly. But
merely reading, even with the best intentions, is not enough, you must
almost have written these books yourself. Only he who has had the good
fortune to read them in the nick of time, in the most perceptive and
recipient season of life, can give any adequate account of them.

Many have tasted of this well with an odd suspicion, as if it were some
fountain Arethuse which had flowed under the sea from Germany, as if the
materials of his books had lain in some garret there, in danger of being
appropriated for waste paper. Over what German ocean, from what
Hercynian forest, he has been imported, piece-meal, into England, or
whether he has now all arrived, we are not informed. This article is not
invoiced in Hamburg, nor in London. Perhaps it was contraband. However,
we suspect that this sort of goods cannot be imported in this way. No
matter how skillful the stevedore, all things being got into sailing
trim, wait for a Sunday, and aft wind, and then weigh anchor, and run up
the main-sheet—straightway what of transcendant and permanent value is
there resists the aft wind, and will doggedly stay behind that
Sunday—it does not travel Sundays; while biscuit and pork make headway,
and sailors cry heave-yo! it must part company, if it open a seam. It is
not quite safe to send out a venture in this kind, unless yourself go
supercargo. Where a man goes, there he is; but the slightest virtue is
immovable—it is real estate, not personal; who would keep it, must
consent to be bought and sold with it.

However, we need not dwell on this charge of a German extraction, it
being generally admitted, by this time, that Carlyle is English, and an
inhabitant of London. He has the English for his mother tongue, though
with a Scotch accent, or never so many accents, and thoughts also, which
are the legitimate growth of native soil, to utter therewith. His style
is eminently colloquial—and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a
book. It is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry,
nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversation
endlessly repeated. It resounds with emphatic, natural, lively, stirring
tones, muttering, rattling, exploding, like shells and shot, and with
like execution. So far as it is a merit in composition, that the written
answer to the spoken word, and the spoken word to a fresh and pertinent
thought in the mind, as well as to the half thoughts, the tumultuary
misgivings and expectancies, this author is, perhaps, not to be matched
in literature. In the streets men laugh and cry, but in books, never;
they “whine, put finger i’ the eye, and sob” only. One would think that
all books of late, had adopted the felling inflexion. “A mother, if she
wishes to sing her child to sleep,” say the musical men, “will always
adopt the falling inflexion.” Would they but choose the rising
inflexion, and wake the child up for once.

He is no mystic either, more than Newton or Arkwright, or Davy—and
tolerates none. Not one obscure line, or half line, did he ever write.
His meaning lies plain as the daylight, and he who runs may read;
indeed, only he who runs _can_ read, and keep up with the meaning. It
has the distinctness of picture to his mind, and he tells us only what
he sees printed in largest English type upon the face of things. He
utters substantial English thoughts in plainest English dialects; for it
must be confessed, he speaks more than one of these. All the shires of
England, and all the shires of Europe, are laid under contribution to
his genius; for to be English does not mean to be exclusive and narrow,
and adapt one’s self to the apprehension of his nearest neighbor only.
And yet no writer is more thoroughly Saxon. In the translation of those
fragments of Saxon poetry, we have met with the same rhythm that occurs
so often in his poem on the French Revolution. And if you would know
where many of those obnoxious Carlyleisms and Germanisms came from, read
the best of Milton’s prose, read those speeches of Cromwell which he has
brought to light, or go and listen once more to your mother’s tongue. So
much for his German extraction.

Indeed, for fluency and skill in the use of the English tongue, he is a
master unrivaled. His felicity and power of expression surpass even any
of his special merits as a historian and critic. Therein his experience
has not failed him, but furnished him with such a store of winged, aye,
and legged words, as only a London life, perchance, could give account
of; we had not understood the wealth of the language before. Nature is
ransacked, and all the resorts and purlieus of humanity are taxed, to
furnish the fittest symbol for his thought. He does not go to the
dictionary, the word-book, but to the word-manufactory itself, and has
made endless work for the lexicographers—yes, he has that same English
for his mother-tongue, that you have, but with him it is no dumb,
muttering, mumbling faculty, concealing the thoughts, but a keen,
unwearied, resistless weapon. He has such command of it as neither you
nor I have; and it would be well for any who have a lost horse to
advertise, or a town-meeting warrant, or a sermon, or a letter to write,
to study this universal letter-writer, for he knows more than the
grammar or the dictionary.

The style is worth attending to, as one of the most important features
of the man which we at this distance can discern. It is for once quite
equal to the matter. It can carry all its load, and never breaks down
nor staggers. His books are solid and workmanlike, as all that England
does; and they are graceful and readable also. They tell of huge labor
done, well done, and all the rubbish swept away, like the bright cutlery
which glitters in shop-windows, while the coke and ashes, the turnings,
filings, dust, and borings, lie far away at Birmingham, unheard of. He
is a masterly clerk, scribe, reporter, and writer. He can reduce to
writing most things—gestures, winks, nods, significant looks, patois,
brogue, accent, pantomime, and how much that had passed for silence
before, does he represent by written words. The countryman who puzzled
the city lawyer, requiring him to write, among other things, his call to
his horses, would hardly have puzzled him; he would have found a word
for it, all right and classical, that would have started his team for
him. Consider the ceaseless tide of speech forever flowing in countless
cellars, garrets, _parlors_; that of the French, says Carlyle, “only
ebbs toward the short hours of night,” and what a drop in the bucket is
the printed word. Feeling, thought, speech, writing, and we might add,
poetry, inspiration—for so the circle is completed; how they gradually
dwindle at length, passing through successive colanders, into your
history and classics, from the roar of the ocean, the murmur of the
forest, to the squeak of a mouse; so much only parsed and spelt out, and
punctuated, at last. The few who can talk like a book, they only get
reported commonly. But this writer reports a new “Lieferung.”

One wonders how so much, after all, was expressed in the old way, so
much here depends upon the emphasis, tone, pronunciation, style, and
spirit of the reading. No writer uses so profusely all the aids to
intelligibility which the printer’s art affords. You wonder how others
had contrived to write so many pages without emphatic or italicised
words, they are so expressive, so natural, so indispensable here, as if
none had ever used the demonstrative pronouns demonstratively before. In
another’s sentences the thought, though it may be immortal, is, as it
were, embalmed, and does not _strike_ you, but here it is so freshly
living, even the body of it, not having passed through the ordeal of
death, that it stirs in the very extremities, and the smallest particles
and pronouns are all alive with it. It is not simple dictionary _it_,
yours or mine, but IT. The words did not come at the command of grammar,
but of a tyrannous, inexorable meaning; not like standing soldiers, by
vote of parliament, but any able-bodied countryman pressed into the
service, for “sire, it is not a revolt, it is a revolution.”

We have never heard him speak, but we should say that Carlyle was a rare
talker. He has broken the ice, and streams freely forth like a spring
torrent. He does not trace back the stream of his thought, silently
adventurous, up to its fountain-head, but is borne away with it, as it
rushes through his brain like a torrent to overwhelm and fertilize. He
holds a talk with you. His audience is such a tumultuous mob of thirty
thousand, as assembled at the University of Paris, before printing was
invented. Philosophy, on the other hand, does not talk, but write, or,
when it comes personally before an audience, lecture or read; and
therefore it must be read to-morrow, or a thousand years hence. But the
talker must naturally be attended to at once; he does not talk on
without an audience; the winds do not long bear the sound of his voice.
Think of Carlyle reading his French Revolution to any audience. One
might say it was never written, but spoken; and thereafter reported and
printed, that those not within sound of his voice might know something
about it. Some men read to you something which they have written, in a
dead _language_, of course, but it may be in a living _letter_, in a
Syriac, or Roman, or Runic character. Men must _speak_ English who can
_write_ Sanscrit; and they must speak a modern language who write,
perchance, an ancient and universal one. We do not live in those days
when the learned used a learned language. There is no writing of Latin
with Carlyle, but as Chaucer, with all reverence to Homer, and Virgil,
and Messieurs the Normans, sung his poetry in the homely Saxon tongue;
and Locke has at least the merit of having done philosophy into
English—so Carlyle has done a different philosophy still further into
English, and thrown open the doors of literature and criticism to the
populace.

Such a style—so diversified and variegated! It is like the face of a
country; it is like a New England landscape, with farm-houses and
villages, and cultivated spots, and belts of forests and
blueberry-swamps round about it, with the fragrance of shad-blossoms and
violets on certain winds. And as for the reading of it, it is novel
enough to the reader who has used only the diligence, and old-line
mail-coach. It is like traveling, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a gig
tandem; sometimes in a full coach, over highways, mended and unmended,
for which you will prosecute the town; on level roads, through French
departments, by Simplon roads over the Alps, and now and then he hauls
up for a relay, and yokes in an unbroken colt of a Pegasus for a leader,
driving off by cart-paths, and across lots, by corduroy roads and
gridiron bridges; and where the bridges are gone, not even a
string-piece left, and the reader has to set his breast and swim. You
have got an expert driver this time, who has driven ten thousand miles,
and was never known to upset; can drive six in hand on the edge of a
precipice, and touch the leaders anywhere with his snapper.

With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods
and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter.
Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility,
setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all
his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts
down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle,
is ready to defend in the face of the world, and fathers the rest, often
quite as defensible, only more modest, or plain spoken, or insinuating,
upon “Sauerteig,” or some other gentleman long employed on the subject.
Rolling his subject how many ways in his mind, he meets it now face to
face, wrestling with it at arm’s length, and striving to get it down, or
throws it over his head; and if that will not do, or whether it will do
or not, tries the back-stitch and side-hug with it, and downs it
again—scalps it, draws and quarters it, hangs it in chains, and leaves
it to the winds and dogs. With his brows knit, his mind made up, his
will resolved and resistless, he advances, crashing his way through the
host of weak, half-formed, _dilettante_ opinions, honest and dishonest
ways of thinking, with their standards raised, sentimentalities and
conjectures, and tramples them all into dust. See how he prevails; you
don’t even hear the groans of the wounded and dying. Certainly it is not
so well worth the while to look through any man’s eyes at history, for
the time, as through his; and his way of looking at things is fastest
getting adopted by his generation.

It is not in man to determine what his style shall be. He might as well
determine what his thoughts shall be. We would not have had him write
always as in the chapter on Burns, and the Life of Schiller, and
elsewhere. No; his thoughts were ever irregular and impetuous. Perhaps
as he grows older and writes more he acquires a truer expression; it is
in some respects manlier, freer, struggling up to a level with its
fountain-head. We think it is the richest prose style we know of.

Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible—as intelligible
as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the
_stylus_, the pen he writes with—and it is not worth scraping and
polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for
it. It is something for use, and not to look at. The question for us is
not whether Pope had a fine style, wrote with a peacock’s feather, but
whether he uttered useful thoughts. Translate a book a dozen times from
one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would
be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon
destroyed, but the poem survives. We believe that Carlyle has, after
all, more readers, and is better known to-day for this very originality
of style, and that posterity will have reason to thank him for
emancipating the language, in some measure, from the fetters which a
merely conservative, aimless, and pedantic literary class had imposed
upon it, and setting an example of greater freedom and naturalness. No
man’s thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never
failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men. If we were to answer the
question, whether the mass of men, as we know them, talk as the standard
authors and reviewers write, or rather as this man writes, we should say
that he alone begins to write their language at all, and that the former
is, for the most part, the mere effigies of a language, not the best
method of concealing one’s thoughts even, but frequently a method of
doing without thoughts at all.

In his graphic description of Richter’s style, Carlyle describes his own
pretty nearly; and no doubt he first got his own tongue loosened at that
fountain, and was inspired by it to equal freedom and originality. “The
language,” as he says of Richter, “groans with indescribable metaphors
and allusions to all things, human and divine, flowing onward, not like
a river, but like an inundation; circling in complex eddies, chafing and
gurgling, now this way, now that;” but in Carlyle, “the proper current”
never “sinks out of sight amid the boundless uproar.” Again: “His very
language is Titanian—deep, strong, tumultuous, shining with a thousand
hues, fused from a thousand elements, and winding in labyrinthic mazes.”

In short, if it is desirable that a man be eloquent, that he talk much,
and address himself to his own age mainly, then this is not a bad style
of doing it. But if it is desired rather that he pioneer into unexplored
regions of thought, and speaks to silent centuries to come, then,
indeed, we could wish that he had cultivated the style of Goethe more,
that of Richter less; not that Goethe’s is the kind of utterance most to
be prized by mankind, but it will serve for a model of the best that can
be successfully cultivated.

                 *        *        *        *        *

But for style, and fine writing, and Augustan ages—that is but a poor
style, and vulgar writing, and a degenerate age, which allows us to
remember these things. This man has something to communicate. Carlyle’s
are not, in the common sense, works of art in their origin and aim; and
yet, perhaps, no living English writer evinces an equal literary talent.
They are such works of art only as the plough, and corn-mill, and
steam-engine—not as pictures and statues. Others speak with greater
emphasis to scholars, as such, but none so earnestly and effectually to
all who can read. Others give their advice, he gives his sympathy also.
It is no small praise that he does not take upon himself the airs, has
none of the whims, none of the pride, the nice vulgarities, the
starched, impoverished isolation, and cold glitter of the spoiled
children of genius. He does not need to husband his pearl, but excels by
a greater humanity and sincerity.

He is singularly serious and untrivial. We are every where impressed by
the rugged, unwearied, and rich sincerity of the man. We are sure that
he never sacrificed one jot of his honest thought to art or whim, but to
utter himself in the most direct and effectual way, that is the
endeavor. These are merits which will wear well. When time has worn
deeper into the substance of these books, this grain will appear. No
such sermons have come to us here out of England, in late years, as
those of this preacher; sermons to kings, and sermons to peasants, and
sermons to all intermediate classes. It is in vain that John Bull, or
any of his cousins, turns a deaf ear, and pretends not to hear them,
nature will not soon be weary of repeating them. There are words less
obviously true, more for the ages to hear, perhaps, but none so
impossible for this age not to hear. What a cutting cimiter was that
“past and present,” going through heaps of silken stuffs, and glibly
through the necks of men, too, without their knowing it, leaving no
trace. He has the earnestness of a prophet. In an age of pedantry and
dilettantism, he has no grain of these in his composition. There is no
where else, surely, in recent readable English, or other books, such
direct and effectual teaching, reproving, encouraging, stimulating,
earnestly, vehemently, almost like Mahomet, like Luther; not looking
behind him to see how his _Opera Omnia_ will look, but forward to other
work to be done. His writings are a gospel to the young of this
generation; they will hear his manly, brotherly speech with responsive
joy, and press forward to older or newer gospels.

                 *        *        *        *        *

We should omit a main attraction in these books, if we said nothing of
their humor. Of this indispensable pledge of sanity, without some
leaven, of which the abstruse thinker may justly be suspected of
mysticism, fanaticism, or insanity, there is a super-abundance in
Carlyle. Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of
humor to render it light and digestible. In his later and longer works
it is an unfailing accompaniment, reverberating through pages and
chapters, long sustained without effort. The very punctuation, the
italics, the quotation marks, the blank spaces and dashes, and the
capitals, each and all are pressed into its service.

Every man, of course, has his fane, from which even the most innocent
conscious humor is excluded; but in proportion as the writer’s position
is high above his fellows, the range of his humor is extended. To the
thinker, all the institutions of men, as all imperfection, viewed from
the point of equanimity, are legitimate subjects of humor. Whatever is
not necessary, no matter how sad or personal, or universal a grievance,
is, indeed, a jest more or less sublime.

Carlyle’s humor is vigorous and Titanic, and has more sense in it than
the sober philosophy of many another. It is not to be disposed of by
laughter and smiles merely; it gets to be too serious for that—only
they may laugh who are not hit by it. For those who love a merry jest,
this is a strange kind of fun—rather too practical joking, if they
understand it. The pleasant humor which the public loves, is but the
innocent pranks of the ball-room, harmless flow of animal spirits, the
light plushy pressure of dandy pumps, in comparison. But when an
elephant takes to treading on your corns, why then you are lucky if you
sit high, or wear cowhide. His humor is always subordinate to a serious
purpose, though often the real charm for the reader, is not so much in
the essential progress and final upshot of the chapter, as in this
indirect side-light illustration of every hue. He sketches first with
strong, practical English pencil, the essential features in outline,
black on white, more faithfully than Dryasdust would have done, telling
us wisely whom and what to mark, to save time, and then with brush of
camel’s hair, or sometimes with more expeditious swab, he lays on the
bright and fast colors of his humor everywhere. One piece of solid work,
be it known, we have determined to do, about which let there be no
jesting, but all things else under the heavens, to the right and left of
that, are for the time fair game. To us this humor is not wearisome, as
almost every other is. Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one
chapter is better than a volume—it may be sport to him, but it is death
to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers
are most unhappy also.

Humor is not so distinct a quality as for the purposes of criticism, it
is commonly regarded, but allied to every, even the divinest faculty.
The familiar and cheerful conversation about every hearth-side, if it be
analyzed, will be found to be sweetened by this principle. There is not
only a never-failing, pleasant, and earnest humor kept up there,
embracing the domestic affairs, the dinner, and the scolding, but there
is also a constant run upon the neighbors, and upon church and state,
and to cherish and maintain this, in a great measure, the fire is kept
burning, and the dinner provided. There will be neighbors, parties to a
very genuine, even romantic friendship, whose whole audible salutation
and intercourse, abstaining from the usual cordial expressions, grasping
of hands, or affectionate farewells, consists in the mutual play and
interchange of a genial and healthy humor, which excepts nothing, not
even themselves, in its lawless range. The child plays continually, if
you will let it, and all its life is a sort of practical humor of a very
pure kind, often of so fine and ethereal a nature, that its parents, its
uncles and cousins, can in no wise participate in it, but must stand
aloof in silent admiration, and reverence even. The more quiet the more
profound it is. Even nature is observed to have her playful moods or
aspects, of which man seems sometimes to be the sport.

But, after all, we could sometimes dispense with the humor, though
unquestionably incorporated in the blood, if it were replaced by this
author’s gravity. We should not apply to himself, without qualification,
his remarks on the humor of Richter. With more repose in his inmost
being, his humor would become more thoroughly genial and placid. Humor
is apt to imply but a half satisfaction at best. In his pleasantest and
most genial hour, man smiles but as the globe smiles, and the works of
nature. The fruits _dry_ ripe, and much as we relish some of them, in
their green and pulpy state, we lay up for our winter store, not out of
these, but the rustling autumnal harvests. Though we never weary of this
vivacious wit, while we are perusing its work, yet when we remember it
from afar, we sometimes feel balked and disappointed, missing the
security, the simplicity, and frankness, even the occasional magnanimity
of acknowledged dullness and bungling. This never-failing success and
brilliant talent become a reproach. To the most practical reader the
humor is certainly too obvious and constant a quality. When we are to
have dealings with a man, we prize the good faith and valor of soberness
and gravity. There is always a more impressive statement than consists
with these victorious comparisons. Besides, humor does not wear well. It
is commonly enough said, that a joke will not bear repeating. The
deepest humor will not keep. Humors do not circulate but stagnate, or
circulate partially. In the oldest literature, in the Hebrew, the
Hindoo, the Persian, the Chinese, it is rarely humor, even the most
divine, which still survives, but the most sober and private, painful or
joyous thoughts, maxims of duty, to which the life of all men may be
referred. After time has sifted the literature of a people, there is
left only their SCRIPTURE, for that is WRITING, _par excellence_. This
is as true of the poets, as of the philosophers and moralists by
profession; for what subsides in any of these is the moral only, to
re-appear as dry land at some remote epoch.

We confess that Carlyle’s humor is rich, deep, and variegated, in direct
communication with the back bone and risible muscles of the globe—and
there is nothing like it; but much as we relish this jovial, this rapid
and detergeous way of conveying one’s views and impressions, when we
would not converse but meditate, we pray for a man’s diamond edition of
his thought, without the colored illuminations in the margin—the fishes
and dragons, and unicorns, the red or the blue ink, but its initial
letter in distinct skeleton type, and the whole so clipped and condensed
down to the very essence of it, that time will have little to do. We
know not but we shall immigrate soon, and would fain take with us all
the treasures of the east, and all kinds of _dry_, portable soups, in
small tin canisters, which contain whole herds of English beeves, boiled
down, will be acceptable.

The difference between this flashing, fitful writing and pure
philosophy, is the difference between flame and light. The flame,
indeed, yields light, but when we are so near as to observe the flame,
we are apt to be incommoded by the heat and smoke. But the sun, that old
Platonist, is set so far off in the heavens, that only a genial
summer-heat and ineffable day-light can reach us. But many a time, we
confess, in wintery weather, we have been glad to forsake the sun-light,
and warm us by these Promethean flames.

Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not
only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it. He has a style
which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself. Every
man, though born and bred in the metropolis of the world, will still
have some provincialism adhering to him; but in proportion as his aim is
simple and earnest, he approaches at once the most ancient and the most
modern men. There is no mannerism in the Scriptures. The style of
proverbs, and indeed of all _maxims_, whether measured by sentences or
by chapters, if they may be said to have any style, is one, and as the
expression of one voice, merely an account of the matter by the latest
witness. It is one advantage enjoyed by men of science, that they use
only formulas which are universal. The common language and the common
sense of mankind, it is most uncommon to meet with in the individual.
Yet liberty of thought and speech is only liberty to think the universal
thought, and speak the universal language of men, instead of being
enslaved to a particular mode. Of this universal speech there is very
little. It is equable and sure; from a depth within man which is beyond
education and prejudice.

Certainly, no critic has anywhere said what is more to the purpose, than
this which Carlyle’s own writings furnish, which we quote, as well for
its intrinsic merit as for its pertinence here. “It is true,” says he,
thinking of Richter, “the beaten paths of literature lead the safeliest
to the goal; and the talent pleases us most, which submits to shine with
new gracefulness through old forms. Nor is the noblest and most peculiar
mind too noble or peculiar for working by prescribed laws; Sophocles,
Shakspeare, Cervantes, and in Richter’s own age, Goethe, how little did
they innovate on the given forms of composition, how much in the spirit
they breathed into them! All this is true; and Richter must lose of our
esteem in proportion.” And again, in the chapter on Goethe, “We read
Goethe for years before we come to see wherein the distinguishing
peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of
writing, consists! It seems quite a simple style, [that of his?]
remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short, its
commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles.” And this,
too, translated for us by the same pen from Schiller, which we will
apply not merely to the outward form of his works, but to their inner
form and substance. He is speaking of the artist. “Let some beneficent
divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and
nurse him with the milk of a better time, that he may ripen to his full
stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to manhood, let
him return, a foreign shape, into his century; not, however, to delight
it by his presence, but, dreadful, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify
it. The matter of his works he will take from the present, but their
form he will derive from a nobler time; nay, from beyond all time, from
the absolute unchanging unity of his own nature.”

But enough of this. Our complaint is already out of all proportion to
our discontent.

Carlyle’s works, it is true, have not the stereotyped success which we
call classic. They are a rich but inexpensive entertainment, at which we
are not concerned lest the host has strained or impoverished himself to
feed his guests. It is not the most lasting word, nor the loftiest
wisdom, but rather the word which comes last. For his genius it was
reserved to give expression to the thoughts which were throbbing in a
million breasts. He has plucked the ripest fruit in the public garden;
but this fruit already least concerned the tree that bore it, which was
rather perfecting the bud at the foot of the leaf stalk. His works are
not to be studied, but read with a swift satisfaction. Their flavor and
gust is like what poets tell of the froth of wine, which can only be
tasted once and hastily. On a review we can never find the pages we had
read. The first impression is the truest and the deepest, and there is
no reprint, no _double entendre_, so to speak, for the alert reader. Yet
they are in some degree true natural products in this respect. All
things are but once, and never repeated. The first faint blushes of the
morning, gilding the mountain tops, the pale phosphor and
saffron-colored clouds do verily transport us to the morning of
creation; but what avails it to travel eastward, or look again there an
hour hence? We should be as far in the day ourselves, mounting toward
our meridian. These works were designed for such complete success that
they serve but for a single occasion. It is the luxury of art, when its
own instrument is manufactured for each particular and present use. The
knife which slices the bread of Jove ceases to be a knife when this
service is rendered.

                                           [_Conclusion in our next._

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 SONG.


                       BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.


    These prairies glow with flowers,
      These groves are tall and fair;
    The mocking-bird with music fills
      The fragrant morning air.
    And yet I pine to see
      My native hill once more,
    And hear the sparrow’s friendly chirp
      Beside its cottage door.

    And he for whom I left
      My native hill and brook,
    Alas! I sometimes think I trace
      A coldness in his look.
    If I have lost his love,
      I know my heart will break;
    And haply they I left for him
      Will sorrow for my sake.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                       THE MIDSHIPMAN’S FAREWELL.


                       BY MRS. CORNELIA DA PONTE.


    When slumber seals those heavenly eyes,
      And dreams of rapture round thee glow,
    When angels watch, for angels love
      To guard the pure from ills below,
    Mine in that hour must keep the watch
      Alone upon the midnight sea,
    As winds and waves with hated speed
      Bear me away from home and thee.

    Yes, mine shall fix their silent gaze,
      Nor shrink if danger hover near;
    This hand that trembles now in thine,
      Must grasp the sword without a fear;
    And for the music of thy voice,
      The stormy wave with shout of men,
    For whispers soft, words stern and cold
      Must be the sounds that hail me then.

    The hour has come, fresh blows the gale,
      Our ship moves down yon tide afar,
    Away, away beyond that tide
      Thy image follows as a star;
    Farewell to thee, farewell to all,
      My native land and skies above;
    O who will greet the wanderer now
      With soothing words or smiles of love?

    Remember me, ’tis all I ask,
      When others gaze, when others sigh,
    When others plead with bending knee,
      And drink the beauty of thine eye,
    Remember then, for e’en in dreams,
      Though bright they come, this heart shall weep,
    My thirsting spirit vainly seek
      Thy image on the lonely deep.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             LAW AND LOVE.


                           OR GAINING A CASE.


                           BY ICHABOD JONES.


“So, Oliver, you have a case with which to commence your career at the
bar?”

“Yes, thanks to Uncle Scott, I have.”

“And will you allow me to ask what it is?”

“Well, to tell you that, I must first know myself. I believe it to be in
relation to a contested will, but as to the particulars you are as wise
as I.”

“A will case, eh! I have heard old lawyers say they were the best of
cases, as far as fee is concerned.”

“To-morrow I am to have an interview with my client. My uncle gave such
a glowing description of her that he has quite raised my curiosity.”

“A lady for a client! why that’s better yet. By the bye, Oliver, you
seem somewhat indifferent to the divine sex; and yet you have a warm
heart.”

“For friendship, James, but how can I think of love, the owner of the
six chairs, book-case and table you see, and nothing but my profession
to rely on for the future. Love never flourishes in so stern a climate.”

“We have the best authority for knowing that it lives through the
fiercest tempest, as well as under the beautiful skies of Italy. What do
you think, Oliver, of a rich wife?”

“I think such advice comes very badly from you. Let me ask in turn why
you are about to connect yourself with a penniless girl, when you might
win the greatest fortune in town.”

This question came to the point, but it received no other answer than a
light laugh as the young man turned on his heel to go.

“Well, Oliver, I wish you great success in the cause of this lovely
client. Good day,” said he, in the gleeful tone of a heart free from
care. And, indeed, if this could be the condition of any mortal in this
care-worn world, it was that of James Ashly. Thus far in life his path
had been strewn with flowers, and in the horizon of the future no clouds
were visible. The son of an opulent merchant, endowed by nature with a
good mind, and possessing in a rare degree that animation only to be
acquired by intercourse with gay society, he was an unusual favorite
with those in whose company he mingled, especially the fairer portion,
whose gentle hearts are ever gracious, to that easy air and manner, too
much neglected by their fancied lords and superiors. But he joined with
these superficial graces of address, a cultivated intellect, stored with
much useful information, which are so seldom united as to be deemed
inconsistent, if not antagonistical. By the latter he retained all the
good will and esteem which by the former he gained.

In his extensive acquaintance no friend was more valued than Oliver
Barton, a young lawyer, in whose office the above conversation occurred,
and whose fortune consisted of little more than a well-furnished mind
and generous heart—a kind of wealth little appreciated in this
matter-of-fact world. He had been educated by a maternal uncle, who
rejoiced in the name of Scott, and having made choice of the legal
profession, was fitted in due course for the bar. In the maiden speech
he delivered, shortly after his admission, he gave promise of future
eminence and distinction. Unlike his friend, he was reserved and
somewhat diffident, but his intrinsic worth and handsome form won favor
and respect by less striking, but equally certain means. It was only
when well known that those nice shades of merit, which so permanently
recommend their possessor, could be discovered in his character. His
prominent forehead and rather heavy brow gave a slight shade of
melancholy to his countenance, but their intellectual expression,
increased by the steady light of a dark eye, commanded admiration. When
he smiled a row of glistening teeth revealed themselves, and his
features were lit up with a life and joy rendered more striking by their
usual thoughtful repose.


                              CHAPTER II.

The next day Oliver Barton proceeded to his office at an earlier hour
than usual; so early indeed that most of those adjoining were still
closed. Being of a meditative turn of mind, and even inclined to
castle-building, this era of his life afforded much subject for thought.
“If I succeed,” thought he, “it will be the commencement of an extensive
practice.” Forthwith, upon this contingency, he proceeded to erect a
magnificent superstructure in the air, which was finally blown away by
it occurring to him that he might _not_ succeed. Unwilling to
contemplate this side of the picture, and remembering his client was a
lady, he took from the table before him “Chesterfield’s Letters,” in
hopes of finding something there both useful and entertaining.

Notwithstanding the agreeable wit and advice of his lordship, the hours
passed heavily. At last in came Uncle Scott, a little, genteel-looking
person, in tight pantaloons and well-brushed coat, carrying his
ivory-headed cane under his arm. He looked the very personification of a
precise old bachelor, who had lived in the great world and grown wise by
experience.

“Here I am, according to appointment,” said he, pulling a showy watch
from its fob, “just half past twelve, and we are to be at Miss Medford’s
at one.”

“I’m ready, uncle,” returned Oliver, after having changed his coat and
settled his hat before the glass with extra attention. Mr. Scott, like
most old bachelors, was very punctual in fulfilling engagements.

“You told me, I believe, that Miss Medford was an orphan?” said Oliver,
when they had reached the street.

“Yes, poor thing,” answered Mr. Scott, “she lost her mother while still
an infant, and it has now been ten years since her father, Charles
Medford, died. He was a generous, noble-hearted fellow, but too much
given to fine company and expense. I recollect him well, for we were
young men together, and dashed about in the same gay society. He married
a beautiful woman for love,” and Uncle Scott sighed, “with her face for
her fortune, and as his own amounted to little more, the match was any
thing but happy. To be deprived of the only parent she had ever known
nearly broke Clara’s heart, and she wept long and bitterly. So touching
was her grief it affected the heart of her uncle, John Medford, who, as
he was a bachelor, adopted her, and resolved to cherish her as his own.
He was one of the most singular men I have ever known. Withered and
forbidding in appearance, crabbed in temper, and particular about money
matters even to parsimony, he was no attractive object to so tender a
flower as Clara. But, by her childish love and attention, she insinuated
herself into his unkindly heart, and soothed the many cares of the
declining years of his life—so that even he blessed her. At his death
the principal amount of his property was bequeathed to her, but with
this singular provision, that if she marry within ten years it was to go
to some distant relative. Among the many whims of the old man, he
particularly hated a branch of his family, the children of a disobedient
sister. These are now endeavoring to prove the illegality of the will in
question, as they are entirely cut off by it from all share in his
estate; but you shall hear more of the circumstances from her own lips.”

They were now at their destination, and in a few moments found
themselves seated in a spacious and richly furnished parlor, containing
many indications of female taste and attention. On the centre-table lay
a small boquet of beautiful flowers, blushing with the freshness of the
field, but which, on a closer inspection, were found to be artificial,
doubtless moulded under the delicate fingers of the presiding fairy. A
number of beautifully shaded landscape sketches next attracted Oliver’s
attention, and as he turned from one to another he would have forgotten
the dry subject on which he came, but for the promptings of Mr. Scott.

They had not waited long before Clara Medford entered. If Oliver had
been affected by her story he was still more touched with her winning
grace and beauty, enhanced rather than obscured by the deep mourning in
which she was dressed. She was somewhat pale, but he would have found no
difficulty in accounting for this in her late affliction, had not the
sweet expression of her hazel eye more than atoned for it. Her mien was
so easy and unaffected that Oliver, who had dreaded the awkward
formality of so embarrassing an interview, felt at once perfectly
self-possessed. There was something serene and even childlike in her
countenance, which was extremely interesting, and she seemed polite,
rather because it was natural to her, than in obedience to the
requirements of custom.

We leave them to converse over the business of the suit, of which the
reader already knows sufficient for the purposes of our narrative.


                              CHAPTER III.

Some weeks after the scene of our last chapter, Clara Medford was
sitting where the young attorney had first seen her. Jane Preston, an
intimate friend, who had called to pay a morning visit, sat by her side
on the sofa with bonnet and shawl still on.

“Well, Clara,” said she, changing their conversation, “you are now
secured in the possession of this house and all your uncle’s property;
my, what wealth! I’m sure I wish it may yield you all the happiness you
desire.”

“Thank you, Jane, for your kind wishes,” answered Clara mildly, “but I
have thought that wealth seldom confers as much real happiness as it
brings additional care and anxiety.”

“But your care, unlike that of others, ends for the best.”

“True, I have no disappointment to complain of,” said Clara, “but my
success is only a negative pleasure, after all.”

“I am sure I should think it a very positive one,” returned Miss
Preston, as she rose to go. Clara pressed her to stay longer, but,
pleading an engagement, she proceeded to the door.

“But, Clara,” said she, continuing their conversation on the steps, “do
tell me who young Lawyer Barton is?”

“I know little more of him than that he is very talented in his
profession,” replied Clara, slightly blushing, more at the manner in
which it was asked than at the question itself.

“I have heard he was very retired, and went but little into company,”
continued Jane, giving information when she found none was to be
obtained. “But every one agrees that he has conducted your late suit
with great ability, for which, I suppose, you are very grateful,” said
she, with an arch side glance at her companion.

“I am, sincerely so,” returned Clara seriously, but with a rapid change
of countenance she added, “Oh! Jane, I almost forgot to ask you whether
you have yet appointed a day to gratify your sighing swain?”

“Oh!” exclaimed she, blushing crimson in turn, “I’ll tell you when we’ve
more time, for it’s a long story. Good-by, Clara, don’t be too grateful
to the handsome Mr. Barton,” and with a ringing, joyous laugh, she
tripped lightly down the marble steps.

“Good-by,” returned Clara, gazing after her retiring form, and almost
envying her the happy spirit with which she was animated.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At the time the above conversation occurred, Oliver Barton was
meditating on his encouraging success in the late trial, alone in the
office where twice before we have seen him. There was a more than usual
melancholy in the expression of his countenance. His head rested on his
hand, and at intervals he would heave an involuntary sigh, as though his
thoughts were of no agreeable nature. One would have concluded that some
great misfortune, rather than triumphant success, had befallen him. At
length he was roused from his reverie by the sound of rapid footsteps in
the entry, and in another moment James Ashly had entered.

“Well, Oliver,” said he, “so you exerted your eloquence to some purpose.
I knew when I saw your eye that you intended carrying all before you.
But,” continued he, observing the dejected mood of his friend, “what is
the matter—have you heard of the death of any near relative?”

“No,” answered Oliver, “I ought, I know, to be very happy.”

“You have cause to be so, certainly; then what has made you look like a
man contemplating suicide.”

“Sit down, James,” said Oliver, in a calm tone, and composing himself as
with an effort, “and I will tell you the cause; I confide in your
friendship, because I know its sincerity. The truth is, my sentiments
toward Miss Medford are not those of mere admiration, they are warmer; I
feel that I love her,” and starting from his chair, he strode rapidly
across the room.

“And, Oliver,” urged James, when the first surprise of so unexpected an
announcement was over, “is it cause of grief to love a girl so amiable
and beautiful as Miss Medford? You are already esteemed by her, and time
may incline her heart to a more tender sentiment. There is but one short
step between friendship and love. This suit is now so happily
terminated—”

“You have named the most embittering reflection of all,” said Oliver,
stopping before him and speaking earnestly; “by that decision the
validity of a will is established, which deprives her of the right to
dispose of her hand. By its mandate she must resign all; and what could
I offer to compensate her for the sacrifice? The homage of my heart, and
the devotion of my life, are worthless trifles. I knew, while striving
to establish her rights, that if successful I sealed my own unhappiness,
and forever cut off all hope of calling her mine. I even debated with
myself whether I might not lose the case by mismanagement, and then win
the heart of the trusting, beautiful Clara. It was a great conflict for
a single moment, but the temptation yielded to a sense of honor and
justice. Her cause triumphed; and at least I have the melancholy
satisfaction left of knowing that I served the one I love.”

Oliver spoke with the eloquence of despair, and his friend listened,
engrossed in astonishment and admiration.

“I can appreciate the feelings which so trying a situation prompts,
but,” added he, the naturally sanguine disposition of his mind
prevailing over its first gloomy sensations, “trust to time for a happy
termination; for although your way is now overhung with clouds, as you
advance into the future, it will become brighter, and a glorious store
of happiness will be opened to your view.”

“Your words bid me hope,” answered Oliver, “but I fear while you utter
them your heart misgives you. No, no, James—I see no room for hope,
nothing to brighten my path with a solitary ray of comfort. I must try
to banish her image from my heart, and think of her only in connexion
with every thing lovely and perfect, never as my first and only love. I
can but make the effort, though I believe it will fail.”

James was sensible of all the deep despair and silently corroding
influence of “hope deferred;” its dreams and disappointments; its
moments of bright anticipation succeeded by still darker views of the
stern reality; its overwhelming anguish, and its rush of mad gayety more
dreadful than tears. He knew, too, the depth of passionate feeling of
which Oliver’s heart was capable, and shuddered as he thought that the
soul of one so generous and noble would be made the prey of that slow
and deadly poison, hopeless love. But by an effort he suppressed the
rising emotions of his breast, and continued to urge the possibility of
the future removing the obstacles which now appeared so formidable.

“It is not to be expected,” said he, “nay, it is impossible, that one so
young and beautiful should remain single, in mere obedience to the
foolish whim of an uncle, no longer living. If her heart become engaged,
she will soon resign the gold, which is but a useless burthen, and some
one less scrupulous will possess the hand that might be your own.
Besides, will she not appreciate the struggle you have endured, and the
sacrifice of self in your conduct? And these aided by the gratitude she
already feels, are sufficient to win the heart of any maiden.”

But the view thus presented, skillfully colored by the hand of
friendship, could not change the determination he had expressed.

“It was I,” said Oliver, “who undertook the case, and succeeded in
securing to her the full benefit of her uncle’s will; knowing, then, its
provisions, would it not be inconsistent, even fraudulent, in me to
attempt to defeat it now?”

To this James could oppose nothing, for he felt the delicacy of his
friend’s situation; he knew how deep was the suffering excited by that
absorbing passion of the soul when struggling with adversity or
oppression, and his own heart swelled with a generous sympathy, as he
grasped the hand of his friend on parting.


                              CHAPTER IV.

Again we take a leap over a period of time which, to those in the
enjoyment of a life of pleasure and excitement, appears short, but to
the sufferer on a bed of sickness, or the condemned felon, is an age.
They, in whom we are more immediately interested, thought it either
brief or tedious, as it brought good or ill fortune. James Ashly, though
deeply concerned in the distress of his friend, was enabled by the
elasticity of his spirits to preserve that sprightly air, which had in a
manner become habitual. But he had much real cause for joy. The girl who
had long reigned mistress of his heart, had consented to become a bride,
and appointed a day for the wedding. As for Oliver Barton, a heavy cloud
rested on his brow, denoting deep-seated grief. In vain his friend tried
to entertain him, and draw his mind from the melancholy subject on which
it continually brooded; in vain Oliver himself endeavored to carry out
his resolution, and banish all thought of Clara Medford from his mind;
the effort only proved the strength of his affection. But it was not
weakness; he could have trusted himself in her society, conversed with,
worshiped her, and yet kept the secret buried in his breast.

“Oliver,” said uncle Scott one day, bustling into his nephew’s office,
with a huge book under his arm, which looked as though it might have
been bound near the beginning of the seventeenth century, “here is an
old relic of your family, which I think you have never seen—no less
than the family Bible, containing a record of the births, marriages, and
deaths, of the ancestors in whose connexion you have just reason to be
proud.”

This was delivered with all the importance of one communicating a
valuable secret, never doubting that Oliver would feel as lively an
interest as himself.

“It is, in fact,” continued he, “a complete history of the house for
several generations back. The character of the writer is shown in the
chirography much better than in many a prosy biography.”

Oliver expressed much more interest in the “old relic” than he really
felt, from a desire to please an indulgent uncle by humoring his whims.

“Your father,” continued Mr. Scott, spreading the old volume before him,
and looking intently on it, “you will observe, was an only son, with two
sisters, Mary and Catharine Blake. The former died early; here is the
record in his own hand.” Oliver gazed on with awakened attention. “The
latter married Charles Blake.”

“Her name, then, was Catharine Blake,” said Oliver, earnestly.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Scott, “it was; my recollection serves me to recall
an incident in relation to her marriage. It was this; John Medford loved
her devotedly, but she could never return his affection, and finally
bestowed her hand on Charles Blake, who had nothing but spotless worth
and intelligence to recommend him. She left no children, and is long
since dead; but Medford, who always cherished an affection for her,
could never be persuaded of the truth of the report.”

This account was heard by Oliver with breathless attention, and as he
examined the venerable record, a glow of intense joy lit up his face.
Observing this, Mr. Scott proceeded further back into the annals of the
Bartons, and expiated on the events and eras with critical exactness.
But the mind of his nephew was engrossed by what he had already learned,
and he scarcely heard the list of marriages, and intermarriages, deaths,
and births, which his uncle recounted with painful minuteness.

At length he was alone.

“A ray of hope,” exclaimed he, “has already dawned, destined probably to
shed a propitious fight on my path. James was right; the future may yet
have a store of happiness provided for me, too great even to
contemplate.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

A goodly company was assembled in the lofty parlors of Miss Medford’s
residence. The young, the gay, the serious, the frivolous, were there in
indiscriminate profusion; some chatting familiarly on the luxurious
sofas and lounges, others walking or standing beneath the chandelier,
and not a few engaged in unseen, as they thought, flirtations in the
corners. The young and the old of both sexes seemed to enjoy the scene
with a peculiar relish. The flowers sparkled in their vases, under the
rich light of the numerous lamps; the jewels glistened, their owners
smiled, and all was gay, happy, and inspiring.

Among that numerous and fashionable company, James Ashly was the most
joyful of the joyous, the happiest of the happy. His heart had secured
the prize for which it had so long contended—its constant love had been
crowned with success; and in the sweet being leaning on his arm, he felt
he possessed such a treasure as the world could not equal. After a
prolonged courtship, Jane Preston became his bride—and they were now
the admired of all admirers. The small figure and benevolent countenance
of Mr. Scott were not less conspicuous in the crowd of happy faces which
thronged the apartments, whose walls had never witnessed so animated a
scene.

But there was one individual who seemed to have no connexion with any
one present. He sat by himself, and took no part in the conversation of
either the young or old. His countenance bore deep traces of habitual
care and discontent, which, with the wrinkles of age, gave it a sour and
forbidding aspect. Dressed in a blue coat, which might have fitted him
when it was made, but now hung loosely about his form; straight-collared
vest, too long and too loose; and pantaloons of the greatest redundancy
of cloth—he appeared to no advantage, nor did he seem to care. A
nervous uneasiness pervaded his frame, as though contemplating something
beyond the mere pleasure of being present. Sometimes his attention was
attracted by a witty remark, or joyful laugh, but he would turn away his
head, and smile dismally, as though he envied the happy heart from which
it echoed. The name of this person was Sandford. He had been engaged in
business with the deceased Mr. Medford, and was in every respect a
congenial spirit. At his death, Sandford was left executor, and
entrusted with the administration of the will.

The occasion which brought together this various company, and gave it so
lively a tone, was no less than the marriage of the modest and charming
Clara Medford to the handsome and talented Oliver Barton.

The hour approached when the knot was to be tied, and the grave
minister, in his robes, was already present. A bustle was suddenly
perceptible through the rooms as the youthful couple entered, the bride
blushing to the borders of her dress, and the groom, it must be
confessed, paler than usual. The ceremony began with that embarrassment
always attending such occasions; and many a heart palpitated with
mingled emotions of joy and terror under the solemn and impressive voice
of the clergyman. The earnest appeal was made for those who knew of any
impediment “to speak now, or ever after hold their peace.”

“This lady,” said Sandford, in the pause that followed, with the
astonished eyes of every one fixed on him, “this lady, by the present
act, forfeits, according to her uncle’s will, all title to his wealth,
which is to go to one Catharine Blake, or her heirs, if she be not
living. I thought it proper to make this declaration, as the legal
executor of the deceased Mr. Medford. The ceremony may now proceed.”

“And, sir,” said Oliver Barton, “the only surviving heir of Catharine
Blake you will recognize in me.”

A whisper of delight ran through the rooms at this unexpected
_dénouement_; the service proceeded, and in a few moments, tears,
kisses, and confusion announced the silken bands of matrimony had firmly
united two as pure, confiding hearts as ever throbbed in human breast.

And thus the case was doubly gained.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     MY AUNT FABBINS’S OLD GARRET.


                            BY C. P. CRANCH.


I have often wondered whether there ever was in our whole blessed United
States, such a queer place as my Aunt Fabbins’s garret. In all my
migrations from city to city, from house to house, from room to room,
where I was the guest of people who were quite differently constituted
by nature and education from my good aunt, I have thought to myself as I
observed somewhat of the family economy in these various hospitable
abodes, that there could not possibly be in a single one of them a room
whose internal arrangement or disarrangement bore the faintest
resemblance to that queer old garret at my Aunt Fabbins’s. Oh, it was
the queerest of all queer places that the sun ever peeped into or did
not peep into. Language utterly fails to tell how queer it was. I have
sometimes thought I would seriously sit down and describe it at length;
that I would take an inventory of all the queer things it contained, one
by one, with scientific patience and accuracy, and give to the herein
unenlightened world the results of my researches and labors, in the
shape of an article for some antiquarian society, or, perhaps, some
national academy of arts and sciences. Catacombs and tombs, and Egyptian
pyramids, have been thrown open to the gaze of mankind, and the dim
religious light of old cloisters and cathedrals has been invaded by the
prying spirit of utilitarian curiosity and reform; and that which was
hidden and mysterious, hath been everywhere brought into the atmosphere
of vulgar daylight, and Penny Magazines, and Lyceum Lectures—and
science every where is laying his cold clutch upon the shrinking form of
poetic truth; then why should not the secrets of my Aunt Fabbins’s queer
old musty fusty garret be disclosed, and the world be one little wrinkle
the wiser?

Now I do not propose to treat this old garret and its contents
scientifically or chronologically—perhaps I shall treat it hardly
reverentially; and though there was many a monument therein of past
years, and many a hieroglyphic of deep significance were the key only
known, yet I shall modestly decline entering the lists with Champollion
or Mr. Gliddon. Other spirits more peculiarly gifted with powers of
investigation than myself, may, at some future time, visit my aunt’s
house, and if they should be favored by chance, or by friendship, to
enter that dim upper receptacle of the shadows of the past, they may
more fully explore a field which I have scarcely had the courage or
patience to do with completeness and accuracy.

But before I enlighten my readers upon the subject of this old garret
and its arcana, it will be necessary for me to give a glance at one
feature in the domestic economy of my Aunt and Uncle Fabbins.

A worthier and more warm-hearted old couple never lived. For forty years
they had shared the joys and sorrows of life together; they had known
many trials, but these had only bound them more closely to each other,
and to Heaven. They had married early, and brought up a large family,
like good parents and good Christians as they were. In the earlier
period of their wedded state, they had both, through habit and
necessity, managed all their domestic affairs with the strictest
economy. They were perfect patterns of housekeeping and management to
their neighbors. With the extravagant Southerners, among whom they lived
(for my uncle and aunt emigrated from the land of steady habits, old
Massachusetts, soon after their marriage, into a more southern latitude,
for the same reasons, I suppose, which carry so many of our young
couples, nowadays, off to the west); among these Southerners, I say, my
Uncle and Aunt Fabbins were absolute wonders, so different were their
habits from those about them. There was no end, no bound to the wonder
of these people. They could not comprehend how, with their limited
income, they contrived to live so snugly and genteelly. The richest
families among them could not keep their household arrangements from
going “out in the elbows.” In the winter time they never could keep
their parlors warm, or their doors shut. Their windows _would_ rattle;
the wind _would_ blow in, bringing influenza and consumption on its
wings; they _could_ not keep their closets supplied with medicines, or
even always with the necessary eatables of life, but were somehow or
other obliged to borrow of the Fabbins’s. And in summer, they would
leave their windows open to every rain, or their chimneys would tumble
down, or their garden-tools would get lost or broken, or their children
catch the ague and fever, from running about in puddles, or eating green
fruit; and then the whole family establishment and family counsel and
assistance of the Fabbins’s were taxed for the ill-management of these
extravagant and improvident neighbors. If a pump-handle were loose, or
needed oiling, no one could put it to rights like Uncle Fabbins. If a
wheelbarrow or rake were broken, they invariably borrowed of neighbor
Fabbins. If a baby had the croup, the whole family came in a committee
of the whole to wait on the Fabbins’s; Uncle Fabbins must prescribe the
physic, and weigh it out, and Aunt Fabbins must leave her sewing, or her
pickling, or her ironing, and run in to put the child into a warm bath.
If a neighboring housewife wanted a quart of meal, or a loaf of bread,
or a pound of butter, she would not scruple to send at all hours of the
day, or night to draw upon Mrs. Fabbins’s exhaustless store-house.
Everybody knew just where to go when any sudden want or emergency
overtook them. I remember hearing of a man who sent out his servant to
one of his neighbors’ houses, when a thunder storm was coming up, to
give his master’s compliments, and “please wouldn’t he lend him his
_lightning-rod_ for a little while.” I have never heard that my uncle’s
neighbors ever went quite so far in their neighborly feelings as this,
but I do remember hearing my aunt relate one circumstance nearly as
amusing as this. A storm was coming up, and all the windows and doors
were closed—not a sign of any living creature was seen abroad, save a
few lazy cows, who began to think it best to retire to their apartments
in their respective cow-yards. The sky was growing darker and darker;
the wind swept by over trees and dusty roads in fearful gusts; a few
large rain-drops were beginning to fall, and one or two vivid flashes of
lightning had cleft the dark clouds, followed by tremendous claps of
thunder; when a small boy was seen running violently toward my uncle’s
house—a loud knocking was heard—the summons was answered—and the
embassy was not exactly to borrow a lightning-rod, for there were none
in those days, I believe, but, “mother says, please lend her”—“What,
child, is anybody dying?” “No, marm, but mother says, please lend her—a
_nutmeg_!”

“_Parturiunt Montes!_” I said to myself, when I heard it, (it was in my
college days, when I was fond of Latin quotations,) “_et nascitur
ridiculus mus_.”

This is not altogether a digression from my subject. I will come to the
garret presently, after I have patiently conducted my readers up the
preliminary steps. We must always begin at the bottom of the stairs
before we can get to the top; that old garret may be called the flower,
_run to seed_, of all this beautiful economy in the household affairs of
the Fabbins’s.

It was, indeed, a beautiful system of economy. The Fabbins’s homestead
was a little world in itself of ways and means—a microcosm, where, for
years, every thing that was needed stood at hand ready for use, and
every thing had its place. You could not lay your hand upon the merest
bit of broken crockery, or rusty nail, or weather-stained shingle, or
fragment of tangled twine, but it came into service, sooner or later, in
some part of the establishment—at least so my aunt always affirmed.
Honor to these good old folks for their principles and their practice.
If the world—if society at large—if government could but take a lesson
from these humble lights of their little circle, how much poverty, and
crime, and misery, would be avoided, which now runs riot over the world.

But, alas! there is an old adage which will come sneaking into the
corner of my brain, as I continue to trace my way up toward the old
garret—some cynic philosopher must have given it birth; “too much of a
good thing is good for nothing.” Rather harsh, friend philosopher, but
the rough shell may be found to contain a kernel of truth.

And here I am much disposed to fall into some deep reflections, and give
utterance to some very profound remarks, and even go into some winding
digressions about the philosophy of ultraism, and show how there is no
one truth, or good principle, which, if emphasized too strongly and
exclusively, may not result in a falsity and an evil. Virtue may become
vice, truth error, if we persist in riding our favorite hobby forever in
the same way, and on the same road. Let us not dwell forever in the
parts and particles of good, but in the whole. Let us not breathe the
gasses, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, or carbonic acid, but _air_.

Having taken my patient reader this long step upward, we come to a
landing and a breathing place on the stairs. Let us have a little more
patience yet, and we shall finally come to the garret. I already, in
fancy, begin to inhale its musty fragrance.

Acting uniformly on this principle of throwing away or destroying
nothing that might, at some future time, be turned to account in some of
the departments of the household economy, my good uncle and aunt had
gradually accumulated around them a little of every thing that was ever
known or thought of in the memorandum-book of a housekeeper. It so
happened that they had gone through several removals from one house to
another, in their forty years of housekeeping, (they always had an
aversion to boarding,) and all their effects from the greatest to the
least, from looking-glasses and bedsteads down to broken saucers and
barrel-hoops, were always taken along with them. Not a scrap of any
kind, were it nothing more than an old newspaper, or a dozen of old
broken corks, was ever suffered to be thrown away.

“Mother,” said my aunt’s youngest daughter, Jemima, once, on the eve of
one of their removals, “I shall throw away these old bits of rusty
iron—they cannot possibly be of any use to us; they have been lying in
this corner for years, and the spiders have made a grand nest among
them.”

“You shan’t throw them away, child!” said my aunt, “they’ll all come
into use. Waste not, want not, my dear. When you live to be as old as I
am, you will be cured of these extravagant whims.”

“But, mother, what use can possibly be made of them?” said Jemima.

“Use enough, my dear,” said my aunt. “Stop up rat holes, made into
hinges—plenty of use for them; at any rate the blacksmith will buy
them—any thing rather than throw them away.”

“But, mother, these bits of broken window-glass, and these old cracked
cups, and that worn-out old coffee-mill, without a tooth in its head,
and—”

“You _shan’t_ throw them away, child, I tell you—I shall find some use
for them if you don’t.”

“But, mother, those old boots of Frank’s, that are all out at the toes,
and down at the heels, and no soles to them, and all mouldy and green—”

“I tell you, child, you shan’t.” Just then in bustled Uncle Fabbins,
with three barrel-staves under one arm, on which hung a basket of old,
dry blacking bottles, and extending the other at full length, at the
extremity of which appeared four worn-out, dirty tooth-brushes, of
various patterns and ages.

“See here,” he exclaimed, “I guess this is some of your doings,
Jemima—when will you learn to be economical. Here I found all these
lying on the ground, where, to all appearance, they had been thrown from
the windows. Waste not, want not, my child. Why can’t you take a lesson
of good housekeeping from your mother.”

“But, father,” said Jemima, hardly restraining her mirth, “what on earth
can you do with those old tooth-brushes?”

“Do with them?—clean your lamps with them—rub your brasses—keep a
great many of your things bright and clean. Do with them? I think _I_
could find use enough for them.”

And with that he carefully wrapped up the much abused instruments of
cleanliness in a piece of brown paper, which he carefully drew from his
pocket, and as carefully unfolded, and placed them in a corner of his
basket, along with the quondam receptacles of Day and Martin.

And thus it went on for years—this gradual accumulation; and as the
sons and daughters grew up into more independence of thought and habit,
it became not unfrequently, especially at the spring or fall
house-cleaning, a bone—no, not exactly a bone, but a sort of
_ossification_ of contention between parents and offspring. But the old
folks had their way, and by following out steadfastly their principles
of economy, even inoculated the younger branches of the family tree to
some extent with their peculiarities in this respect.

As long ago as my first acquaintance in my Aunt Fabbins’s family, I
remember these heaps and accretions of useless rubbish. I remember how
they excited my boyish curiosity and imagination. Visions of dark
closets piled to the very ceiling with all the nameless odds and ends in
the annals of housekeeping, are even now hovering before me. There were
strata and substrata—primary, secondary, and tertiary formations. There
were shelves, and boxes, and old chests, and barrels of things which
seemed as if they never had a name, much less a use—things that seemed
as if they must have dropped out of the moon, or might have once
belonged to some inhabitant of the planet Saturn, who had come to take
lodgings on our earth, and had forgotten to take away all his old traps.
Every closet, nook and corner of the house was filled with these antique
remnants. For years the process of accumulation had gone on, silently,
and almost invisibly, like the formation of stalactites in a cave. And
whenever it became absolutely necessary that a portion of the rubbish
should be removed—do not for a moment suppose that it was thrown into
the street, or sold at auction, or even given to the poor, (although my
Aunt Fabbins was charity herself to all who were in want,) but every
thing was taken from below stairs, and transferred to the garret. This
was the great receptacle of all fragments—this was the final
resting-place—the charnel-house, or say rather kingdom of the dead,
where the ghosts of the departed dumb servants of the household at last
congregated in peaceful and undisturbed repose. And now we have reached
this dim land of shadows at length, not as the ancients did, by
descending, but by ascending—to the very top of the house, we may draw
forth our key and unlock the sacred door, and enter, reverently if we
can—we have reached


                       MY AUNT FABBINS’S GARRET.

But, ah! how can I describe it, when I have no other light but memory to
enable me to grope through it? Yet will I endeavor, as well as I can, to
throw a little light upon this dark, silent abode of mysteries.

We open the door, then. A strong odor,—compounded of various
ingredients, the chief of which seem to be salt fish, bacon, grease,
dried herbs and old leather,—assails our olfactories;—“A most ancient
and fish-like smell, a sort of, not the newest, poorjohn.” We enter a
dark apartment, with a low ceiling, the greater part of it sloping with
the roof, and very much stained by the rains which have leaked through.
A dim light beams through a single window, the panes of which are very
dusty and cracked. We will seat ourselves on a couple of old
candle-boxes, and commence our inventory of the contents in all due
form, as well as the light of memory and the dim window-glass will
permit.

Item. A pair of old buckskin breeches hanging on the wall, which once
adorned the legs of my Uncle Fabbins himself, some forty-five years ago.
Alas! where are the buff waistcoat, the sky-blue coat, the
buckled-shoes, the three-cornered hat, and the long cane that used to
accompany this affecting relic of the past? And could Echo speak, in an
apartment so crowded as this, she would answer, as she does to the
poets—where?

Item, secondly. An old sword—also hanging against the wall. We will
take it down—we will draw it from its rusty scabbard. What! can that be
blood upon its blade? Ah, no! nothing but spots of rust—and the blade
is duller than my uncle’s dullest hoe. It was never sharpened for the
battle—it is guiltless of ever shedding a drop of blood—it never was
used but in piping times of peace, by my uncle’s eldest son Ebenezer,
when he belonged to a company of cavalry. It will never again see a
training day—it will remain in its corner till my uncle and aunt’s
effects descend to their children.

Item, thirdly. A barrel of old business letters, receipted bills, leaves
torn out of Latin grammars and books of arithmetic; old newspapers, that
were fresh once—in the days of the Revolution—but are now so stale and
fusty that the very rats turn from them with disgust. “All this old
paper will come into use, yet,” says my Aunt Fabbins.

Item, fourthly. But I see plainly that at this rate we shall never get
through—we must take the garret _en masse_, and present a rough sketch
of the whole.

Picture, then, to yourself a medley somewhat like what follows; to wit:
old broken bedsteads, and worn-out sacking; a battered warming-pan; a
copper kettle, with a great hole in the bottom; a quantity of old
bottles and phials, pots of paint dried up as hard as granite, old
stumps of paint brushes, shreds of canvas, broken casts and an easel,
once the property of a poor painter who once was a boarder in my uncle’s
house; pine-boards and scraps of mahogany furniture, of every shape and
size—old rags—old mouldy boots and shoes—old picture-frames; bits of
window-glass and looking-glass; old rusty keys, old coffee-mills—and
great iron wheels that seem as incomprehensible as those of Ezekiel; old
greasy boxes, with something old and mysterious in every one of
them—battered old trunks, without tops to them; quantities of empty
bottles, and one or two forsaken demijohns, (my uncle and aunt have
joined the Temperance Society;) great heaps of rusty iron—saws without
handles or teeth; locks without keys or springs; scraps of bell-wire;
bells without tongues; doll-babies without heads or legs; broken-down
chairs and tables; knives and forks without handles, broken pitchers,
bags of dried sage, antiquated andirons, fire-shovels, tongs, fenders
and battered fire-boards, and—but I can remember no more—the rest the
reader may fill out _ad libitum_. My recording muse halts, and hastens
out to take a whiff of fresh air, and refresh her soul with something
green and living—something that belongs to the present rather than to
the past. We will leave this museum of antiquities, though we have not
half described it, and transport ourselves to my aunt’s snug little
breakfast parlor, on the first floor. Time—about a year ago, one fine
spring morning, after breakfast. Present—Aunt Fabbins, Uncle Fabbins,
the five Miss Fabbinses, and the three Mr. Fabbinses, my cousins, myself
and the cat. The ladies were washing up the breakfast things and putting
the room in order, my uncle was reading the paper, and the three sons
and myself—contemplating the rest of the party; when the following
conversation arose.

“I wish,” said Jemima, partly to herself, and partly that her father and
mother might hear—“I wish, upon my soul, that something would happen
which would clear this house of some of its rubbish. I can’t find room
for these books on the shelf, for the old newspapers have taken complete
possession. I am obliged to convert the top of my piano into a
book-shelf—and I don’t think I shall submit to it. There is no room for
half the things that are in the house. I have half a mind, I declare, to
turn some of these piles of trash into the street.”

“Those are just my sentiments, Jemima,” said doctor Peter, the youngest
son—“I’ll help you, Jemima—just go ahead, and I’ll second you. The
fact is, I’ve long been of the opinion that the whole house, from top to
bottom, needs a thorough treatment. It is as full as a boa constrictor
that has swallowed a calf—it will tumble down with its own weight, one
of these days, and die of repletion. It needs blood-letting. Confound
me, if I can find an inch of room for my chemical experiments.”

“Yes,” said Susan, “and all my beautiful plants I am obliged to keep out
of doors, exposed to the night frosts, to make room for that old desk of
father’s, which is filled with empty ink-bottles and pamphlets and
sermons half a century old, that nobody, not even he, ever thinks of
reading. It would be such a nice little corner for my flowers.”

“In my opinion,” said Frank, “I really think a fire would do the house
good.”

“What!” said my aunt, in a tone of horror.

“I mean,” said Frank, “if the old house caught fire, and burned—a
little—I don’t mean much—but just a little, it would greatly purify
us. We should have room to breathe—and I should have room for my gun
and dogs and fishing-tackle. I really should laugh to see the old garret
go.”

“My child,” said my aunt, solemnly, “you speak like a fool. When you get
to be as old as your father and mother, you will alter your tone. Will
my children _ever_ learn economy?”

My uncle here looked up over his spectacles, solemnly at Frank, and
approvingly at his wife, but said nothing, and went on reading the
paper.

The rest of my cousins said little, and rather took sides with their
parents. The fact was, they were growing old and conservative.

Ebenezer thought the house was very well as it was; and he for one did
not wish to see any thing cleared out—unless, indeed, it were in some
places, where he needed a closet or two for his bugs and butterflies and
geological specimens.

But my good aunt still persisted in maintaining that there was nothing
in the whole house that could be spared, and that sooner or later every
thing would come into use.

Such little altercations as this not unfrequently arose in the Fabbins
family circle; but I have not yet heard that they have resulted in any
change or reform in the administration of the internal affairs.

O, Spirit of Conservatism! I have seen thee in the first green buds of
thy spring time and thy youth, when thou wast a necessary and wholesome
plant, in commonwealths as in families;—I have beheld thee again
bursting into bloom, when thou wast still a beautiful and fragrant
flower, smiling serenely and lovingly in thy green shady nooks, a
blessing and a protecting angel, when the weeds of fanaticism and
anarchy would spread a poisonous blight over the fairest and most
venerable things of life;—but again, and too often, have I seen thee,
when thy blossoms have shriveled up and fallen to the earth, and thy
stalk was flowerless and leafless, and covered with nothing but dry
seed-dust, with bugs and with cobwebs—keeping thy place in the garden
merely because thou wast _once_ beautiful, but now an unsightly cumberer
of the ground, a brother to the meanest weeds and stubble of the field!

But such high-flown conceits as this I have just uttered, never entered
the brains of my Uncle and Aunt Fabbins, and least of all would they see
that it had any thing whatever to do with their house and its
arrangements. But, good reader, if thou wilt look into it, thou mayest
find a deeper significance in this family picture than at first meets
the eye. The most homely and common things often cover a moral which is
grounded in the very heart of universal and primal truth. If thou
readest not merely to laugh, but to think, this little sketch may guide
thee into the light of spiritual facts of infinite value; may teach thee
the great lesson which in our age all must learn—to separate the spirit
from the letter, the substance from the form—and to see that the best
principle, carried to extremes and pursued with exclusive rigor, will,
in its latter end, so differ from its beginning, that men will say, “I
know it not; this is not the friend of my youth.” And if a straw like
this I throw into the stream, may show thee how the current sets, I
shall have done something more beside the attempt to amuse thee.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               A PRAYER.


                                BY J. B.


      Thou source of wisdom and of power,
        Thou God supreme, who from thy throne,
      On mankind dost thy blessings shower,
        Knowing all things, thyself unknown;
      Content to show thy heavenly care,
        (Oh bold presumption let me shun,)
      And be this still my only prayer,
              Thy will be done.

      I feel I’m weak, I know I’m blind,
        And evil prone to ask for good,
      Enlighten thou my darkened mind,
        My faith in thee be still renewed;
      Teach me, just God, to trust in thee,
       (Oh bold presumption let me shun,)
      A mortal’s prayer should only be
              Thy will be done.

      Thou wilt not change thy just decrees,
        Always, eternal God, the same,
      If with thy will my prayer agrees,
        I need not then implore thy name;
      But should my heart with folly pray,
        (O bold presumption let me shun,)
      Kind Father teach my soul to say
              Thy will be done.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA.—NO. V.


[Illustration]


               CANVAS-BACKED DUCK. (_Anas Valisineria._)

According to Richardson, this bird breeds in all parts of the remote fur
countries, from the 50th parallel to their most northern limits,
associating much at this time with the ordinary tribe of ducks. It
arrives in the United States, from the north, about the middle of
October. The greater number of them congregate about the waters of the
Chesapeake Bay, and the Susquehanna, Patapsco, Potomac, and James
rivers. Some of them descend only to the Hudson and the Delaware, while
others are found in the sounds and bays of North Carolina, and in most
of the southern waters to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They feed
upon a plant said to be a species of _valisineria_, which grows on
fresh-water shoals of from seven to nine feet, in long, narrow,
grass-like blades, four or five feet in length; the root white, somewhat
resembling small celery. Wherever there is an abundance of this plant
the Canvas-backs resort, either to make an occasional visit, or to take
up their regular residence for the winter. The great abundance of this
food in the waters of the Chesapeake, make those killed in that region
to be most esteemed by epicures, possessing as they do, in a
super-eminent degree, the rich, juicy tenderness of flesh, and delicacy
of flavor which places the Canvas-back at the head of the whole family
of ducks.

Wilson, who is quite enthusiastic in his account of this species of
duck, describes its size and plumage as follows: The Canvas-back is two
feet long, and three feet in extent, and when in good order, weighs
three pounds; the bill is large, rising high in the head, three inches
in length, and one inch and three-eighths thick at the base, of a
glossy-black; eye very small; irides, dark-red; cheeks, and forepart of
the head, blackish-brown; rest of the head, and greater part of the
neck, bright, glossy, reddish-chestnut, ending in a broad space of
black, that covers the upper part of the breast, and spreads around to
the back; back, scapulars, and tertials, white, faintly marked with an
infinite number of transversely waving lines or points, as if done with
a pencil; whole lower parts of the breast, also the belly, white,
slightly penciled in the same manner, scarcely perceptible on the
breast, pretty thick toward the vent; wing coverts, grey, with numerous
specks of blackish; primaries and secondaries, pale slate, two or three
of the latter of which, nearest the body, are finally edged with a deep,
velvety-black, the former dusky at the tips; tail very short, pointed,
consisting of fourteen feathers, of a hoary-brown; vent and tail
coverts, black; lining of the wing, white; legs and feet, very pale ash,
the latter three inches in width, a circumstance which partly accounts
for its great powers of swimming. The female is somewhat less than the
male, and weighs two pounds and three-quarters; the crown is
blackish-brown; cheeks and throat of a pale drab; neck, dull brown;
breast, as far as the black extends in the male, dull brown, skirted in
places with pale drab; beak, dusky white, crossed with fine waving
lines; belly, of the same dull white, penciled like the back; wings,
feet, and bill, as in the male; tail coverts, dusky; vent, white, waved
with brown. The windpipe of the male has a large, flattish, concave
labyrinth, the ridge of which is covered with a thin transparent
membrane, where the trachea enters this it is very narrow, but
immediately above swells to three times that diameter.

Considerable skill is required to enable the sportsman to get within
gun-shot of his favorite game. Not only are they extremely shy, but they
possess such speed and agility in swimming and diving, as to render
pursuit hopeless, when they are only wing-tipped by a shot. One of the
most common ways of bringing them to within the range of a gun is by
_tolling_. The gunner having affixed a red handkerchief, or other
attractive object, to the back of a well trained dog, secrets himself on
the bank, and the dog plays backward and forward on the margin of the
stream. Impelled by curiosity, the ducks approach the shore, and the
gunner shoots at them on the water, and as they rise. In very cold
weather it is customary to make holes in the ice, directly above their
favorite grass, and within gunshot of a hut, or place of concealment for
the hunter, on the bank. Distressed by want of food, the game
congregates about these openings, and falls a prey to its enemy.

The most effectual way of bagging the Canvas-back, however, is by
shooting it at night. The position of a flock having been previously
marked, the sportsman takes to his skiff by moonlight, and by taking
advantage of the shadow of the woody bank or cliff, paddles silently to
within fifteen or twenty yards of a flock of a thousand, among whom he
makes great slaughter. Killing them by night, however, soon causes them
to abandon the place where they have been thus shot at. By continuing
the bait for several days in succession, they may be decoyed to
particular places, by seeds and grain, especially wheat.

In connection with the Canvas-back, we may notice the Pochard, or
Red-Headed Duck, his near relative, and constant associate. Feeding upon
the same kind of food, they become almost equal in size and flavor to
the Canvas-back, and are, in fact, very frequently sold and eaten for
the same. The sportsman, of course, cannot be deceived as to the real
Canvas-back, yet it may not be superfluous to describe the plumage of
the Pochard, that others may be enabled to detect this imposition.

The Red-head is twenty inches in length, and two feet six inches in
extent; bill, dark slate, sometimes black, two inches long, and
seven-eighths of an inch thick at the base, furnished with a large,
broad nail at the extremity; irides, flame coloured; plumage of the
head, long, velvety, and inflated, running high above the base of the
bill; head, and about two inches of the neck, deep, glossy,
reddish-chestnut; rest of the neck, and upper part of the breast, black,
spreading round to the back; belly, white, becoming dusky toward the
vent by closely marked, undulating lines of black; back and scapulars,
bluish-white, rendered gray by numerous transverse, waving lines of
black; lesser wing-coverts, brownish-ash; wing quills, very pale slate,
dusky at the tips; lower part of the back and sides, under the wings,
brownish black, crossed with regular zigzag lines of whitish; vent,
rump, tail, and tail-coverts, black; legs and feet, dark ash.

Among epicures, the Pochard is ranked next to the Canvas-back. It is
sometimes met with in the waters of North and South Carolina, and also
in Jersey and New York, but always in fresh water, near the sea; in the
waters of the Chesapeake it is most numerous. It is abundant in Russia,
in Denmark, in the north of Germany, in England, Holland, France, and
Italy. Their walk is awkward and difficult; their cry resembles the
hollow hiss of a serpent; and their flight different, and more rapid,
than that of the common wild duck; and the noise of their wings is
different. In the London markets these ducks are sold under the name of
Dun birds, and are deservedly esteemed. In England they are principally
taken in decoys after the following manner. A pond is prepared for the
Pochards, as well as for the others, and a situation is chosen which
shall possess, in the most eminent degree, the three attractions of
cover, quietness, and proximity to the feeding-ground. It is technically
called a flight-pond, because the birds are captured when they are first
on the wing; and the nets by which this is effected, are so placed as
that they may act to windward of the birds—as ducks always fly to
windward when they take the wing. The net is kept ready extended on the
tops of the reeds, or other cover, upon poles, which, by means of a
counterpoise at the bottom, can be easily erected, upon withdrawing the
pins by which they are held down; when this is done, the poles rise and
elevate the net to the height of about thirty feet; and this takes place
just as the birds are alarmed and made to take the wing. They strike
against the net, are thrown off their balance, and are thrown on the
ground, which, all under the net, is formed into little pens or traps,
into which the birds fall, and are unable again to take the wing. The
numbers caught in this way, at one skillful application of the net, are
often perfectly astonishing; and they tumble into the pens, one over the
other, till the lower ones are killed, and sometimes pressed nearly flat
with the burden of their companions. It is mentioned that, on some parts
of the Essex coast, a wagon load of Pochards has been taken at one drop
of the net.

The market of Philadelphia is very plentifully supplied both with
Canvas-backs and Red-heads during the latter part of autumn and the
winter. The price of the former varies from a dollar and a quarter per
brace to three dollars. The latter seldom bring more than one dollar.
All the hotels of note treat their guests frequently to Canvas-backs
during the season; and private parties, where luxury is specially
consulted, generally have the entertainment graced by a course of this
highly valued game. European epicures have long envied the Americans the
possession of this splendid bird; but lately the rapid intercourse by
steamers between this country has enabled the _bon vivant_ of London and
Paris to enjoy the envied American luxury at home. Queen Victoria, we
are informed, has tasted Canvas-backs at her own board.

[Illustration]


               HARLEQUIN DUCK. (_Clangula Histrionica._)

The sub-genus, Clangula, embraces several species of ducks, small in
size, but very active. They are found most abundantly in the northern
parts of our continent, only appearing in the Middle States of the Union
when they are driven from their habitations by the ice. The general
characters of the sub-genus present a short and narrow bill; the
feathers on the scapulars produced, pointed and apart from each other;
the third quills passing over the primaries in the closed wing.

The first species which presents itself to our notice is the common
Golden Eye, known to many of our gunners by the name of the Brass-Eyed
Whistlers. The latter name it derives from the noisy whistling of its
short wings, as it rises when flushed. It does not appear to possess any
audible voice, and never utters a cry, or a quack, when disturbed. Easy
of approach, they are nevertheless exceedingly difficult to kill, as
they dive with such dexterity at the flash of a gun, or the twang of a
bow, as to set at defiance the Aborigines, who have ascribed to them
supernatural powers, and named them the Conjuring, or Spirit Duck. The
Golden Eye has been the subject of much diversity of opinion among
naturalists, and we therefore the more readily give place to Wilson’s
accurate description of his plumage. The Golden Eye is nineteen inches
long, and twenty-nine inches in extent, and weighs, on an average, about
two pounds; the bill is black, short, rising considerably up in the
forehead; the plumage of the head, and part of the neck, is somewhat
humid, and of a dark green, with violet reflections, marked near the
corner of the mouth with an oval spot of white; the irides are
golden-yellow; rest of the neck, breast, and whole lower parts, white,
except the flanks, which are dusky; back and wings, black; over the
latter, a broad bed of white extends from the middle of the lesser
coverts to the extremity of the secondaries; the exterior scapulars are
also white; tail, hoary brown; tail-coverts, black; legs and toes,
reddish-orange, webs very large, and of a dark purplish-brown; hind toe,
and exterior edge of the inner one, broadly finned; sides of the bill,
obliquely dentated; tongue covered above with a fine, thick, velvety
down, of a whitish color. The full plumaged female is seventeen inches
in length, and twenty seven inches in extent; bill, brown, orange near
the tip; head, and part of the neck, brown, or very dark drab, bounded
below by a ring of white, below that the neck is ash, tipped with white;
rest of the lower part, white; wings dusky, six of the secondaries and
their greater coverts, pure white, except the tips of the last, which
are touched with dusky spots; rest of the wing coverts sinereous, mixed
with whitish; back and scapulars, dusky, tipped with brown; feet, dull
orange; across the vent a band of sinereous; tongue, covered with the
same velvety down as the male. The young birds of the first season very
much resemble the females, but may generally be distinguished by the
white spot, or at least its rudiments, which marks the corner of the
mouth, yet in some cases even this is variable, both old and young male
birds occasionally wanting the spot.

Its flesh is well flavored, and it is equally common, in the winter
season, in all the coasts of the United States. It is essentially a
water bird, and walks with extreme difficulty. The birds known in the
Carolinas by the name of Dippers, and in Pennsylvania and New Jersey by
the appellation of Butter Box, belong to the Clangula, and are known by
the specific name of Spirit Ducks, which they have acquired by
successful evasions of the bullet and the arrow. They are even more
difficult to bag than the Golden Eye, for when wounded with shot, they
conceal themselves with great art beneath the water, remaining submerged
to the bill until they fall into the jaws of a hungry pike, or are
abandoned by the disappointed sportsman.

Of all the Clangulas, however, the most rare and most valued is the
beautiful species whose representation we have given above. It is not
unfrequently found off the coasts of New England, where the elegant
crescents and circles of white which ornament its neck and breast have
gained for it the proud title of The Lord, and, on the shores of
Hudson’s Bay, the Painted Duck. It swims and dives well, has a whistling
note, flies swift and to a great height, but always takes to the water
on the report of a gun, as its most secure and natural element. Its
flesh is extremely good, far superior, as game, to the Wild Duck.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           SINGLETON SNIPPE.


                       WHO MARRIED FOR A LIVING.


                           BY JOSEPH C. NEAL.


[Illustration]

“Used to be—”

We have, as a general rule, an aversion to this species of qualifying
phraseology, in which so many are prone to indulge. It seems to argue a
disposition like to that of Iago, who “was nothing if not critical;” and
it indicates a tendency to spy out flaws and to look after defect—a
disposition and a tendency at war, we think, with that rational scheme
of happiness which derives its comfort from the reflection of the sunny
side of things. “It was”—“she has been”—“he used to be”—and so forth,
as if all merit were a reminiscence—if not past, at least passing away.
Is that a pleasure? Would it not be quite as well to applaud the present
aspect, and to be satisfied with the existing circumstance, instead of
murmuring over the fact that once it was brighter?

But yet there is a difference—

Yes—decidedly—the matter here is beyond the possibility of a dispute.

There is a difference—lamentable enough you may term it, between the
Singleton Snippe that was, and the Singleton Snippe that is.

The Singleton Snippe that was, is not now an existence; and the
probabilities are that he never will be again. Nothing is stable in this
world but instability; and the livery-stable of to-day is converted into
something else on the morrow, never more to be a stable, unstable
stable. And so with men as well as with horses—for this perpetual
revolution of human affairs goeth not backwards, except when the rope
breaks on an inclined plane, making it a down-hill sort of a business.
Snippe is on the down-hill—rather.

The Singleton Snippe that is, stands picturesquely and pictorially
before you—patiently, as it were, and on a monument.

And now, was there ever—we ask the question of those who remember
Snippe in his primitive and natural state—was there ever a merrier
fellow than the said Singleton Snippe, in the original, if we may term
it so—before the said Singleton was translated into his present
condition, and became tamed down from his erratic, independent
eccentricities to the patient tolerance of the band-box and the bundle?
Who, thus remembering and thus contrasting Singleton Snippe as he was,
with the Singleton Snippe as he is now portrayed, could possibly believe
that there are processes in life—chemistries and alchemies—which could
bring the man of to-day so diametrically opposite to the same man of
yesterday; and cause the Singleton Snippe of the past to differ with
such strangeness from the Singleton Snippe of the current era? Two
Snippes, as plain as may be; but legally and responsibly the same
Snippe. There was Snippe the bold—Snippe the reckless—Snippe the gay
and hilarious—scoffing, joking, jeering Snippe—Snippe that was always
on hand for mischief or for fun—Snippe, with the cigar in his mouth, or
the champagne glass in his grasp—yes, that very Snippe whom you have so
often heard in the street, disturbing slumber by the loud and musical
avowal of his deliberate determination not to “go home till morning,” as
if it would, barring the advantage of the daylight, be any easier to him
then, and whose existence was ever a scene of uproar and jollity, except
in the repentant intervals of headache and exhaustion. And then, besides
his ornamental purposes, he was such a useful member of society, this
Singleton Snippe, in the consumption of the good things of this life at
the restaurants and in the oyster saloons.

Was not that a Snippe—something like a Snippe?

But, alas for Snippe, the last representative of the illustrious firm of
“Tom & Jerry.” Who is there now—now that Snippe is withdrawn as a
partner from the establishment—to maintain the credit of the house?
Snippe is snubbed—snubbed is Snippe. Well, well, well—let the
watchmen—sweet voices of the night—rejoice in their boxes, if they
will, over their pine kindlings, and their hot sheet-iron
stoves—rejoice in their cosy slumbers, that the original Snippe no
longer molests their ancient, solitary reign, by uncouth noises,
preliminary, symphonious, and symptomatic to a row. And let the
cabmen—want a cab, sir?—be merry, too, with rein in hand, or reclining
against the friendly wall, that they are no more to be victimized by the
practical jocularities of the school of Singleton Snippe. What relish
have they for the gracefulnesses of existence—its little playful
embellishments, that bead and dimple the dull surface of the pond into
the varieties of playful fantasy.

Such as these would describe a boy of the superlative order of merit, as
“one that goes straight home and never stops to play on the road;” and
we all know that Singleton Snippe never went straight home in the whole
course of his experience.

Home!

Home, it should be understood, so much vaunted by the poets, and so
greatly delighted in by the antipodes to Snippe, is regarded in quite a
different light—humdrummish—by the disciples of Snippeism. Home,
according to them, is not so much a spot to retire to, as a place to
escape from—a centre of rendezvous, no doubt, with the washerwoman, the
bootblack, and other indispensable people of that sort. Snippe’s new
clothes were always sent home; and long bills, provocative of long
faces, were apt to follow them with the certainty of cause and effect.
But to stay at home himself—what—Snippe?—He stay at home? He was
called for occasionally at that point—his breakfast was taken there,
when any degree of appetite remained from the preceding night; and a
note would eventually reach its destination if left for him there. But
it required a very unusual conjunction of circumstances to find
Singleton Snippe at home more frequently than could be helped. Home, in
Snippe’s estimation, was the embodiment of a yawn—he never heard of it
without the most extended of gapes. He could not speak of it without
opening his mouth to the extent of its volume; and Snippe’s mouth is not
a diamond edition, but rather an octavo, if not rising to the dignity of
a quarto, at least when he is drinking. “Home!” said he; “home’s a bore.
What fun is there at home, except dozing over the fire, or snoring on a
sofa?”

Home, indeed!—Talk to Snippe about staying at home, if you would risk a
home-icide. To be sure, when too ill to run about, Singleton Snippe
remained unwillingly at home, as if it were a hospital; and he staid at
home once for the space of an evening, merely to try the experiment,
when he was in health; but before he went to bed, Snippe had thoughts of
sending for the Coroner, to sit upon his body, but changed his mind and
brewed a jorum of punch, which, after he had shod the cat with walnut
shells, somewhat reconciled him to the monotone of domestic enjoyment.
But Snippe never stayed at home again, not he. Home is where the heart
is; and Snippe’s heart was a traveler—a locomotive heart,
perambulating; and it had no tendencies toward circumscription and
confine. That put him out of heart altogether.

Wherever any thing was going on—“a fight or a foot-race,” according to
popular phraseology, which thus distinguishes the desirable in the shape
of spectacular entertainment—there was Snippe, with his hat set
knowingly on one side, to indicate that if others felt out of their
element on the occasion, he, Snippe, was perfectly at home under all
circumstances—the more at home, the more singular the occasion, and the
more strange the circumstance; and his hat was the more knowingly set on
to indicate the extent of his superiority to vulgar prejudices. It was
the hat of a practical philosopher—of a thorough bred man of the world,
who could extract sport from any thing, and who did not care, so that
the occurrence afforded excitement, whether other people thought it
reprehensible or not. Yes, yes—there is much in a hat—talk of your
physiognomy and your phrenology—what are they as indications of
character, feeling, and disposition, compared to the “set” of one’s
beaver? Look at courage, will you, with its hat drawn resolutely down
upon its determined brow. Dare you dispute the way with such a hat as
that? The meek one and the lowly, with his hat placed timidly on the
back of his head, does not every bully practice imposition there? Hats
turned up behind, indicate a scornful indifference to public opinion in
all its phases—say what you will, who cares? While the hat turned up
before, has in it a generous confidence, free from suspicion of
contempt. Nay, more—when science has made a further progress, why
should not the expression of the hat afford knowledge of the passing
mood of mind in its wearer, the hat shifting and changing in position as
the brain beneath forms new combinations of thought? Let the shop-boy
answer; does he not discover at a glance, from the style in which his
master wears his hat at the moment, whether he, the subordinate, is to
be greeted with scoldings and reproaches, or with commendations and
applause? Does not the hat paternal forbode the sunshine or the storm;
and as the pedagogue approaches school, where is the trembling truant
who does not discern “the morn’s disaster” from the cocking of that
awful hat? There cannot be a doubt of it. The science of the hat yet
remains to be developed; and deep down in the realms of ignorance are
they who have not reflected yet upon the clue afforded by the hat to
what is passing in the soul of him who wears it.

Thus, you could distinguish Singleton Snippe’s hat at a horse-race, at a
riot, or at a fire—equally delighted was that hat at every species of
uproar—in the street—the lobby—the bar-room, or wherever else that
hat could spy out “fun,” the great staple of its existence, with this
advantage, that it had an instinct of peril, and could extricate itself
from danger without the slightest ruffling of its fur. Snippe was
wise—Snippe preferred that all detriments should fall to the share of
others, while the joke remained with him.

But at last, a change reached even unto the hat of Snippe—change comes
to all; a change, singularly enough, that took all other change from the
pockets of Snippe. He was obliged to discover that the mere
entertainments of life are not a commodity to live upon, and that
however pleasant it may be to amuse one’s self, the profits therefrom
accruing, do not furnish continued means of delectation and delight.
Snippe neglected his business, and consequently, his business, with a
perversity peculiar to business, neglected Snippe—so that Snippe and
Snippe’s business had a falling out.

“This will never do,” declared Snippe, after deep reflection on the
subject of ways and means—“never do in the world.”

But yet it did do—did do for Singleton Snippe, and effectually broke
him up in the mercantile way, which involved all other ways; and so Mr.
Snippe resolved to make the most available market that presented itself
for the retrieval of past error. Snippe resolved to
marry—advantageously, of course. Snippe was not poetical—he had no
vein of romance in his constitution; he could live very well by himself,
if he only had the means for that purpose; but not having the means,
unfortunate Snippe, he determined to live by somebody else, living of
some sort being a matter of necessity in Snippe’s estimation, though no
other person could discover what necessity there was for the living of
Snippe. The world might revolve without a Snippe; and affairs generally
would work smoothly enough, even if he were not present. Snippe labored
under a delusion.

But still—not having much of philosophy in his composition to enable
him to discover that, so for as the general economy of the universe is
concerned, it was no matter whether Singleton Snippe obtained a living
or not; and lacking the desire, if not also the ability, to work out
that living by his own energies of head and hands, Snippe, according to
his own theory, having too much of proper pride and of commendable
self-respect to engage in toil, though some of the unenlightened gave it
the less respectful designation of laziness, which, perhaps, is a nearer
relative to the pride of the Snippes than is generally supposed—Snippe,
as already intimated, made up his mind to marry as aforesaid—upon the
mercantile principle—bartering Snippe as a valuable commodity, (without
regard to the penal enactments against obtaining goods on false
pretences) for a certain share of boarding and lodging, and of the other
appliances required for the outfit and the sustenance of a gentleman of
wit and leisure about town—Snippe offered to the highest bidder—Snippe
put up, and Snippe knocked down—going—gone!

Now although there are many who would not have had Singleton Snippe
about the premises, even as a gift, and would have rejected him had he
been offered as a Christmas-box, yet there was a rich widow, having the
experience of three or four husbands, who did not hesitate on the
experiment of endeavoring to fashion our Snippe into the shape and form
of a good and an available husband. Mrs. Dawkins was fully aware of the
nature of his past life, and of the peculiarities of his present
position. She likewise formed a shrewd guess as to the reasons which
impelled him to seek her well-filled hand, and to sigh after her
plethoric purse—Snippe in search of a living; but confident in her own
skill—justly confident, as was proved by the result—to reduce the most
rebellious into a proper state of submissiveness and docility, she
yielded her blushing assent to become the blooming bride of Singleton
Snippe, and to undertake the government of that insubordinate province,
the state of man.

“I shall marry Mrs. Dawkins,” thought Snippe; but, alas! how mistakenly;
“I shall marry her,” repeated he, “and, for a week or two, I’ll be as
quiet as a lamb, sitting there by the fire a twiddling of my thumbs, and
saying all sorts of sweet things about ‘lovey,’ and ‘ducky,’ and so
forth. But as soon after that as possible, when I’ve found out how to
get at the cash, then Mrs. Dawkins may make up her mind to be astonished
a little. That dining-room of hers will do nice for suppers and card
parties, and punch and cigars—we’ll have roaring times in that room,
mind I tell you we will. I’ll have four dogs in the yard—two pinters, a
poodle, and a setter; and they shall come into the parlor to sleep on
the rug, and to hunt the cat whenever they want to. A couple of horses
besides—I can’t do without horses—a fast trotter, for fun, and a
pacer, for exercise; and a great many more things, which I can’t
remember now. But Mrs. Dawkins has a deal to learn, I can tell her.
There’s nothing humdrum about Singleton Snippe; and if she did henpeck
my illustrious predecessors, she has got to find the difference in my
case.”

So Snippe emphasized his hat plump upon his brow, and looked like the
individual, not Franklin, that defied the lightning.

“And I shall marry Singleton Snippe,” also soliloquized Mrs. Dawkins,
“who is described to me as one of the wildest of colts, and as being
only in pursuit of my money. Well, I’m not afraid. A husband is a very
convenient article to have about the house—to run errands, to call the
coach, to quarrel with work-people, and to accompany me on my visits.
Everybody ought to have a husband to complete the furniture; and as for
his being a wild colt, as Mrs. Brummagem says, I should like to see the
husband of mine who will venture to be disobedient to my will when he
has to come to me for every thing he wants. I’ll teach Mr. Singleton
Snippe to know his place in less than a week, or else Mr. Singleton
Snippe is a very different person from the generality of men.”

Thus Singleton Snippe and Mrs. Dorothea Dawkins became one, on the
programme above specified; and thus Mr. Singleton Snippe, whose last
dollar was exhausted in the marriage fee, was enabled to obtain a
living. Poor Snippe!

Glance, with tear in eye, if tears you have, at the portrait of the
parties now first laid before the public—note it in your books, how
sadly Singleton Snippe is metamorphosed from the untamed aspect that
formerly distinguished him in the walks of men, and tell us whether
Driesbach, Van Amburg, or Carter, ever effected a revolution so great as
we find here presented. Observe the bandbox, and regard the
umbrell’—see—above all—see how curiously and how securely Singleton
Snippe’s hand is enfolded in that of Mrs. Singleton Snippe, that she may
be sure of him, and that he may not slip from her side, and relapse into
former habits—“safe bind, safe find,” is the matrimonial motto of Mrs.
Singleton Snippe. Moreover, in vindication of our favorite theory of the
expression of the beaver, mark ye the drooping aspect of Snippe’s
chapeau, as if it had been placed there by Mrs. Snippe herself, to suit
her own fancy, and to avoid the daring look of bachelor, which is her
especial detestation.

Snippe is subdued—a child might safely play with him.

And now, curious psychologist and careful commentator on the world,
would ye learn how results apparently so miraculous, were effected and
brought about? Read, then, and be wiser.

Snippe has his living, for he is living yet, though he scarcely calls it
living—but Mrs. Snippe firmly holds the key of the strong-box, and thus
grasps the reins of authority. The Snippes are tamed as lions are—by
the mollifying and reducing result of the system of short allowances.
Wonderful are the effects thereof, triumphant over Snippes—no suppers,
no cards, no punches, and no cigars. The dogs retreated before judicious
applications of the broom-handle; and it was found a matter of
impossibility to trot those horses up—the arm of cavalry formed no
branch in the services of Singleton Snippe.

Foiled at other points, Mr. Snippe thought that he might at least be
able to disport himself in the old routine, and to roam abroad with full
pockets in the vivacious field of former exploit; and he endeavored one
evening silently to reach his hat and coat, and to glide away.

“Hey, hey!—what’s that?—where, allow me to ask, are you going at this
time of night, Mr. Snippe?” cried his lady in notes of ominous
sharpness.

“Out,” responded Snippe, with a heart-broken expression, like an
afflicted mouse.

“Out, indeed!—where’s out, I’d like to know?—where’s out, that you
prefer it to the comfortable pleasures of your own fireside?”

“Out is nowhere’s in particular, but everywhere’s in general, to see
what’s going on. Everybody goes out, Mrs. Snippe, after tea, they do.”

“No, Mr. Snippe, everybody don’t—do I go out, Mr. Snippe, without being
able to say where I am going to? No, Mr. Snippe, you are not going out
to frolic, and smoke, and drink, and riot round, upon my money. If you
go out, I’ll go out too. But you’re not going out. Give me that hat, Mr.
Snippe, and do you sit down there, quietly, like a sober, respectable
man.”

And so, Mr. Snippe’s hat—wonder not at its dejection—was securely
placed every evening under Mrs. Snippe’s most watchful eye; and Mr.
Snippe, after a few unavailing efforts to the contrary, was compelled to
yield the point, to stay quietly at home, his peculiar detestation, and
to nurse the lap-dog, and to cherish the cat, instead of bringing poodle
and setter into the drawing-room to discontent the feline favorite.

“I want a little money, Mrs. Snippe, if you please—some change.”

“And, pray, allow me to ask what you want it for, Mr. Snippe?”

“To pay for things, my dear.”

“Mr. Snippe, I tell you once for all, I’m not going to nurture you in
your extravagance, I’m not. Money, indeed!—don’t I give you all you
wish to eat, and all you want to wear? Let your bills be sent to me, Mr.
Snippe, and I’ll save you all trouble on that score. What use have you
for money? No, no—husbands are always extravagant, and should never be
trusted with money. My money, Mr. Snippe—mine—jingling in your
pockets, would only tempt you to your old follies, and lead you again to
your worthless companions. I know well that husbands with money are
never to be trusted out of one’s sight—never. I’ll take better care of
you than that, Mr. Snippe, I will.”

If Singleton Snippe ever did escape, he was forthwith brought to the
confessional, to give a full and faithful account of all that had
occurred during his absence—where he had been—whom he had seen—what
he had done, and every thing that had been said, eliciting remarks
thereon, critical and hypercritical, from his careful guardian; and so
also, when a little cash did come into his possession, he was compelled
to produce it, and to account for every deficient cent.

No wonder, then, that Singleton Snippe underwent

                      “A sea change,
        Into something quaint and strange.”

He married for a living, but while he lives, he is never sure whether it
is himself or not, so different is the Singleton Snippe that is, from
the Singleton Snippe that was.

If you would see and appreciate differences in this respect, it would
not be amiss to call upon the Snippes, and to observe with what a
subdued tranquilized expression, the once dashing, daring Snippe now
sits with his feet tucked under his chair, to occupy as little room as
possible, speaking only when he is spoken to, and confining his remarks
to “Yes, Ma’m,” and “No, Ma’m.” Mrs. Snippe has “conquered a peace.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE OATH OF MARION.


                       A STORY OF THE REVOLUTION.


                        BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.


                      (_Concluded from page 99._)


                              CHAPTER VII.

                  Our fortress is the good greenwood,
                    Our tent the cypress tree;
                  We know the forest round us,
                    As seamen know the sea.
                  We know its walls of thorny vines,
                    Its glades of reedy grass,
                  Its safe and silent islands
                    Within the dark morass.
                              _Song of Marion’s Men._

It was several days after the events of the last chapter, and the scene
was one of wild and woodland beauty. Huge cypresses rose on every hand,
festooned with parasite plants; broad glades opened here and there in
all directions; and vast arcades stretched off in the distance, groined
and vaulted like a Gothic minster. It was just such a spot as Robin Hood
might have chosen in old Sherwood. Here were gnarled monarchs of the
forest which had braved the lightnings and the storms of a thousand
years: here were natural bowers, formed by the interlacing branches of
the trees, such as fair Rosamond might have been sheltered in: here were
vines, drooping from the huge branches, like curtains, or hanging in
festoons across the way, like the draped banners of a mighty host. The
whole scene was full of picturesque beauty. And the effect was
heightened by fires, which, glimmering here and there between the trees,
cast wild and flickering shades along the sward, and gave the prospect
the air of an enchanted forest. Fragrant plants filled the evening
atmosphere with delicious perfume—the laurel, the shrub, and, more
exquisite than all, the sweet-scented jessamine.

This, as the reader may have imagined, was Marion’s celebrated camp at
Snow Island. It was a piece of high river swamp, nearly altogether
enclosed by water, and defended by its natural position from surprise
and siege alike. Here, after his famous expeditions, he was accustomed
to retire and recruit his men, exhausted by the long and rapid marches,
often sixty miles a day, which they had been called on to endure.
Perhaps the great secret of this renowned partisan’s success, next to
his indomitable courage, which reminds us of that of a knight of
chivalry, was the care which he took to give his followers sufficient
rest between his enterprises. His maxim was to lie low and feed high
until the hour came to strike; but then his motions were as rapid, and
the blow he struck as decisive as the thunderbolt.

The present occasion was one of those on which his men, having returned
from a successful expedition, were resigning themselves, like true
soldiers, to the pleasure of the moment. The sentinels were indeed
posted at the outskirts: but inside the camp itself was universal
wassail and song. The reins of discipline seemed, for the time, to have
been relaxed. The different messes were gathered together over their
meals: the cheerful cup circulated from hand to hand: and many a merry
jest was told, or lyric of war or love was sung by those jovial boon
companions.

One of these groups seemed even more merry than the rest. It was
composed of about a dozen men, prominent among whom was Preston’s
serjeant, Macdonald, who acted as the director of ceremonies for the
time being, and saw especially to the circulation of the cup.

“Keep it up, boys.” he said, handing around the bottle, “it isn’t often
we get such real old stuff as this, for it’s not every day we have the
rifling of a rich Tory’s cellars, as we had last week. A short life and
a merry one, is my motto. Hillo! my excellent friend, Jacob, why don’t
you drink? You needn’t sit showing us your teeth all the time, though
they are so handsome. Comrades, here’s the health of Jacob Snow—that’s
you, my old chap, I suppose—he serves as pretty a mistress as there is
in the thirteen colonies, and boasts a shin-bone that curves like a
reaping-hook. Jacob Snow, standing, egad!”

“Lor, Massa Macdonald, I’m deeply obligated for dis honor,” said the old
butler, for it was indeed he. “I am discumfounded for words to distress
my feelings.” Here he laid his hand on his heart.

“That’s it—blaze away, old fellow,” said the serjeant, slapping him on
the back, “I knew you could talk as glib as a parson. So you were at
Mrs. Blakeley’s when we were before that place, were you? You remember
my sending in for my baggage!”

“Gor Amighty, yes!” said old Jacob, full of reverential admiration. “And
you’se de gentleman too dat shot Lieut. Torriano at three hundred yards.
Yaw! yaw! yaw! dat made ’em furious. Major Lindsay said you were an
Injun, and no better dan a cannon-ball—he, yaw!”

“Ha! ha! A cannibal, you mean, my old brave, I suppose. But that hitting
of the lieutenant was a trifle to the way I served Major Gainey. Wasn’t
it, lads?”

“Ay, was it!” echoed half a dozen voices, “Tell it to him—tell it.”

“Shall I?” said the serjeant, addressing Jacob with something of drunken
gravity; for the whole party, by this time, had done ample justice to
their flagons.

Old Jacob nodded, and Macdonald begun.

“Well, then, you must know, my jolly old blade—but fill your cup again,
and drink perdition to the Englishmen—that a party of us had a brush
down by Georgetown, not long ago, with some of the British regulars, who
were killing beeves at White’s Bridge. We soon whipped the red-coats,
and then chased them toward the town. But their friends there, hearing
the firing, came swarming out like bees, and so we went at it again, hip
and thigh as the good book says, and for a while it was the toss of a
sixpence which should win. We fought a pretty smart bit of the day: but
at last the red-coats gave ground again. I had noticed among them an
officer whom I took for Major Gainey, a fellow that had the impudence to
boast he’d carry Marion a prisoner on his saddle into Georgetown: and so
I singled him out, resolving to try his pluck, and comb him down a
spell. But no sooner did he see me, coming down on Black Bess, than he
clapped spurs to his horse—and a cursedly good one it was—and made
straight for the town, like an old woman who sees a mad-dog. Down the
road we went, clattering and thundering; but devil a bit for a long
while could I gain on the major. I might have cut down half a dozen
strapping fellows as I dashed along, but I had made up my mind to have
nothing short of the leader himself. Old Black Bess did wonders that
day! The trees and fences shot past, as if running a race. The major’s
blooded horse went as I never saw a beast go before, but I was close
behind, and beginning to gain on him. We were now almost at the entrance
of Georgetown. Still I held on, whooping to old Bess like a mad devil,
as I was. Just as I reached Richmond fence, I lapped the quarter of the
major’s horse, and with a lunge ran my bayonet into his back. The major
had turned around, frightened half to death, lifting up his hands
beseechingly; and I thought I had him sure, till the cursed bayonet came
off, and left me only the gun. I was mad enough at having lost him, yet
I could not help laughing as I saw him go down the streets of
Georgetown, the bayonet still sticking in him, like a skewer into a
trussed fowl. I hauled up, and came off safe; and that’s the last we’ve
heard of Major Gainey.”

With narratives like these the night passed; the old butler listening
with open mouth and ears. At length, toward midnight, the tread of a
horse’s feet was heard, and directly a clear, commanding voice called
Macdonald by name.

“The captain, by the Lord!” exclaimed the serjeant, jumping up as if
struck by an electric shock. “Here he is at last, alive and sound, which
I began to fear for—Huzza! But stop. Now, Jacob Snow, Esq., deliver
your mission. Stand up like a man, as I do, and don’t sway about like a
pine tree in a hurricane. Captain, this gentleman,” continued the
speaker, his voice getting thicker and thicker, “has a message for you
from Miss Mowbray, but he’s too cursedly drunk to know it.”

At these words our hero, who was regarding the group with a look of
silent rebuke, turned suddenly on the old butler, who was, if truth must
be told, the only sober one of the party. A flash of joy lit up Capt.
Preston’s face as he extended his hand for the supposed letter. Old
Jacob, who had no missive of that character to deliver, but who had come
wholly on his own responsibility, hesitated what to say. While the two
parties are thus regarding each other, we will explain the incidents
which had brought them thus unexpectedly together.

Capt. Preston had found great difficulty in regaining the camp, in
consequence of Major Lindsay having left word of the place, where he had
sought refuge, with some Tories in the neighborhood. These men, anxious
to secure so redoubtable a leader, had immediately stationed patrols at
all the usual outlets of the swamp, and thus twice had our hero been
driven back into its recesses, once narrowly escaping death. At length,
however, in the dead of night, he had succeeded in eluding his enemies,
and gained the high-road. His flight, however, had led him into a
district full of Tories, and he was forced to travel with great caution,
and make a long circuit, in order to return to the camp. Meantime his
absence there had occasioned much alarm, especially among his troop; and
Macdonald had intended, if he did not appear by the ensuing morning,
setting forth to make inquiries respecting him, fearing he was dead.

The old butler had been in the camp two days. He had attended his
mistress to Georgetown, and was the only one who suspected the true
state of Kate’s heart. He loved that fair creature with the blind
devotion a dog shows to its master; and he had long been fully satisfied
that her affections were given to Preston. Of our hero he had some such
idea as the old romancers had of a Paladin of former days, looking on
him as capable of doing any deed, no matter how impossible. To old Jacob
it seemed only necessary that Preston should know of Kate’s danger, in
order to rescue her. Accordingly, when he found the marriage actually
resolved on, and the day fixed, he stole out of Georgetown, and made the
best of his way to Marion’s camp.

Here the news of Preston’s absence fell on him like a thunderbolt. But
he knew that no one else could assist him; and moreover he held Kate’s
secret too sacred to be imparted to others. Meantime, he found amusement
in listening to the tales of the soldiers, and he was never happier than
when, with mouth wide open, he sat devouring some story of the war. He
implicitly believed every thing he heard, and thought with humble vanity
what a sensation he would create in the kitchen at Blakeley Hall, when
he rehearsed there those tales; for Jacob, in his lowly way, was a sort
of Froissart, and, with the unctuous old canon, thought nothing so
“honorable and glorious as gallant feats of arms.”

Preston now drew the butler aside, and said,

“Have you the letter here?”

“Please, massa,” said the old fellow, determined to blurt through the
business with a round falsehood, since he could think of nothing else
just then that would serve his turn, “Please, massa, dat was a cursed
lie in Sarjeant Macdonald—I nebber had a letter from Miss Kate, but I
hab one lily message from her. She is in Georgetown, in a
polemic—either she must marry Major Lindsay, or Mr. Mowbray be hung.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Preston, “What is it you say? Trifle not with me,”
he said sternly, seizing the slave by the collar.

“As true as dare is a heaven above,” said the old butler trembling, and
half frightened out of his wits; “what I say is de Gospel truth.”

He then proceeded to give Preston a more detailed account of affairs, so
far as they were known to him, adhering generally to the truth, except
in roundly asserting that Kate had sent him.

Preston’s heart throbbed when he heard this. Kate loved him, then, after
all. Hope whispered to him a bewildering dream; for if she could be
rescued, what happiness might be his. But then came the thought—how was
this to be effected? Kate was at Georgetown, a post of considerable
strength, and no succor could reach her, unless by stratagem; yet with
time this might be effected. But in what manner could the vigilance of
guards be surmounted, and the prizes carried off—for it was necessary
to rescue her father as well as herself? Suddenly the voice of old Jacob
aroused him from the train of thought into which he was plunged.

“Dere is lily time left, sar,” he said, “for I hab waited here two days.
To-morrow night it will be too late, for den de wedding is to take
place.”

“To-morrow night!” said Preston aghast—for now he heard, for the first
time, of the period fixed for the marriage. “God of heaven! it is
already too late—she is lost for ever.”

He turned his face, tortured with anguish, up to the moon, which was
sailing, full and bright, through the blue depths of air. How calm and
unruffled was that silvery planet? Ages ago it had shown thus, equally
cold and unsympathizing. It had seen the sacrifice of Jeptha’s daughter;
it had beheld the fugitive Pompey; it had gazed on Zenobia, when a
crownless queen; it had looked down on pestilence, and war, and human
misery in every shape—and still it held on its course, the same cold,
unfeeling orb, mocking at man and his agony. Preston turned away and
groaned. Heaven as well as earth seemed without hope.


                             CHAPTER VIII.

                            “Now, by yond’ marble heaven,
              In the due reverence of a sacred vow,
              I here engage my words.”—OTHELLO.


We left Preston tortured with the reflection that the news of Kate’s
peril had come too late. Half insane with the thought, he strode to and
fro in his marquee. Suddenly an orderly appeared at the door and
requested our hero’s presence at headquarters, where a council of
officers was to be immediately held.

Wondering what enterprise called them together, and fearful lest duty
should prevent his obtaining the furlough which he intended to ask, in
order that he might save Kate, or at least die in the attempt, he walked
moodily to the tent of Marion. Here he found the leading captains of the
brigade already assembled, late as was the hour; and beside them, Col.
Lee, who had just joined Marion with his legion, subsequently so
celebrated in that partisan war.

“I believe Capt. Preston is the last one expected—I am glad to see him
safely returned,” said Marion, when our hero, having bowed to his
brother officers, had assumed a seat, “and, as the affair on which we
have met is urgent, we will proceed at once to business. Capt. Horry,
will you state the purpose of this assembly; after that we will listen
to you all, beginning with Capt. Preston, who is the youngest.”

Every eye, as he spoke, had been turned on Marion; and as hitherto we
have given no description of this celebrated personage, we will employ
the interval in drawing his picture. Marion, at that time, was about
forty-eight years old; small of stature, swarthy in visage, and having a
face crossed by many lines of thought. Without being positively stern in
aspect, there was a hard expression in his countenance, which at first
might seem to augur a bosom equally hard; but Marion was, in reality, a
man of a singularly mild temperament; and the usually passionless
expression of his face arose rather from the firmness of his character,
and the responsibilities of his station, than from any lack of human
sympathy. His eyes were dark, small, and piercing; but at times they
kindled with enthusiasm. This, indeed, was the only evidence that a
physiognomist could have found of genius in Marion; but when those eyes
flashed indignantly at wrong, blind, indeed, must he have been, who did
not see the master-spirit within. In attire, this great partisan leader
was simple and modest. His words generally were few; and, after the
exertion he made in welcoming Preston, he sank back into a silence which
he maintained until the conference was breaking up, only, as each
officer delivered his opinion, Marion would cast on him a momentary
glance, as if to read his soul, and then sink his head on his breast,
thoughtful and abstracted.

In a few words Capt. Horry explained the purpose for which the council
had been convened. A spy had just come in with the intelligence that the
garrison of Georgetown had been considerably reduced; on which Col. Lee
had proposed that an attack should be made upon the place, since the
country expected some bold and decisive stroke, now that his forces and
Marion’s were united. The plan he suggested was, that a portion of the
brigade should drop down the Pedee by night, and lie in ambush below the
town; that, on the succeeding night, this party should enter the town on
that defenceless side, and taking it by surprise, open an entrance for
their comrades, who, led by Lee and Marion in person, would be ready, at
the signal, to assail the entrenchments on the landward side.

The heart of Preston leaped into his throat as he heard this proposal
“Perhaps Kate may yet be saved,” he said to himself.

Accordingly, when Horry ceased, and Marion, by a nod, signified his
desire for our hero to speak, Preston’s eyes kindled, and he answered,

“My voice is for the attack, whatever be the odds. The opportunity for a
bold, a resolute assault, is all I ask for. We will die to a man, or
succeed. I will undertake, if necessary, to charge with my company up to
the very muzzles of the battery which defends the town.”

Lee turned to Horry and nodded approvingly at these words. “A lad of
spirit,” he whispered apart. “I have heard of his daring at Blakeley’s.
Had there been more such at Camden, we never would have lost that day.”
Marion, however, took no further notice of Preston’s fiery speech than
to turn to the next officer at the table; but a very close observer
might have detected a sudden gleam of the general’s eye, like a flash,
gone in a moment.

The opinions of the other officers were in the main less favorable to
the enterprise than Preston’s; and so many obstacles were mentioned as
necessary to overcome, that he was in torture lest the undertaking
should be abandoned. Even Lee seemed to hesitate, startled at the
difficulties brought forward. Had military discipline permitted it,
Preston would have broken in on the conference; but he was forced to sit
silent, hearing obstacle after obstacle canvassed as unconquerable; yet
his flashing eye, and the agitation of his countenance, told how
difficult it was to restrain himself.

At length all had delivered their opinions except Marion. He glanced
around the board before he spoke, and his words fell on a breathless
auditory. With Preston the excitement was intense to hear the general’s
decision.

“I find,” said Marion, “that I am in the minority here; and that, except
Col. Lee, and Captains Horry and Preston, I am almost alone. I do not go
quite so far as these two latter, however, in considering the enterprise
as certain of success, but I think it affords a fair chance—and bravery
can do the rest. Besides, gentlemen,” said he solemnly, “you know it was
in an attempt on Georgetown that my nephew lost his life; and you all
know, too, that I have sworn to avenge him. I have not forgotten my vow.
Before God, he shall be avenged before to-morrow night is past. This
very night a part of the troops shall set forth.” With these words he
rose and dismissed the council.

Every heart was now alive for the enterprise. The memory of the outrage
alluded to strung all to a pitch of indignation little short of frenzy.
The watchword, “The Oath of Marion!” was adopted by general consent, and
passed from lip to lip.

Preston, it may well be supposed, was even more excited than his
commander. His only fear now was that his succor would arrive too late.
Agitated by this thought, he tossed to and fro on his couch, vainly
seeking slumber. Many a muttered imprecation left his lips on the
villain who had destroyed his happiness and that of Kate. Frequently he
half breathed aloud the wish that his enemy was before him, man to man,
with none to interfere between him and his revenge.

These thoughts mingled with his dreams, when, exhausted by his
agitation, he sunk finally into a troubled and feverish slumber. Strange
figures hovered around his bed, and haunted his morbid fancies. He
imagined himself bound hand and foot, while his enemy came to exult over
him, leading Kate by the hand, now a dejected, broken-hearted creature,
whom to look at made tears start to the eyes. Then again she was seen,
clothed in bridal white, extended, like a human sacrifice, upon an
altar; while Major Lindsay, converted into a hideous priest of Moloch,
stood ready to plunge the knife into her bosom. A third time he saw her,
standing before a clergyman, while the marriage ceremony was performed
between her and Major Lindsay; he thrilled with ecstasy to find he was
not too late, and rushing forward to save her, the bridegroom was
suddenly transformed into a grinning fiend, and she into a pale, cold
corpse. Shivering with horror he awoke, and started from his bed; nor
was it until he had passed his hand across his brow that the ghastly
vision faded entirely.

But his waking thoughts were scarcely less harrowing than his dreams.
Slowly the recollection of Kate’s sacrifice, and his own unhappiness
came back to him.

“To learn that I am loved, yet perhaps too late,” he murmured. “Why was
I so proud when we last met?”

The sound of the reveille, however, summoned him to his duty. On
emerging from his marquee he saw that the camp was already in motion.
The dragoons were rubbing their horses; the legion were polishing their
arms; officers were superintending the mustering their several corps;
and the whole scene was alive with bustle and noise—the neighing of
steeds, and the voices of men mingling indiscriminately. Almost the
first person Preston met was Serjeant Macdonald, dragging along the old
butler.

“Are you quite fit for duty, serjeant?” said Preston. “That was a bad
example you set the men last night.”

The serjeant looked somewhat abashed, and he stammered out his apology.

“Why, you see, captain, we had no work on our hands, and the Jamaica was
uncommon good. Besides, we wished to do honor to this gentleman, Mr.
Snow, I believe.”

“Not Mr. Snow,” said old Jacob, drawing himself up with dignity, “but
Jacob Bakely, sar—massa gib me his own name. Massa Cap’n Preston know
dat well enough,” and he bowed, but with a familiar smile, to our hero.

“I remember you well, Jacob,” said he, “but I fear you do not find our
quarters as comfortable as those at Mrs. Blakeley’s. We set out, in less
than an hour, on a secret expedition, and perhaps you had better return
home.”

“Please God, no, massa!” interrupted the old man emphatically. “I
volunteer sooner. Dis affair, I inspect, hab someting to do wid sweet
missus Kate; and old Jacob will nebber desert her while he can fight.”

“But he does not even know how to wield a sabre,” said Preston, turning
to his serjeant.

“Lord! I’ve had him at the broadsword exercise these two hours,” replied
Macdonald, aside to Preston. “He’s wonderfully quick, considerin’ he’s a
nigger; and he strikes, too, like a sledge-hammer. Besides, he’s red hot
with courage just now—a reg’lar black lobster boiled.”

Preston smiled. He saw that the whole matter had been arranged between
the two confederates.

“Well, since you are bent on trying a short campaign with us,” he said,
“I shall make no objection. Only, if you are killed, what am I to say to
your mistress?”

Old Jacob looked aghast at the bare supposition, but he quickly rallied.

“Nebber fear dat,” he replied grinning.

“No, indeed,” replied Macdonald, “it would take a saw-mill to cut
through your skull.”

“My skull is not so tick as you tink, Massa Macdonald,” replied old
Jacob, tartly, turning on the serjeant, “I hab you know dat, sar.”

“Well,” said Preston, laughing, “no time is to be lost. Get ready at
once to start.”

The serjeant accordingly dragged off the volunteer, saying, good
humoredly,

“Keep close to me when we charge, and put all your muscle into every
blow you make. You’ve one excellent quality, let me tell you, without
flattery—you hate those English damnably.”

“Sartain, sar,” said old Jacob, making a full stop until he delivered
himself of his speech. “Dey are good looking offisur enough; but, sar,
dey tink Jacob Bakely no more dan a hoss. It’s Jacob here, and Jacob
dare—and de best of missus wine at dat. Dey tink nobody gemman but
darselves. I’se show ’em dare mistake. Lor’ A’mighty, sar, I extinguish
dem.”


                              CHAPTER IX.

                “Wo the British soldiery,
                  That little dread us near;
                On them shall light at midnight,
                  A strange and sudden fear.
                       ·       ·       ·       ·       ·
                A moment in the British camp—
                  A moment and away,—
                Back to the pathless forest,
                  Before the peep of day.”
                                                —BRYANT.

It was evening. In a large and spacious apartment, elegantly wainscoted,
and filled with rich furniture, an innumerable number of lights were
blazing, as if the room was shortly to witness a festival. Disposed
about, on little exquisitely lacquered Chinese stands, were vases filled
with flowers, most of them white. A rich Prayer-book lay open on a table
at the head of the room. At the side a place had been fitted up for an
orchestra. These were the preparations for the bridal of our
heroine—strange mockery!

At length the company began to gather. Among numerous officers and other
guests came Col. Campbell, the commander of the post, little dreaming of
the tragedy in which unwittingly he was playing so very prominent a
part. He was followed by Mr. Mowbray, accompanied by the groom. Major
Lindsay was dressed in uniform, but he wore a white favor on his breast,
and his sword-knot was of snowy ribbon. He walked with a firm, proud
step, and looked around smiling. He knew that there was scarcely a
brother officer that did not envy him the possession of his bride, and
the consciousness of this increased the exuberance of his spirits. The
prize he had so long struggled for was now about to be won; and all
regret at his conduct had long since vanished. Gratified triumph was
written on every feature of his face.

Mr. Mowbray was attired with becoming elegance, though the guests
remarked that his dress was almost too sad for a wedding. It might,
indeed, with almost equal propriety have been worn at a funeral. The
dress, in fact, was no bad type of Mr. Mowbray’s feelings, and, perhaps,
had been chosen on that account. The truth was, that in secret he could
not reconcile himself to this union. Though Kate herself, weeping on his
bosom, had declared she was ready to marry Major Lindsay, and though
Mrs. Blakeley, herself deceived, had assured him that Kate’s agitation
arose only from the usual coyness of a maid, he could not expel from his
heart an uneasy fear lest Kate had consented to this marriage only to
save his life. Why else was she so pale? Why were her spirits so high in
company, while she bore traces, as he thought, of tears in secret? Only
that morning he had caught her weeping; and when he pressed to know the
cause, she declared she was merely nervous—an assertion which Mrs.
Blakeley corroborated. To purchase life with her unhappiness, was what
he could not consent to; and but for her, the aged patriot, perhaps,
would have scorned to purchase it on any terms.

As we have said, therefore, a secret presentiment filled Mr. Mowbray’s
heart with sadness. Something seemed to whisper to him that it was not
yet too late to draw back. He seemed, indeed, like one going to a
scaffold, rather than like the parent of a bride.

Directly the bride entered, attended by her aunt, and the daughter of
one of the officers. Kate was dressed in simple white, without a single
ornament, and every vestige of color had fled from her face, which
looked almost like snowy wax. Still, she was wondrously beautiful. Even
her deathly pallor, so like that of a corpse, that some of the females
present actually shuddered and drew back as she approached, could not
entirely destroy the effect of her surpassing figure, and the grace of
every movement. Yet she looked rather like a nun about to take the veil
than like a bride. Her smiles were no longer at her command—for the
near approach of her doom had completely prostrated her. She seemed now
what she was—a victim wreathed for the sacrifice.

She had sat in her room all that afternoon, in a sort of stupor, her
fingers convulsively clasping and unclasping each other, and her eyes
bent on the floor listlessly. The going out and coming in of her
attendants attracted no attention. But she had not shed a tear. The
fountains of her eyes seemed scorched up. When the time came to attire
her for the ceremony, they had to rouse her; and the vacant gaze of
inquiry she turned on the servant, made the slave, for a moment, think
her insane. But when her aunt came in to superintend her toilet, she
seemed to revive, and with an effort rose from her chair, and welcomed
her with a smile—but one like a sunbeam on a wintry day, cold, and
shuddering to look upon. From this moment, however, she was more like
herself, though at times the muscles of her mouth would twitch
convulsively. At other times she would turn away her head, and an
expression of heart-breaking wo would then shoot across her countenance;
but, on meeting her aunt’s eye once more, she would essay again to
smile.

A few moments before the ceremony was to begin, they left her alone for
a moment. She was standing before the mirror, and her eyes fell on the
reflection of her form.

“The sacrifice will soon be complete,” she said bitterly. “God forgive
me—yet surely I am doing right. Oh! that I could weep, but there is a
load here,” and she pressed both hands on her breast, “that keeps back
the tears. It is like burning fire.”

Who would have believed that this ghastly face was the once radiant one
of Kate Mowbray?

Her father stood near the door as she entered. He was struck with the
dry, stony expression of her face, and started forward to her side. He
spoke in a whisper, but with startling earnestness.

“I adjure you, my daughter,” he said, “tell me—are you willing to go on
with this matter? Say but a word, and it shall be broken off.”

Kate lifted her eyes to his with a sudden movement, and the glance they
gave was full of unutterable love. It was such, if we may say so without
presumption, as a martyred spirit might have turned to heaven from the
stake. It thrilled every nerve in that father’s frame. That same sad,
sweet smile, too, was on her face, as she placed her hand in his, and
said,

“Let it go on, dear father. I am only faint and nervous. I shall soon be
better.” Ay! better in the grave.

His doubts were only half resolved, but he could say no more, and
together they advanced to the temporary altar, where the bridegroom and
priest stood awaiting them.

Kate felt a choking in the throat, as her eyes first fell on Major
Lindsay, and it seemed to her, for an instant, as if her knees were
failing her. But she remembered that her father’s eyes were bent
anxiously on her, and from that moment there was no longer any faltering
on her part.

The buzz which attended her entrance had now subsided, and a deep hush
fell on the room. Every ear was strained to catch the first sound of the
minister’s voice. A watch might have been heard to tick.

“Dearly beloved,” began the minister, in the time-hallowed form of the
Episcopal church, “we are gathered together here in the sight of God—”

He had proceeded thus far, when such a sudden and startling burst of
tumult arose from the distant street, that he raised his eyes, with a
look of alarm, from his book. It was like the confused ringing of bells,
half-drowned in the shouts of people. All at once the town-bell itself,
close at hand, took up the uproar, and its iron tongue was heard
clanging hurriedly and fiercely on the night.

The male part of the company sprang to their feet.

“Hark!” said Col. Campbell, “can it be the town on fire?”

“There it goes, louder and louder,” exclaimed a second; “it must be an
insurrection.”

The women now lent their shrieks to the tumult. The officers, with their
hands on their swords, rushed toward the door. The divine had dropped
his Prayer-book, and his looks were full of inquiry and astonishment.
Kate, with a quick look of alarm, shrank back to her father’s side. All
was wonder, terror, and dismay.

The uproar without increased. Louder and fiercer the alarm-bell rang;
steps were heard hurrying to and fro; and at length distant shouts,
mingled with the report of fire-arms, came to the ear. Then drums were
heard beating hastily to arms, and at this signal every military man
present rushed out into the air.

“Be not alarmed,” said the bridegroom, turning to Kate, “it is only a
false alarm, or a drunken mutiny. I will soon be back!” and with these
words he sprang after his companions.

The females were now left alone, excepting the minister and Mr. Mowbray.
But the tumult was obviously no trifling one. The shouts seemed to
approach, and grew louder; a rushing sound, as of an advancing crowd,
was heard; the rattle of fire-arms was almost continual, and seemed
closer at hand each moment; and still louder, and more hurriedly, the
call to arms was beaten, while fiercer and fiercer the alarm-bell, in
its neighboring cupola, clamored over the din. A broad light now gleamed
across the windows from the darkness outside, and cries of terror were
heard increasing every moment.

Mr. Mowbray handed Kate to her aunt, and hurrying to the casement flung
it up. At this the confused sounds without assumed more distinctness,
and grew louder. He looked out.

“It is Marion and his men,” he cried exultingly. “Hark! here they come.”

With a wild cry at these words of promised deliverance, Kate sprung to
her father’s side and looked out. At the lower end of the village one or
two houses were in flames, and their bright glare lit up the otherwise
black prospect. Close at hand, and retreating toward her in disorder,
was a company of the royal soldiers, among whom she saw the largest
portion of the officers lately assembled in that apartment. She could
distinguish Colonel Campbell and Major Lindsay among others, sword in
hand, endeavoring to rally the men.

But further down the street was a spectacle that filled her bosom with
the wildest and most tumultuous joy. Here the way was blocked up, from
side to side, by a press of assailants, who wore the uniform of Marion’s
brigade, and who were advancing with loud shouts, charging continually
on the retreating foe, whom they drove before them as wolves drive
frightened sheep. As the battle drew nearer, she could distinguish the
several war cries.

“Huzza for Marion—Remember his oath—Drive on the dogs!”

These were the shouts of the assailants, to which the royal officers
replied,

“Stand fast for old England. Down with the rebels. Stand fast!”

For a moment the retreating fugitives rallied, and made a stand. This
was almost opposite the window where Kate remained with her father, in
spite of the danger, chained, as if by fascination, to the spot. A
reinforcement of soldiers, at the same instant, came running down the
street, and their companions parting right and left to make way for
them, they gained the front and threw in a withering volley on the foe.
These, not expecting such a sudden check, fell into some disorder.

“Now charge on the rascals,” cried a voice, and Col. Campbell sprung to
the van, waving his sword. “Give them the bayonet, lads, and the field
is ours.”

The issue of the combat hung trembling in the balance. The assailants
showed signs of falling back, and Kate’s tumultuous hopes died within
her, when suddenly the tramp of horses’ feet was heard, and a body of
cavalry came thundering up the street. At their head, on a powerful
charger, rode a form that Kate instantly recognized, as the lurid light
of the distant fire played redly on it. Need we say it was that of
Preston? His uplifted sabre flashed in the wild glare like a blood-red
meteor.

“The oath of Marion,” he shouted, in a voice of thunder. “Strike home
for revenge.”

This sudden apparition, and more than all that stirring shout, seemed to
infuse a strange and wild frenzy into the assailants, so lately about to
turn.

“The oath of Marion!” exclaimed a stalwart figure at Preston’s side, as
he smote a royal grenadier to the earth with a single stroke.

The cry was caught up by the crowd. “The oath of Marion—the oath of
Marion!” rung from a hundred voices: and the assailants, with that cry,
rushed on the royal troops like an avalanche rushes from the sky. But
foremost of all rode Preston and his serjeant, while their terror-struck
enemies around them went down, with every sweep of their good swords,
like grain on a harvest-field.

The royal troops broke in every direction. The officers, seeing
resistance was vain before so headlong a charge, turned also to seek
safety in flight. Col. Campbell, however, seemed disposed to stand his
ground, but Macdonald riding his powerful steed against him bore him
down, and the next instant the commandant, to save his life, yielded
himself a prisoner. It was at this moment that Major Lindsay saw, for
the first time, the face of Preston. With an oath, hissed between his
teeth, he snatched a fire-lock from a dead soldier beside him, and
pointed it at our hero, who, not perceiving him, would infallibly have
fallen, but that his name uttered in a shriek by Kate arrested his ear,
and turning he beheld his enemy, who was almost in a line with the
window whence the warning had been heard. The lightning that rives the
oak is not quicker than was the blow from Preston’s sabre. Down, right
on the head of his adversary, descended the heavy steel, crashing
through the skull as if it had been only so much paper: and with that
blow, the soul of the villain and assassin went to his long account.

Kate saw no more. She scarcely indeed saw that. She only knew that her
lover had been warned in time, and had escaped; for her father now drew
her forcibly in, and shut the perilous casement, around which the pistol
balls were rattling like hail. Then she swooned away.

The rest of that night is matter of history. The town was, for a while,
wholly in the hands of the assailants, and the victory would have been
complete but for some misapprehension in the hour at which the different
detachments were to attack, which enabled a part of the enemy to gain
their garrison, where they were too strongly entrenched to be taken
without artillery. The assailants accordingly retired after having
captured the town and made Col. Campbell prisoner.

Preston had heard Kate’s voice, and, leaving his lieutenant to pursue
the fugitives, sought her out immediately. His were the eyes she first
looked on when she recovered from her swoon. Her glad surprise, or his
own joy to find her still his own when he had feared their arrival was
too late, we must leave to the imagination of the reader. It was one of
those scenes human language is too feeble to portray.

When, toward daybreak, Marion gave orders for the town to be evacuated,
Kate, so late fainting and heart-broken, took her place on horse-back
between her father and Preston, almost as rosy-looking and happy as
ever. A spectator could scarcely have recognized in her the pale and
drooping lily of the evening before.

Mr. Mowbray, on hearing the sacrifice which his daughter would have made
for his life, betrayed the deepest emotion. He pressed her to his bosom,
but could not speak. There was a gentle reproach in his eyes, however,
which Kate answered by a glance of unalterable love.

Though Preston learned that old Jacob had claimed his assistance without
the authority of Kate, he was consoled by her assurance that she loved
him as well as if she had herself despatched the messenger. In a few
weeks she became the wife of our hero. She would have pleaded for delay,
but her father said he was uncertain how long his life might be
continued, and that he wished to see her have a protector before he
died, so Kate yielded to his wishes.

Macdonald did not, like his master, live to see the war concluded. He
fell shortly after the attack on Georgetown, leaving behind him the
reputation of one of the most gallant soldiers of the time.

As for old Jacob, he survived to dandle the children of Kate and Preston
on his knee. He had not only taken part in the fight at Georgetown, but
quite distinguished himself, having slain an English soldier in single
combat. On this feat he was accustomed to dilate with much
self-complacency. He always wound up the story with these words.

“He tried now to run me through with his bayonet, but it was no use, you
see. De sarjeant had larned me his back-handed stroke, and I brought it
around jist so,” suiting the action to the word. “Wid dat he fell dead
and suspendered his breath.”


                                 NOTE.

    The leading incidents of this tale are historical, though slight
    anachronisms have been purposely committed in order to condense
    it in point of time.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            HEART STRUGGLES.


                       BY MRS. JANE C. CAMPBELL.


    It was a foolish thought, beloved,
      ’Gainst which I vainly strove—
    That after years of joy might see
      Another win thy love.

    It well nigh broke my saddened heart
      To think the time might be,
    When thou wouldst give another bride
      The vows once given to me.

    But I have calmer grown since then,
      And though ’tis fearful still,
    To think a stranger may be here
      My place at home to fill—

    To think that on her lip and brow
      Thy kiss will be imprest,
    Her cherished form be warmly clasped
      When I am cold at rest—

    ’Tis fearful—yet ’twere selfish, love,
      To bid thee live alone,
    And let none other share thy heart
      When I from thee am gone.

    I know thou never wilt forget
      My simple morning flower,
    Nor how I nestled to thy side
      At twilight’s holy hour.

    I know a thousand memories
      Within thy soul will rise,
    _Our_ happy past be with thee still,
      Though bound by other ties.

    I know it would be selfish, love,
      To bid thee live alone,
    And let none other share thy heart
      When I from thee am gone.

    And yet, to know that heart a shrine
      By one dear image filled,
    With all the holy warmth of love,
      Of _early_ love unchilled—

    To know no other head but mine
      Should on thy breast be laid,
    None other hear the tender words
      Which thou to me hast said—

    No other name be on thy lips
      When life’s last hour drew nigh,
    No wish but for _our_ meeting, love,
      How blesséd thus to die!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           LIFE IN NEW YORK.


                     A SKETCH OF A LITERARY SOIREE.


                         BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.


                        My own blue-belle!
                        My pretty blue-belle!
            Don’t fear that your secrets I’m going to tell;
                        My wings you view,
                        Of your own bright hue,
            And oh! never doubt that my heart’s “true blue!”
                                       THE BUTTERFLY’S SONG.

Somebody once said of our fair hostess, that she reminded him of a
cathedral with a simple, unpretending portal, which gives you no idea of
the rare revelations within, and through which you pass to wonders that
you did not dream of before. Once within, you are overwhelmed with the
grandeur, the beauty, the mystery, the majesty around you—the lofty and
magnificent arches, the dim, far-reaching aisles, the clustered columns,
the vaulted roof, lost to the eye from its wondrous height—the glorious
pictures by the master-hand—the iris-colored light from the painted
windows poured softly over all—the silence, the religious calm
pervading the place—all combine to awe and elevate the stranger, who
has perhaps rashly and unthinkingly entered that sanctuary of the soul.

He was an enthusiast, a noble one, who said this, and I cannot tell if
it be true. I only know that she exerts over my individual self a
magnetic attraction and influence, which I do not care to analyze or to
resist, because it soothes and satisfies me whenever I am with her,
however restless and unhappy I may have been the moment before.

A pleasant party were assembled in her drawing-room. There was the
statuesque Georgine—

              ——“with stately mien
          And glance of calm hauteur,
        Who moves—a grace—and looks a queen,
          All passionless and pure.”

A creature of faultless harmony and grace; but whose perfect repose of
manner, attitude, look and language, exquisite as it is, almost
frightens you away from her at first. So still, so fair, so pure—like a
snow-cloud moving serenely through the silent air. There she sits; with
her graceful Greek head bent slightly forward, its luxuriant, light
brown hair wound carelessly and wavily around it; her chiseled features
serenely beautiful, and her hands, white as Pentelican marble, resting
half-clasped upon her knee.

If I mistake not, beneath that snowy crest, there are flowers of fancy
and fountains of feeling—all the lovelier and purer for being so
guarded, by the vestal, from the world.

        Her cheek is almost always pale
          And marble cold it seems;
        But a soft color trembles there,
          At times, in rosy gleams!

        Some sudden throb of love, or grief,
          Or pity, or delight,
        And lo! a flush of beauty—brief,
          But passionately bright!

        She ’minds me of a rose I found,
          In a far, Southern land—
        A robe of ice its blushes bound,
          By winter breezes fanned.

        But softly through the crystal veil,
          That gleamed about its form,
        There came a fitful glow to tell
          The flower beneath was warm!

Oh! that all women could thus proudly wear the veil! It is a protection
we need so much—that mantle of snow! But there are those (and they most
want it) in whose hearts the waves of feeling never rest long enough for
the winter crust to form—who never stop to think, to look back, lo
reflect, to prepare; but dash on to the ocean “over bank, brake and
scaur,” giving back only half-formed or broken images of the beautiful
visions that beam above their way—the bird—the cloud—the flower—the
star—now humming a careless carol to the breeze, now murmuring a
plaintive chant, now thundering in torrent tones, as they madly leap
adown the rocks that would oppose them, and now dancing out of sight
into the dim, untrodden forest-depths, where none will dare to follow.

We have seen the statuesque—there were not wanting the “grotesque and
arabesque,” as well to our literary _soirée_.

There was one unique, whom I hardly dare attempt to describe. In
speaking he deals principally in antithesis, and he himself is an
antithesis personified. The wildest conceits—the sharpest satire—the
bitterest, maddest vituperation—the most exquisite taste—the most
subtil appreciation of the delicate and beautiful in his subject—the
most radiant wit—the most dainty and Ariel-like fancy—with a manner
and a mien the most quaint, abrupt and uncouth imaginable—it is like
nothing in nature, or rather it is so exceedingly natural that it seems
almost supernatural. His discourse is all thunder and lightning—every
play of his impish eye-brows is an epigram, every smile a jeu d’esprit.
At one time affectionate, confiding, careless, buoyant, almost boyish in
his mood; at another, irritable, ferocious, seemingly ready for a
tiger-spring upon any foe, and again calm, cold, haughty, and
uncomeatable as an Indian of the olden time. Here is a stranger original
than any his favorite author ever drew. He is the ideal Yankee of the
nineteenth century.

There, too, nestled demurely in a corner of the sofa was that little
“will-o’-the-wisp,” V—, whom nobody knows what to make of—wild,
wayward, capricious as an April day—changeable as the light
spring-cloud, and restless as the wave—the spoiled child of Fancy,

        “Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
           The love of love!”

To those who care for her, all trust and truth, and poetry and sportive
fondness, and deep impassioned feeling—to all the rest of the world
proud, still, reserved, dull, apathetic, reckless of opinion and of
consequences: a tame Canary-bird to kindness, a lioness to injustice and
oppression. Nature, with her sympathetic ink, has drawn pictures in her
soul, which seem to the cold and careless only pale, frost-work, wintry
views; but which, in the warmth of affection, change to glowing summer
scenes, with flowers and foliage, and gleaming springs, shifting clouds,
and singing birds and butterflies, all of which were always there, and
needed only the summer of sympathy and love to draw them out.

By her side sat the man of exhaustless and most whimsical wit, whom
_she_ calls the “laughing philosopher,” and whom _I_ strongly suspect of
having found, and selfishly concealed the “philosopher’s stone.” He is
the most refreshing, contented, and sunshiny-looking mortal that ever
smiled in this cold world of ours. Ever ready and brilliant, he whispers
his irresistable bon-mots and his charming jeux d’esprit, as if he were
ashamed of them, and calls it a breach of confidence if they are
repeated aloud.

Next to him sat the stately, intellectual, and warm-hearted Mrs. ——,
who, according to her witty neighbour, always looks “up to an epic.” I
suppose he will call _this_ a betrayal of confidence; but when these
pages meet his eyes, I shall fortunately be far beyond the reach of his
cutlass-irony; so spare yourself, till I come back, “most potent, grave,
and reverend seignor,” and don’t “waste your _satire_ on the desert
air.”

In earnest conversation with the lovely and loveable Mrs. S——, was
young ——. His rare and pure intellect; his “Doric delicacy” of taste;
his gentle and winning manners; his sensitive, generous, and trustful
nature, are best appreciated by those who know him best.

Well—first we played the game of “What is my thought like.” Smile not,
sagacious reader—Canning did the same. Several good answers were
elicited in the course of the game, among which were the following:—

“Why is a dew-drop like Miss R’s sash?”

“Because it trembles on a flower.”

“Why is fame like a clasp?”

“Because it is all a catch.”

“Why is Mrs. —— like an omnibus?”

“Because we are all carried away by her.”

“Why is my heart like a mirror?”

“Because you can see _yourself_ in it.”

When the game was over, one of the gentlemen took from his pocket a
volume of poems, by that Proteus author, “Anon,” of which he happened to
have the only copy in the country, and read aloud the following verses,
in a voice tremulous with the weight of its own melody and feeling:—

                     TO ——.

        You would make hearts your stepping stones to power.
        And trample on them in your triumph-hour;
        But mine was formed for nobler fate than this,
        It knows the treachery of your Judas-kiss.

        You talk of “lofty feelings pure and high,
        Too pure, alas!” and then you gently sigh;
        You mourn the trials, which a soul like yours,
        So true—amid the meaner herd endures.

        You say ’tis sad, but yet you would not part,
        For worlds, with that proud dignity of heart!
        Now never breathed in woman’s breast, I ween.
        So poor a spirit, ’neath so bold a mien.

        I’ve learned you well—too well—your serpent-smile
        Is fond and fair; but cannot “me beguile.”
        I’ve seen it called, and on your soft lip worn,
        To win a heart those lips had laughed to scorn.

        I’ve heard that voice—’tis very sweet, I own,
        Almost _too much_ of softness in its tone;
        I’ve heard its tender modulations tried,
        On one you’d just been slandering—aside.

        I’ve seen you welcome, with that fond embrace,
        A friend who trusted in your frank, bright face;
        And while her parting steps the threshold pressed,
        Her love, her looks, her manners turned to jest.

        You triumph in the noble trick you’ve found,
        Of winning love and trust from all around;
        While cold and reckless, with a sneer at heart,
        You plead, manœuvre, bind with Circe art.

        But day by day, the flimsy veil grows thin,
        And clearer shows the worthless waste within;
        And one by one, th’ idolators resign
        The wavering flame of their Parhelion’s shrine.

The mysterious book was then handed to Georgine, who took it tranquilly,
and read in a most musically modulated voice, while a faint rose-color
warmed her usually hueless cheek.

                     TO ——.

        Ah! do not let us worse than waste,
          In idle dalliance, hours so dear;
        At best, the light-winged moments haste
          Too quickly by with hope and fear.

        Be ours to wreath, (as swift in flight
          They pass—those ‘children of the sun,’)
        With Fancy’s flowers, each wing of light,
          And gems from Reason’s casket won.

        The Passion-flower has no perfume,—
          No soul to linger when it dies;
        For lighter hearts such buds may bloom,
          But, oh! be ours more proudly wise.

        And wouldst thou bind my soul to thine,
          Bid Truth and Wisdom forge the chain;
        Nor o’er its links, as bright they twine,
          Let Folly breathe one burning stain.

        Thy mind—so rich in classic lore,—
          Thy heart, from worldly taint so free;
        Ah! let me not the hours _deplore_,
          Which might be all _embalmed_ by thee.

At last the “will-o’-the-wisp” was called upon for a recitation, and
after laughing, and blushing, and scolding, and making as “much ado
about nothing” as the Lady Heron did about singing “Young Lochinvar,”
she gave, in her own peculiar way, the following song:—

        They call me a careless coquette;
          That often, too often, I _change_; they chide
        Because every being on earth I’ve met,
          Of the glorious mark in my hope falls wide.

        It is only a yearning of soul,
          For the lovely—the noble—the true and pure;
        A fond aspiration beyond my control,
          That was born with my being, and must endure.

        But I know that shadow and shine
          Must over this world, float side by side;
        That Reason and Folly still entwine
          Their flowers of light and bells of pride.

        And I, in whose heart so wild,
          Too often Love’s music in Discord dies;
        Oh! should I not—idle and dreaming child—
          Shrink back from a being all pure and wise?

        I will hush in my heart that trust,
          I will hide from the world that daring dream,
        And seek in the sand for the golden dust,
          Since ever they mingle in Life’s deep stream.

The gay party separated about 12 o’clock, apparently highly satished
with each other and themselves. It is to be hoped, they will meet again
as “beautifully blue” as ever. And in the meantime, forgive me for
having converted “_pro bono publico_,” their classic saloon, into a
modern “Ear of Dyonisius.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 FANNY.


                          BY MRS. MARY SUMNER.


                   A dancing shape, an image gay,
                   To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
                                         WORDSWORTH.

                   I revel in my right divine—
                     I glory in Caprice.
                                        MRS. OSGOOD.

    Have you seen the summer clouds
    Troop along in rapid crowds,
    Throwing shadows soft and warm,
    Flitting ere you mark their form,
    O’er some landscape still and sweet,
    Where the wild and lovely meet,
    Ravishing by turns the eye
    With beauty and with mystery?
    Dusky wood and rolling meadow
    Bask in light or sleep in shadow,
    And the river’s rippling wave,
    Flashing smiles or chill and grave,
    Fascinates the dazzled sight—
    In the flitting shade and light
    All, howe’er familiar, seems
    Magical as fairy dreams.

    So do swift emotions chase
    Over Fanny’s radiant face;
    Such a fascination lies
    In each change that o’er it flies,
    Light and shadow, varying still,
    Set at nought the painter’s skill,
    And so beautiful their play,
    That you would not bid to stay
    E’en the grace that charms you most,
    Lest a sweeter should be lost.
    Vain to question what may be
    The secret of her witchery;
    Still her speaking face enchants us,
    And her dancing figure haunts us,
    And those dark Italian eyes
    Like a thralling vision rise,
    And we could not if we would
    Break the spell her sunny mood
    Flings upon the heart and brain;
    With a triple-woven chain
    Bindeth she our hearts to hers,
    Turning friends to worshipers.
    Her high soul, her feelings warm,
    Even her gay caprices charm,
    Startling you with fresh surprises,
    As each impulse that arises
    From her being’s depth displays
    Yet another brilliant phase;
    Crystal-like at every turn,
    Rainbow glories flash and burn,
    Till you see revealed her whole
    Beautiful and gifted soul—
    Mirrored forth without disguise
    From her large, impassioned eyes,
    Full of warm and lustrous light,
    That would witch an anchorite.

    That mood passes, and no trace
    Lingers on her chiseled face,
    Only from that scaled book
    Speaks the lofty lady’s look;
    Dignity and quiet grace
    Sit enthroned in form and face,
    And a grave, commanding air
    Bids the thoughtless one beware
    How he scorn the high decree
    Of her maiden sovereignty.
    Then there comes a sudden thought,
    With some merry meaning fraught,
    Like a flash of meteor light,
    As quick-glancing and as bright,
    And her laugh, as sweet and free
    As a child’s unthoughtful glee,
    From her buoyant heart upswells,
    Like clear-ringing fairy bells;
    And the awe in which you stood
    Of her stately womanhood,
    Flies before that silvery laughter,
    As if banished ever after.

    Have you angered her quick spirit?
    Touched her haughty sense of merit?
    All on you will rest the shame,
    All on you the heavy blame.
    Nothing daunted, wait in hope
    The turn of the kaleidoscope.
    Like the bright blue after rain,
    Comes her gladness back again;
    Kindling eye and lip and cheek
    All the same sweet language speak—
    Welcome as the sunshine warm
    Following a summer storm,
    Welcome as the song of birds,
    Her clear voice and friendly words!

    Firm of purpose, proud and high,
    With a flashing, dauntless eye,
    Yet impulsive, gay and wild,
    Now a queen and now a child,
    Now a woman, mild and wise,
    Strong to counsel and advise,
    Full of nobleness and truth,
    Of the generous zeal of youth,
    So enchanting, so divine,
    That of all who please and shine,
    None can match her own sweet self;
    Now a sportive, wilful elf,
    Whose least word and will and way,
    Strongest reasons oversway—
    Who can count on each vagary
    Of the charming, changeful fairy?
    Who can tell, when brightest beams
    Her warm love upon your dreams,
    At what moment words unmeant
    May disturb the gracious bent
    Of her fickle fantasy,
    And chill shadows flitting by
    All its splendor overcloud?
    At what moment a quick crowd
    Of unbidden, fitful feelings
    May seal up the high revealings
    That her soul’s deep voice had been,
    And your spirit reveled in?

    Yet you cannot choose but love her.
    With a love that passes over
    Whatsoe’er it cannot praise,
    For the sake of her sweet ways.
    Vow that you will never more
    Such inconstant charms adore,
    Never more your joy and peace
    Rest upon her light caprice,
    All your wise resolves are vain,
    She will lure you back again;
    With a single winning smile,
    Trusting word and childlike wile,
    Make you feel that love cannot
    For such trifles be forgot—
    Looks so bright and tones so sweet,
    Mortal could not coldly meet;
    Wild as ever your love burns,
    And your heart as fondly turns
    To the wayward, witching creature,
    As if every changing feature
    Her impulsive being owned,
    Howsoe’er it vex and wound,
    In her gracious mood became
    One to praise instead of blame.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 LINES.


                             BY L. J. CIST.


    They may talk as they will of “omnipotent love,”
      And of lone disappointment’s sad lot—
    That the image once shrined we can never remove,
      That the once loved may ne’er be forgot:
    ’Tis the talk of the silly, the childish, the weak,
      For a man (though a lover) may still
    The idol he worships, if faithless, forsake,
      And the false one forget—_if he will_!

    They say that the heart which once truly shall love,
     With love must continue to burn,
    Though the idol unworthy devotion shall prove,
      And away from the altar we turn;
    But ’tis false!—for in man there’s a spirit of hate,
      When he wills it that spirit to move,
    And ’twere then all as easy to hate and forget
      As it were to remember and love!

    What! think you forever to fetter the mind
      In the meshes of love’s silken snare,
    When the strong man awakes from his slumber, to find
      His enchantments all vanish in air!
    Ah no! he may mourn that his slumber is o’er,
      He may weep that the dream was but vain,
    But he starts up, resolved he will yield him no more
      To that vision deceitful again.

    There are monarch’s despotic, throned tyrants, by Fate,
      And serfs there are millions, by birth;
    But the slave of the cold and the heartless _coquette_
      Is the veriest slave upon earth:
    And for me, I were sooner the Autocrat’s thrall,
      Or the lowliest slave in our land,
    Than the tool of the flirt, at her feet still to fall,
      And abjectly sue for her hand!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        THE ISLETS OF THE GULF;


                             OR, ROSE BUDD.


           Ay, now I am in Arden; the more fool
           I; when I was at home I was in a better place; but
           Travelers must be content.    AS YOU LIKE IT.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PILOT,” “RED ROVER,” “TWO ADMIRALS,” “WING-AND-WING,”
                        “MILES WALLINGFORD,” &c.


    [Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by
    J. Fenimore Cooper, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court
    of the United States, for the Northern District of New York.]

                      (_Continued from page 132._)


                                PART V.

              He sleeps; but dreams of massy gold,
                And heaps of pearl. He stretched his hands
              He hears a voice—“Ill man withhold!”
                A pale one near him stands.
                                                     DANA.

It was near night-fall when the Swash anchored among the low and small
islets mentioned. Rose had been on deck, as the vessel approached this
singular and solitary haven, watching the movements of those on board,
as well as the appearance of objects on the land, with the interest her
situation would be likely to awaken. She saw the light and manageable
craft glide through the narrow and crooked passages that led into the
port, the process of anchoring, and the scene of tranquil solitude that
succeeded; each following the other as by a law of nature. The
light-house next attracted her attention, and, as soon as the sun
disappeared, her eyes were fastened on the lantern, in expectation of
beholding the watchful and warning fires gleaming there, to give the
mariner notice of the position of the dangers that surrounded the place.
Minute went by after minute, however, and the customary illumination
seemed to be forgotten.

“Why is not the light shining?” Rose asked of Mulford, as the young man
came near her, after having discharged his duty in helping to moor the
vessel, and in clearing the decks. “All the light-houses we have passed,
and they have been fifty, have shown bright lights at this hour, but
this.”

“I cannot explain it; nor have I the smallest notion where we are. I
have been aloft, and there was nothing in sight but this cluster of low
islets, far or near. I did fancy, for a moment, I saw a speck like a
distant sail, off here to the northward and eastward, but I rather think
it was a gull, or some other sea-bird glancing upward on the wing. I
mentioned it to the captain when I came down, and he appeared to believe
it a mistake. I have watched that light-house closely, too, ever since
we came in, and I have not seen the smallest sign of life about it. It
is altogether an extraordinary place!”

“One suited to acts of villany, I fear, Harry!”

“Of that we shall be better judges to-morrow. You, at least, have one
vigilant friend, who will die sooner than harm shall come to you. I
believe Spike to be thoroughly unprincipled; still he knows he can go so
far and no further, and has a wholesome dread of the law. But the
circumstance that there should be such a port as this, with a regular
light-house, and no person near the last, is so much out of the common
way, that I do not know what to make of it.”

“Perhaps the light-house keeper is afraid to show himself, in the
presence of the Swash?”

“That can hardly be, for vessels must often enter the port, if port it
can be called. But Spike is as much concerned at the circumstance that
the lamps are not lighted, as any of us can be. Look, he is about to
visit the building in the boat, accompanied by two of his oldest
sea-dogs.”

“Why might we not raise the anchor, and sail out of this place, leaving
Spike ashore?” suggested Rose, with more decision and spirit than
discretion.

“For the simple reason that the act would be piracy, even if I could get
the rest of the people to obey my orders, as certainly I could not. No,
Rose, you, and your aunt, and Biddy, however, might land at these
buildings, and refuse to return, Spike having no authority over his
passengers.”

“Still he would have the _power_ to make us come back to his brig. Look,
he has left the vessel’s side, and is going directly toward the
light-house.”

Mulford made no immediate answer, but remained at Rose’s side, watching
the movements of the captain. The last pulled directly to the islet with
the buildings, a distance of only a few hundred feet, the light-house
being constructed on a rocky island that was nearly in the centre of the
cluster, most probably with a view to protect it from the ravages of the
waves. The fact, however, proved, as Mulford did not fail to suggest to
his companion, that the beacon had been erected less to guide vessels
_into_ the haven, than to warn mariners at a distance, of the position
of the whole group.

In less than five minutes after he had landed, Spike himself was seen in
the lantern, in the act of lighting its lamps. In a very short time the
place was in a brilliant blaze, reflectors and all the other parts of
the machinery of the place performing their duties as regularly as if
tended by the usual keeper. Soon after Spike returned on board, and the
anchor-watch was set. Then everybody sought the rest that it was
customary to take at that hour.

Mulford was on deck with the appearance of the sun; but he found that
Spike had preceded him, had gone ashore again, had extinguished the
lamps, and was coming alongside of the brig on his return. A minute
later the captain came over the side.

“You were right about your sail, last night, a’ter all, Mr. Mulford,”
said Spike, on coming aft. “There she is, sure enough; and we shall have
her alongside to strike cargo out and in, by the time the people have
got their breakfasts.”

As Spike pointed toward the light-house while speaking, the mate changed
his position a little, and saw that a schooner was coming down toward
the islets before the wind. Mulford now began to understand the motives
of the captain’s proceedings, though a good deal yet remained veiled in
mystery. He could not tell where the brig was, nor did he know precisely
why so many expedients were adopted to conceal the transfer of a cargo
as simple as that of flour. But he who was in the secret left but little
time for reflection; for swallowing a hasty breakfast on deck, he issued
orders enough to his mate to give him quite as much duty as he could
perform, when he again entered the yawl, and pulled toward the stranger.

Rose soon appeared on deck, and she naturally began to question Harry
concerning their position and prospects. He was confessing his ignorance
as well as lamenting it, when his companion’s sweet face suddenly
flushed. She advanced a step eagerly toward the open window of Spike’s
state-room, then compressed her full, rich, under-lip with the ivory of
her upper teeth, and stood a single instant, a beautiful statue of
irresolution instigated by spirit. The last quality prevailed; and
Mulford was really startled when he saw Rose advance quite to the
window, thrust in an arm, and turn toward him with his own sextant in
her hand. During the course of the passage out, the young man had taught
Rose to assist him in observing the longitude; and she was now ready to
repeat the practice. Not a moment was lost in executing her intention.
Sights were had, and the instrument was returned to its place without
attracting the attention of the men, who were all busy in getting up
purchases, and in making the other necessary dispositions for
discharging the flour. The observations answered the purpose, though
somewhat imperfectly made. Mulford had a tolerable notion of their
latitude, having kept the brig’s run in his head since quitting Yucatan;
and he now found that their longitude was about 83° west from Greenwich.
After ascertaining this fact, a glance at the open chart, which lay on
Spike’s desk, satisfied him that the vessel was anchored within the
group of the Dry Tortugas, or at the western termination of the
well-known, formidable, and extensive Florida Reef. He had never been in
that part of the world before, but had heard enough in sea-gossip, and
had read enough in books, to be at once apprised of the true character
of their situation. The islets were American; the light-house was
American; and the haven in which the Swash lay was the very spot in the
contemplation of government for an outer man-of-war harbor, where fleets
might rendezvous in the future wars of that portion of the world. He now
saw plainly enough the signs of the existence of a vast reef, a short
distance to the southward of the vessel, that formed a species of
sea-wall, or mole, to protect the port against the waves of the gulf, in
that direction. This reef he knew to be miles in width.

There was little time for speculation, Spike soon bringing the strange
schooner directly alongside of the brig. The two vessels immediately
became a scene of activity, one discharging, and the other receiving the
flour as fast as it could be struck out of the hold of the Swash and
lowered upon the deck of the schooner. Mulford, however, had practiced a
little artifice, as the stranger entered the haven, which drew down upon
him an anathema or two from Spike, as soon as they were alone. The mate
had set the brig’s ensign, and this compelled the stranger to be
markedly rude, or to answer the compliment. Accordingly he had shown the
ancient flag of Spain. For thus extorting a national symbol from the
schooner, the mate was sharply rebuked at a suitable moment, though
nothing could have been more forbearing than the deportment of his
commander when they first met.

When Spike returned to his own vessel, he was accompanied by a
dark-looking, well-dressed, and decidedly gentleman-like personage, whom
he addressed indifferently, in his very imperfect Spanish, as Don Wan,
(Don Juan, or John,) or Señor Montefalderon. By the latter appellation
he even saw fit to introduce the very respectable-looking stranger to
his mate. This stranger spoke English well, though with an accent.

“Don Wan has taken all the flour, Mr. Mulford, and intends shoving it
over into Cuba, without troubling the custom-house, I believe; but that
is not a matter to give _us_ any concern, you know.”

The wink, and the knowing look by which this speech was accompanied,
seemed particularly disagreeable to Don Juan, who now paid his
compliments to Rose, with no little surprise betrayed in his
countenance, but with the ease and reserve of a gentleman. Mulford
thought it strange that a smuggler of flour should be so polished a
personage, though his duty did not admit of his bestowing much attention
to the little trifling of the interview that succeeded.

For about an hour the work went steadily and rapidly on. During that
time Mulford was several times on board the schooner, as, indeed, was
Josh, Jack Tier, and others belonging to the Swash. The Spanish vessel
was Baltimore, or clipper built, with a trunk-cabin, and had every
appearance of sailing fast. Mulford was struck with her model, and,
while on board of her, he passed both forward and aft to examine it.
This was so natural in a seaman, that Spike, while he noted the
proceeding, took it in good part. He even called out to his mate, from
his own quarter-deck, to admire this or that point in the schooner’s
construction. As is customary with the vessels of southern nations, this
stranger was full of men, but they continued at their work, some half
dozen of brawny negroes among them, shouting their songs as they swayed
at the falls, no one appearing to manifest jealousy or concern. At
length Tier came near the mate, and said,

“Uncle Sam will not be pleased when he hears the reason that the keeper
is not in his light-house.”

“And what is that reason, Jack? If you know it, tell it to me.”

“Go aft and look down the companion way, maty, and see it for yourself.”

Mulford did go aft, and he made an occasion to look down into the
schooner’s cabin, where he caught a glimpse of the persons of a man and
a boy, whom he at once supposed had been taken from the light-house.
This one fact of itself doubled his distrust of the character of Spike’s
proceedings. There was no sufficient apparent reason why a mere smuggler
should care about the presence of an individual more or less in a
foreign port. Every thing that had occurred looked like pre-concert
between the brig and the schooner; and the mate was just beginning to
entertain the strongest distrust that their vessel was holding
treasonable communication with the enemy, when an accident removed all
doubt on the subject, from his own mind at least. Spike had, once or
twice, given his opinion that the weather was treacherous, and urged the
people of both crafts to extraordinary exertions, in order that the
vessels might get clear of each other as soon as possible. This appeal
had set various expedients in motion to second the more regular work of
the purchases. Among other things, planks had been laid from one vessel
to the other, and barrels were rolled along them with very little
attention to the speed or the direction. Several had fallen on the
schooner’s deck with rude shocks, but no damage was done, until one, of
which the hoops had not been properly secured, met with a fall, and
burst nearly at Mulford’s feet. It was at the precise moment when the
mate was returning, from taking his glance into the cabin, toward the
side of the Swash. A white cloud arose, and half a dozen of the
schooner’s people sprang for buckets, kids, or dishes in order to secure
enough of the contents of the broken barrel to furnish them with a meal.
At first nothing was visible but the white cloud that succeeded the
fall, and the scrambling sailors in its midst. No sooner, however, had
the air got to be a little clear, than Mulford saw an object lying in
the centre of the wreck, that he at once recognized for a keg of
gunpowder! The captain of the schooner seized this keg, gave a knowing
look at Mulford, and disappeared in the hold of his own vessel, carrying
with him, what was out of all question, a most material part of the true
cargo of the Swash.

At the moment when the flour-barrel burst, Spike was below, in close
conference with his Spanish, or Mexican guest; and the wreck being so
soon cleared away, it is probable that he never heard of the accident.
As for the two crews, they laughed a little among themselves at the
revelation which had been made, as well as at the manner; but to old
sea-dogs like them, it was a matter of very little moment, whether the
cargo was, in reality, flour or gunpowder. In a few minutes the affair
seemed to be forgotten. In the course of another hour the Swash was
light, having nothing in her but some pig lead, which she used for
ballast, while the schooner was loaded to her hatches, and full. Spike
now sent a boat, with orders to drop a kedge about a hundred yards from
the place where his own brig lay. The schooner warped up to this kedge,
and dropped an anchor of her own, leaving a very short range of cable
out, it being a flat calm. Ordinarily, the trades prevail at the Dry
Tortugas, and all along the Florida Reef. Sometimes, indeed, this breeze
sweeps across the whole width of the Gulf of Mexico, blowing home, as it
is called—reaching even to the coast of Texas. It is subject, however,
to occasional interruptions everywhere, varying many points in its
direction, and occasionally ceasing entirely. The latter was the
condition of the weather about noon on this day, or when the schooner
hauled off from the brig, and was secured at her own anchor.

“Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, “I do not like the state of the atmosphere.
D’ye see that fiery streak along the western horizon—well, sir, as the
sun gets nearer to that streak, there’ll be trouble, or I’m no judge of
weather.”

“You surely do not imagine, Capt. Spike, that the sun will be any nearer
to that fiery streak, as you call it, when he is about to set, than he
is at this moment?” answered the mate, smiling.

“I’m sure of one thing, young man, and that is, that old heads are
better than young ones. What a man has once seen, he may expect to see
again, if the same leading signs offer. Man the boat, sir, and carry out
the kedge, which is still in it, and lay it off here, about three p’ints
on our larboard bow.”

Mulford had a profound respect for Spike’s seamanship, whatever he might
think of his principles. The order was consequently obeyed. The mate was
then directed to send down various articles out of the top, and to get
the top-gallant and royal yards on deck. Spike carried his precautions
so far, as to have the mainsail lowered, it ordinarily brailing at that
season of the year, with a standing gaff. With this disposition
completed, the captain seemed more at his ease, and went below to join
Señor Montefalderon in a _siesta_. The Mexican, for such, in truth, was
the national character of the owner of the schooner, had preceded him in
this indulgence: and most of the people of the brig having laid
themselves down to sleep under the heat of the hour, Mulford soon
enjoyed another favorable opportunity for a private conference with
Rose.

“Harry,” commenced the latter, as soon as they were alone; “I have much
to tell you. While you have been absent I have overheard a conversation
between this Spanish gentleman and Spike, that shows the last is in
treaty with the other for the sale of the brig. Spike extolled his
vessel to the skies, while Don Wan, as he calls him, complains that the
brig is old, and cannot last long; to which Spike answered ‘to be sure
she is old, Señor Montefalderon, but she will last as long as _your
war_, and under a bold captain might be made to return her cost, a
hundred fold!’ What war can he mean, and to what does such a discourse
tend?”

“The war alludes to the war now existing between America and Mexico, and
the money to be made is to be plundered at sea, from our own merchant
vessels. If Don Juan Montefalderon is really in treaty for the purchase
of the brig, it is to convert her into a Mexican cruiser, either public
or private.”

“But this would be treason on the part of Spike!”

“Not more so than supplying the enemy with gunpowder, as he has just
been doing. I have ascertained the reason he was so unwilling to be
overhauled by the revenue steamer, as well as the reason why the revenue
steamer wished so earnestly to overhaul us. Each barrel of flour
contains another of gunpowder, and that has been sold to this Señor
Montefalderon, who is doubtless an officer of the Mexican government,
and no smuggler.”

“He has been at New York, this very summer, I know,” continued Rose,
“for he spoke of his visit, and made such other remarks, as leaves no
doubt that Spike expected to find him here, on this very day of the
month. He also paid Spike a large sum of money in doubloons, and took
back the bag to his schooner, when he had done so, after showing the
captain enough was left to pay for the brig, could they only agree on
the terms of their bargain.”

“Ay, ay; it is all plain enough now, Spike has determined on a desperate
push for fortune, and foreseeing it might not soon be in his power to
return to New York, in safety, he has included his designs on you and
your fortune, in the plot.”

“My fortune! the trifle I possess can scarcely be called a fortune,
Harry!”

“It would be a fortune to Spike, Rose, and I shall be honest enough to
own it would be a fortune to me. I say this frankly, for I do believe
you think too well of me to suppose that I seek you for any other reason
than the ardent love I bear your person and character; but a fact is not
to be denied because it may lead certain persons to distrust our
motives. Spike is poor, like myself; and the brig is not only getting to
be very old, but she has been losing money for the last twelve months.”

Mulford and Rose now conversed long and confidentially, on their
situation and prospects. The mate neither magnified nor concealed the
dangers of both; but freely pointed out the risk to himself, in being on
board a vessel that was aiding and comforting the enemy. It was
determined between them that both would quit the brig the moment an
opportunity offered, and the mate even went so far as to propose an
attempt to escape in one of the boats, although he might incur the
hazards of a double accusation, those of mutiny and larceny, for making
the experiment. Unfortunately, neither Rose, nor her aunt, nor Biddy,
nor Jack Tier had seen the barrel of powder, and neither could testify
as to the true character of Spike’s connection with the schooner. It was
manifestly necessary, therefore, independently of the risks that might
be run by “bearding the lion in his den,” to proceed with great
intelligence and caution.

This dialogue between Harry and Rose, occurred just after the turn in
the day, and it lasted fully an hour. Each had been too much interested
to observe the heavens, but, as they were on the point of separating,
Rose pointed out to her companion the unusual and most menacing aspect
of the sky in the western horizon. It appeared as if a fiery heat was
glowing there, behind a curtain of black vapor; and what rendered it
more remarkable, was the circumstance that an extraordinary degree of
placidity prevailed in all other parts of the heavens. Mulford scarce
knew what to make of it; his experience not going so far as to enable
him to explain the novel and alarming appearance. He stepped on a gun,
and gazed around him for a moment. There lay the schooner, without a
being visible on board of her, and there stood the light-house, gloomy
in its desertion and solitude. The birds alone seemed to be alive and
conscious of what was approaching. They were all on the wing, wheeling
wildly in the air, and screaming discordantly, as belonged to their
habits. The young man leaped off the gun, gave a loud call to Spike, at
the companion-way, and sprang forward to call all hands.

One minute only was lost, when every seaman on board the Swash, from the
captain to Jack Tier, was on deck. Mulford met Spike at the cabin door,
and pointed toward the fiery column that was booming down upon the
anchorage, with a velocity and direction that would now admit of no
misinterpretation. For one instant that sturdy old seaman stood aghast;
gazing at the enemy as one conscious of his impotency might have been
supposed to quail before an assault that he foresaw must prove
irresistable. Then his native spirit, and most of all the effects of
training, began to show themselves in him, and he became at once, not
only the man again, but the resolute, practiced and ready commander.

“Come aft to the spring, men—” he shouted—“clap on the spring, Mr.
Mulford, and bring the brig head to wind.”

This order was obeyed as seamen best obey, in cases of sudden and
extreme emergency; or with intelligence, aptitude and power. The brig
had swung nearly round, in the desired direction, when the tornado
struck her. It will be difficult, we do not know but it is impossible,
to give a clear and accurate account of what followed. As most of our
readers have doubtless felt how great is the power of the wind,
whiffling and pressing different ways, in sudden and passing gusts, they
have only to imagine this power increased many, many fold, and the
baffling of the currents made furious, as it might be, by meeting with
resistance, to form some notion of the appalling strength and frightful
inconstancy with which it blew for about a minute.

Notwithstanding the circumstance of Spike’s precaution had greatly
lessened the danger, every man on the deck of the Swash believed the
brig was gone when the gust struck her. Over she went, in fact, until
the water came pouring in above her half-ports, like so many little
cascades, and spouting up through her scupper-holes, resembling the
blowing of young whales. It was the whiffling energy of the tornado,
that alone saved her. As if disappointed in not destroying its intended
victim at one swoop, the tornado “let up” in its pressure, like a
dexterous wrestler, making a fresh and desperate effort to overturn the
vessel, by a slight variation in its course. That change saved the
Swash. She righted, and even rolled in the other direction, or what
might be called to windward, with her decks full of water. For a minute
longer, these baffling, changing gusts continued, each causing the brig
to bow like a reed to their power, one lifting as another pressed her
down, and then the weight, or the more dangerous part of the tornado was
passed, though it continued to blow heavily, always in whiffling blasts,
several minutes longer.

During the weight of the gust, no one had leisure, or indeed inclination
to look to aught beyond its effect on the brig. Had one been otherwise
disposed, the attempt would have been useless, for the wind had filled
the air with spray, and near the islets even with sand. The lurid but
fiery tinge, too, interposed a veil that no human eye could penetrate.
As the tornado passed onward, however, and the winds lulled, the air
again became clear, and in five minutes after the moment when the Swash
lay nearly on her side, with her lower yard-arm actually within a few
feet of the water, all was still and placid around her, as one is
accustomed to see the ocean in a calm, of a summer’s afternoon. Then it
was that those who had been in such extreme jeopardy could breathe
freely and look about them. On board the Swash, all was well—not a
rope-yarn had parted, or an eye-bolt drawn. The timely precautions of
Spike had saved his brig, and great was his joy thereat.

In the midst of the infernal din of the tornado, screams had ascended
from the cabin, and the instant he could quit the deck with propriety,
Mulford sprang below, in order to ascertain their cause. He apprehended
that some of the females had been driven to leeward when the brig went
over, and that some of the luggage or furniture had fallen on them. In
the main cabin, the mate found Señor Montefalderon just quitting his
berth, composed, gentleman-like, and collected. Josh was braced in a
corner nearly gray with fear, while Jack Tier still lay on the cabin
floor, at the last point to which he had rolled. One word sufficed to
let Don Juan know that the gust had passed, and the brig was safe, when
Mulford tapped at the door of the inner cabin. Rose appeared, pale, but
calm and unhurt.

“Is any one injured?” asked the young man, his mind relieved at once, as
soon as he saw that she who most occupied his thoughts was safe; “we
heard screams from this cabin.”

“My aunt and Biddy have been frightened,” answered Rose, “but neither
has been hurt. Oh, Harry, what terrible thing has happened to us? I
heard the roaring of—”

“’Twas a tornado,” interrupted Mulford eagerly—“but ’tis over. ’Twas
one of those sudden and tremendous gusts that sometimes occur within the
tropics, in which the danger is usually in the first shock. If no one is
injured in this cabin, no one is injured at all.”

“Oh, Mr. Mulford—dear Mr. Mulford!” exclaimed the relict from the
corner into which she had been followed and jammed by Biddy, “Oh, Mr.
Mulford, are we foundered, or not?”

“Heaven be praised, not, my dear ma’am, though we came nearer to it than
I ever was before.”

“Are we cap-asided?”

“Nor that, Mrs. Budd; the brig is as upright as a church.”

“Upright!” repeated Biddy, in her customary accent—“is it as a church?
Sure, then, Mr. Mate, ’tis a Presbyterian church that you mane, and that
is always totterin’.”

“Catholic, or Dutch—no church in York is more completely up and down,
than the brig at this moment.”

“Get off of me—get off of me, Biddy, and let me rise,” said the widow,
with dignity. “The danger is over I see, and, as we return our thanks
for it, we have the consolation of knowing that we have done our duty.
It is incumbent on all, at such moments, to be at their posts, and to
set examples of decision and prudence.”

As Mulford saw all was well in the cabin, he hastened on deck, followed
by Señor Montefalderon. Just as they emerged from the companion-way,
Spike was hailing the forecastle.

“Forecastle, there,” he cried, standing on the trunk himself as he did
so, and moving from side to side, as if to catch a glimpse of some
object ahead.

“Sir,” came back from an old salt, who was coiling up rigging in that
seat of seamanship.

“Where away is the schooner? She ought to be dead ahead of us, as we
tend now—but blast me if I can see as much as her mast-heads.”

At this suggestion, a dozen men sprang upon guns or other objects, to
look for the vessel in question. The old salt forward, however, had much
the best chance, for he stepped on the heel of the bowsprit, and walked
as far out as the knight-heads, to command the whole view ahead of the
brig. There he stood half a minute, looking first on one side of the
head-gear, then the other, when he gave his trousers a hitch, put a
fresh quid in his mouth, and called out in a voice almost as hoarse as
the tempest, that had just gone by,

“The schooner has gone down at her anchor, sir. There’s her buoy
watching still, as if nothing had happened; but as for the craft itself,
there’s not so much as a bloody yard-arm, or mast-head of her to be
seen!”

This news produced a sensation in the brig at once, as may be supposed.
Even Señor Montefalderon, a quiet, gentleman-like person, altogether
superior in deportment to the bustle and fuss that usually marks the
manners of persons in trade, was disturbed; for to him the blow was
heavy indeed. Whether he were acting for himself, or was an agent of the
Mexican government, the loss was much the same.

“Tom is right enough,” put in Spike, rather coolly for the
circumstances—“that there schooner of yourn has foundered, Don Wan, as
any one can see. She must have capsized and filled, for I obsarved they
had left the hatches off, meaning, no doubt, to make an end of the
storage as soon as they had done sleeping.”

“And what has become of all her men, Don Esteban?” for so the Mexican
politely called his companion. “Have all my poor countrymen perished in
this disaster?”

“I fear they have, Don Wan; for I see no head, as of any one swimming.
The vessel lay so near that island next to it, that a poor swimmer would
have no difficulty in reaching the place; but there is no living thing
to be seen. But man the boat, men; we will go to the spot, Señor, and
examine for ourselves.”

There were two boats in the water, and alongside of the brig. One was
the Swash’s yawl, a small but convenient craft, while the other was much
larger, fitted with a sail, and had all the appearance of having been
built to withstand breezes and seas. Mulford felt perfectly satisfied,
the moment he saw this boat, which had come into the haven in tow of the
schooner, that it had been originally in the service of the light-house
keeper. As there was a very general desire among those on the
quarterdeck to go to the assistance of the schooner, Spike ordered both
boats manned, jumping into the yawl himself, accompanied by Don Juan
Montefalderon, and telling Mulford to follow with the larger craft,
bringing with him as many of the females as might choose to accompany
him. As Mrs. Budd thought it incumbent on her to be active in such a
scene, all did go, including Biddy, though with great reluctance on the
part of Rose.

With the buoy for a guide, Spike had no difficulty in finding the spot
where the schooner lay. She had scarcely shifted her berth in the least,
there having been no time for her even to swing to the gust, but she had
probably capsized at the first blast, filled, and gone down instantly.
The water was nearly as clear as the calm, mild atmosphere of the
tropics; and it was almost as easy to discern the vessel, and all her
hamper, as if she lay on a beach. She had gone down as she filled, or on
her side, and still continued in that position. As the water was little
more than three fathoms deep, the upper side was submerged but a few
inches, and her yard-arms would have been out of the water, but for the
circumstance that the yards had canted under the pressure.

At first, no sign was seen of any of those who had been on board this
ill-fated schooner when she went down. It was known that twenty-one
souls were in her, including the man and the boy who had belonged to the
light-house. As the boat moved slowly over this sad ruin, however, a
horrible and startling spectacle came in view. Two bodies were seen,
within a few feet of the surface of the water, one grasped in the arms
of the other, in the gripe of despair. The man held in the grasp, was
kept beneath the water solely by the death-lock of his companion, who
was himself held where he floated, by the circumstance that one of his
feet was entangled in a rope. The struggle could not have been long
over, for the two bodies were slowly settling toward the bottom when
first seen. It is probable that both these men had more than once risen
to the surface in their dreadful struggle. Spike seized a boat-hook, and
made an effort to catch the clothes of the nearest body, but
ineffectually, both sinking to the sands beneath, lifeless, and without
motion. There being no sharks in sight, Mulford volunteered to dive and
fasten a line to one of these unfortunate men, whom Don Juan declared at
once was the schooner’s captain. Some little time was lost in procuring
a lead-line from the brig, when the lead was dropped alongside of the
drowned. Provided with another piece of the same sort of line, which had
a small running bowline around that which was fastened to the lead, the
mate made his plunge, and went down with great vigor of arm. It required
resolution and steadiness to descend so far into salt water; but Harry
succeeded, and rose with the bodies, which came up with the slightest
impulse. All were immediately got into the boat, and away the latter
went toward the light-house, which was nearer and more easy of access
than the brig.

It is probable that one of these unfortunate men might have been revived
under judicious treatment; but he was not fated to receive it. Spike,
who knew nothing of such matters, undertook to direct every thing, and,
instead of having recourse to warmth and gentle treatment, he ordered
the bodies to be rolled on a cask, suspended them by the heels, and
resorted to a sort of practice that might have destroyed well men,
instead of resuscitating those in whom the vital spark was dormant, if
not actually extinct.

Two hours later, Rose, seated in her own cabin, unavoidably overheard
the following dialogue, which passed in English, a language that Señor
Montefalderon spoke perfectly well, as has been said.

“Well Señor,” said Spike, “I hope this little accident will not prevent
our final trade. You will want the brig now, to take the schooner’s
place.”

“And how am I to pay you for the brig, Señor Spike, even if I buy her?”

“I’ll ventur’ to guess there is plenty of money in Mexico. Though they
do say the government is so backward about paying, I have always found
you punctual, and am not afraid to put faith in you ag’in.”

“But I have no longer any money to pay you half in hand, as I did for
the powder, when last in New York.”

“The bag was pretty well lined with doubloons when I saw it last,
Señor.”

“And do you know where that bag is; and where there is another that
holds the same sum?”

Spike started, and he mused in silence some little time, ere he again
spoke.

“I had forgotten,” he at length answered. “The gold must have all gone
down in the schooner, along with the powder!”

“And the poor men!”

“Why, as for the men, Señor, more may be had for the asking; but powder
and doubloons will be hard to find, when most wanted. Then the men were
_poor_ men, accordin’ to my idees of what an able seaman should be, or
they never would have let their schooner turn turtle with them as she
did.”

“We will talk of the money, Don Esteban, if you please,” said the
Mexican, with reserve.

“With all my heart, Don Wan—nothing is more agreeable to me than money.
How many of them doubloons shall fall to my share if I raise the
schooner, and put you in possession of your craft again?”

“Can that be done, Señor?” demanded Don Juan earnestly.

“A seaman can do almost any thing, in that way, Don Wan, if you will
give him time and means. For one half the doubloons I can find in the
wrack, the job shall be done.”

“You can have them,” answered Don Juan, quietly, a good deal surprised
that Spike should deem it necessary to offer him any part of the sum he
might find. “As for the powder, I suppose that is lost to my country.”

“Not at all, Don Wan. The flour is well packed around it, and I don’t
expect it would take any harm in a month. I shall not only turn over the
flour to you, just as if nothing had happened, but I shall put four
first rate hands aboard your schooner, who will take her into port for
you, with a good deal more sartainty than forty of the men you had. My
mate is a prime navigator.”

This concluded the bargain, every word of which was heard by Rose, and
every word of which she did not fail to communicate to Mulford, the
moment there was an opportunity. The young man heard it with great
interest, telling Rose that he should do all he could to assist in
raising the schooner, in the hope that something might turn up to enable
him to escape in her, taking off Rose and her aunt. As for his carrying
her into a Mexican port, let them trust him for that! Agreeably to the
arrangement, orders were given that afternoon to commence the necessary
preparations for the work, and considerable progress was made in them by
the time the Swash’s people were ordered to knock off work for the
night.

After the sun had set the reaction in the currents again commenced, and
it blew for a few hours heavily, during the night. Toward morning,
however, it moderated, and when the sun re-appeared it scarcely ever
diffused its rays over a more peaceful or quiet day. Spike caused all
hands to be called, and immediately set about the important business he
had before him.

In order that the vessel might be as free as possible, Jack Tier was
directed to skull the females ashore, in the brig’s yawl; Señor
Montefalderon, a man of polished manners, as we maintain is very apt to
be the case with Mexican gentlemen, whatever may be the opinion of this
good republic on the subject, just at this moment, asked permission to
be of the party. Mulford found an opportunity to beg Rose, if they
landed at the light, to reconnoitre the place well, with a view to
ascertain what facilities it could afford in an attempt to escape. They
did land at the light, and glad enough were Mrs. Budd, Rose and Biddy to
place their feet on _terrâ firmâ_ after so long a confinement to the
narrow limits of a vessel.

“Well,” said Jack Tier, as they walked up to the spot where the
buildings stood, “this is a rum place for a light’us, Miss Rose, and I
don’t wonder the keeper and his messmates has cleared out.”

“I am very sorry to say,” observed Señor Montefalderon, whose
countenance expressed the concern he really felt, “that the keeper and
his only companion, a boy, were on board the schooner, and have perished
in her, in common with so many of my poor countrymen. There are the
graves of two whom we buried here last evening, after vain efforts to
restore them to life!”

“What a dreadful catastrophe it has been, Señor,” said Rose, whose sweet
countenance eloquently expressed the horror and regret she so naturally
felt—“Twenty fellow beings hurried into eternity without even an
instant for prayer!”

“You feel for them, Señorita—it is natural _you_ should, and it is
natural that I, their countryman and leader, should feel for them, also.
I do not know what God has in reserve for my unfortunate country! We may
have cruel and unscrupulous men among us, Señorita, but we have
thousands who are just, and brave, and honorable.”

“So Mr. Mulford tells me, Señor, and he has been much in your ports, on
the west coast.”

“I like that young man, and wonder not a little at his and your
situation in this brig—” rejoined the Mexican, dropping his voice so as
not to be heard by their companions, as they walked a little ahead of
Mrs. Budd and Biddy. “The Señor Spike is scarcely worthy to be _his_
commander or _your_ guardian.”

“Yet you find him worthy of your intercourse and trust, Don Juan?”

The Mexican shrugged his shoulders, and smiled equivocally; still, in a
melancholy manner. It would seem he did not deem it wise to push this
branch of the subject further, since he turned to another.

“I like the Señor Mulford,” he resumed, “for his general deportment and
principles, so far as I can judge of him on so short an acquaintance.”

“Excuse me, Señor,” interrupted Rose, hurriedly “—but you never saw
_him_ until you met him here.”

“Never—I understand you, Señorita, and can do full justice to the young
man’s character. I am willing to think he did not know the errand of his
vessel, or I should not have seen him now. But what I most like him for,
is this: Last night, during the gale, he and I walked the deck together,
for an hour. We talked of Mexico, and of this war, so unfortunate for my
country already, and which may become still more so, when he uttered
this noble sentiment—‘My country is more powerful than yours, Señor
Montefalderon,’ he said, ‘and in this it has been more favored by God.
You have suffered from ambitious rulers, and from military rule, while
we have been advancing under the arts of peace, favored by a most
beneficent Providence. As for this war, I know but little about it,
though I dare say the Mexican government may have been wrong in some
things that it might have controlled and some that it might not—but let
right be where it will, I am sorry to see a nation that has taken so
firm a stand in favor of popular government, pressed upon so hard by
another that is supposed to be the great support of such principles.
America and Mexico are neighbors, and ought to be friends, and while I
do not, cannot blame my own country for pursuing the war with vigor,
nothing would please me more than to hear peace proclaimed.’”

“That is just like Harry Mulford,” said Rose, thoughtfully, as soon as
her companion ceased to speak. “I do wish, Señor, that there could be no
use for this powder, that is now buried in the sea.”

Don Juan Montefalderon smiled, and seemed a little surprised that the
fair, young thing at his side should have known of the treacherous
contents of the flour-barrels. No doubt he found it inexplicable, that
persons like Rose and Mulford should, seemingly, be united with one like
Spike; but he was too well bred, and, indeed, too effectually mystified,
to push the subject further than might be discreet.

By this time they were near the entrance of the light-house, into which
the whole party entered, in a sort of mute awe at its silence and
solitude. At Señor Montefalderon’s invitation, they ascended to the
lantern, whence they could command a wide and fair view of the
surrounding waters. The reef was much more apparent from that elevation
than from below; and Rose could see that numbers of its rocks were bare,
while on other parts of it there was the appearance of many feet of
water. Rose gazed at it, with longing eyes, for, from a few remarks that
had fallen from Mulford, she suspected he had hopes of escaping among
its channels and coral.

As they descended and walked through the buildings, Rose also took good
heed of the supplies the place afforded. There were flour, and beef, and
pork; and many other of the common articles of food, as well as water in
a cistern, that caught it as it flowed from the roof of the dwelling.
Water was also to be found in casks—nothing like a spring or a well
existing among those islets. All these things Rose noted, putting them
aside in her memory for ready reference hereafter.

In the meantime the mariners were not idle. Spike moved his brig, and
moored her, head and stern, alongside of the wreck, before the people
got their breakfasts. As soon as that meal was ended, both captain and
mate set about their duty in earnest. Mulford carried out an anchor on
the off side of the Swash, and dropped it, at a distance of about eighty
fathoms from the vessel’s beam. Purchases were brought from both
mast-heads of the brig to the chain of this anchor, and were hove upon
until the vessel was given a heel of more than a streak, and the cable
was tolerably taut. Other purchases were got up opposite, and overhauled
down, in readiness to take hold of the schooner’s masts. The anchor of
the schooner was weighed by its buoy-rope, and the chain, after being
rove through the upper or opposite hawse-hole, brought in on board the
Swash. Another chain was dropped astern, in such a way, that when the
schooner came upright, it would be sure to pass beneath her keel, some
six or eight feet from the rudder. Slings were then sunk over the
mast-heads, and the purchases were hooked on. Hours were consumed in
these preliminary labors, and the people went to dinner as soon as they
were completed.

When the men had dined, Spike brought one of his purchases to the
windlass, and the other to the capstan, though not until each was bowsed
taut by hand; a few minutes having brought the strain so far on every
thing, as to enable a seaman, like Spike, to form some judgment of the
likelihood that his preventers and purchases would stand. Some changes
were found necessary to equalize the strain, but, on the whole, the
captain was satisfied with his work, and the crew were soon ordered to
“heave-away; the windlass best.”

In the course of half an hour the hull of the vessel, which lay on its
bilge, began to turn on its keel, and the heads of the spars to rise
above the water. This was the easiest part of the process, all that was
required of the purchases being to turn over a mass which rested on the
sands of the bay. Aided by the long levers afforded by the spars, the
work advanced so rapidly that, in just one hour’s time after his people
had begun to heave, Spike had the pleasure to see the schooner standing
upright, alongside of his own brig, though still sunk to the bottom. The
wreck was secured in this position, by means of guys and preventers, in
order that it might not again cant, when the order was issued to hook on
the slings that were to raise it to the surface. These slings were the
chains of the schooner, one of which went under her keel, while for the
other the captain trusted to the strength of the two hawse-holes, having
passed the cable out of one and in at the other, in a way to serve his
purposes, as has just been stated.

When all was ready, Spike mustered his crew, and made a speech. He told
the men that he was about a job that was out of the usual line of their
duty, and that he knew they had a right to expect extra pay for such
extra work. The schooner contained money, and his object was to get at
it. If he succeeded, their reward would be a doubloon a man, which would
be earning more than a month’s wages by twenty-four hours’ work. This
was enough. The men wanted to hear no more; but they cheered their
commander, and set about their task in the happiest disposition
possible.

The reader will understand that the object to be first achieved, was to
raise a vessel, with a hold filled with flour and gunpowder, from off
the bottom of the bay to its surface. As she stood, the deck of this
vessel was about six feet under water, and every one will understand
that her weight, so long as it was submerged in a fluid as dense as that
of the sea, would be much more manageable than if suspended in air. The
barrels, for instance, were not much heavier than the water they
displaced, and the wood work of the vessel itself, was, on the whole,
positively lighter than the element in which it had sunk. As for the
water in the hold, that was of the same weight as the water on the
outside of the craft, and there had not been much to carry the schooner
down, beside her iron, the spars that were out of water, and her
ballast. This last, some ten or twelve tons in weight, was in fact the
principal difficulty, and alone induced Spike to have any doubts about
his eventual success. There was no foreseeing the result until he had
made a trial, however, and the order was again given to “heave away.”

To the infinite satisfaction of the Swash’s crew, the weight was found
quite manageable, so long as the hull remained beneath the water.
Mulford, with three or four assistants, was kept on board the schooner
lightening her, by getting the other anchor off her bows, and throwing
the different objects overboard, or on the decks of the brig. By the
time the bulwarks reached the surface, as much was gained in this way,
as was lost by having so much of the lighter wood-work rise above the
water. As a matter of course, however, the weight increased as the
vessel rose, and more especially as the lower portion of the spars, the
bowsprit, boom, &c., from being buoyant assistants, became so much dead
weight to be lifted.

Spike kept a watchful eye on his spars, and the extra supports he had
given them. He was moving, the whole time, from point to point, feeling
shrouds and back-stays, and preventers, in order to ascertain the degree
of strain on each, or examining how the purchases stood. As for the
crew, they cheered at their toil, incessantly, passing from capstan bars
to the handspikes, and _vice versa_. They, too, felt that their task was
increasing in resistance as it advanced, and now found it more difficult
to gain an inch, than it had been at first to gain a foot. They seemed,
indeed, to be heaving their own vessel out, instead of heaving the other
craft up, and it was not long before they had the Swash heeling over
toward the wreck several streaks. The strain, moreover, on every thing,
became not only severe, but somewhat menacing. Every shroud, back-stay
and preventer was as taut as a bar of iron, and the chain-cable that led
to the anchor planted off abeam, was as straight as if the brig were
riding by it in a gale of wind. One or two ominous surges aloft, too,
had been heard, and, though no more than straps and slings settling into
their places under hard strains, they served to remind the crew that
danger might come from that quarter. Such was the state of things, when
Spike called out to “heave and pall,” that he might take a look at the
condition of the wreck.

Although a great deal remained to be done, in order to get the schooner
to float, a great deal had already been done. Her precise condition was
as follows: Having no cabin widows, the water had entered her, when she
capsized, by the only four apertures her construction possessed. These
were the companion-way, or cabin-doors; the sky-light; the main-hatch,
or the large inlet amid-ships, by which cargo went up and down; and the
booby-hatch, which was the counterpart of the companion-way, forward;
being intended to admit of ingress to the forecastle, the apartment of
the crew. Each of these hatch-ways, or orifices, had the usual defences
of “coamings,” strong frame-work around their margins. These coamings
rose six or eight inches above the deck, and answered the double purpose
of strengthening the vessel, in a part, that without them would be
weaker than common, and of preventing any water that might be washing
about the decks from running below. As soon, therefore, as these three
apertures, or their coamings, could be raised above the level of the
water of the basin, all danger of the vessel’s receiving any further
tribute of that sort from the ocean would be over. It was to this end,
consequently, that Spike’s efforts had been latterly directed, though
they had only in part succeeded. The schooner possessed a good deal of
sheer, as it is termed; or, her two extremities rose nearly a foot above
her centre, when on an even keel. This had brought her extremities first
to the surface, and it was the additional weight which had consequently
been brought into the air, that had so much increased the strain, and
induced Spike to pause. The deck forward, as far aft as the foremast,
and aft as far forward as the centre of the trunk, or to the sky-light,
was above the water, or at least awash; while all the rest of it was
covered. In the vicinity of the main-hatch there were several inches of
water; enough indeed to leave the upper edge of the coamings submerged
by about an inch. To raise the keel that inch by means of the purchases,
Spike well knew would cost him more labor, and would incur more risk
than all that had been done previously, and he paused before he would
attempt it.

The men were now called from the brig and ordered to come on board the
schooner. Spike ascertained by actual measurement how much was wanted to
bring the coamings of the main-hatch above the water, until which was
done, pumping and bailing would be useless. He found it was quite an
inch, and was at a great loss to know how that inch should be obtained.
Mulford advised another trial with the handspikes and bars, but to this
Spike would not consent. He believed that the masts of the brig had
already as much pressure on them as they would bear. The mate next
proposed getting the main boom off the vessel, and to lighten the craft
by cutting away her bowsprit and masts. The captain was well enough
disposed to do this, but he doubted whether it would meet with the
approbation of “Don Wan,” who was still ashore with Rose and her aunt,
and who probably looked forward to recovering his gunpowder by means of
those very spars. At length the carpenter hit upon a plan that was
adopted.

This plan was very simple, though it had its own ingenuity. It will be
remembered that water could now only enter the vessel’s hold at the
main-hatch, all the other hatchways having their coamings above the
element. The carpenter proposed, therefore, that the main-hatches, which
had been off when the tornado occurred, but which had been found on deck
when the vessel righted, should now be put on, oakum being first laid
along in their rabbetings, and that the cracks should be stuffed with
additional oakum, to exclude as much water as possible. He thought that
two or three men, by using caulking irons for ten minutes, would make
the hatch-way so tight that very little water would penetrate. While
this was doing, he himself would bore as many holes forward and aft, as
he could, with a two inch augur, out of which the water then in the
vessel would be certain to run. Spike was delighted with this project,
and gave the necessary orders on the spot.

This much must be said of the crew of the Molly Swash—whatever they did
in their own profession, they did intelligently and well. On the present
occasion they maintained their claim to this character, and were both
active and expert. The hatches were soon on, and, in an imperfect
manner, caulked. While this was doing, the carpenter got into a boat,
and going under the schooner’s bows, where a whole plank was out of
water, he chose a spot between two of the timbers, and bored a hole as
near the surface of the water as he dared to do. Not satisfied with one
hole, however, he bored many—choosing both sides of the vessel to make
them, and putting some aft as well as forward. In a word, in the course
of twenty minutes the schooner was tapped in at least a dozen places,
and jets of water, two inches in diameter, were spouting from her on
each bow, and under each quarter.

Spike and Mulford noted the effect. Some water, doubtless, still worked
itself into the vessel about the main-hatch, but that more flowed from
her by means of the outlets just named, was quite apparent. After close
watching at the outlets for some time, Spike was convinced that the
schooner was slowly rising, the intense strain that still came from the
brig producing that effect as the vessel gradually became lighter. By
the end of half an hour, there could be no longer any doubt, the holes,
which had been bored within an inch of the water, being now fully two
inches above it. The augur was applied anew, still nearer to the surface
of the sea, and as fresh outlets were made, those that began to manifest
a dulness in their streams were carefully plugged.

Spike now thought it was time to take a look at the state of things on
deck. Here, to his joy, he ascertained that the coamings had actually
risen a little above the water. The reader is not to suppose by this
rising of the vessel, that she had become sufficiently buoyant, in
consequence of the water that had run out of her, to float of herself!
This was far from being the case; but the constant upward pressure from
the brig, which, on mechanical principles tended constantly to bring
that craft upright, had the effect to lift the schooner as the latter
was gradually relieved from the weight that pressed her toward the
bottom.

The hatches were next removed, when it was found that the water in the
schooner’s hold had so far lowered, as to leave a vacant space of quite
a foot between the lowest part of the deck and its surface. Toward the
two extremities of the vessel this space necessarily was much increased,
in consequence of the sheer. Men were now sent into the hatchway with
orders to hook on to the flour-barrels—a whip having been rigged in
readiness to hoist them on deck. At the same time gangs were sent to the
pumps, though Spike still depended for getting rid of the water somewhat
on the augur—the carpenter continuing to bore and plug his holes as new
opportunities offered, and the old outlets became useless. It was true
this expedient would soon cease, for the water having found its level in
the vessel’s hold, was very nearly on a level also with that on the
outside. Bailing also was commenced, both forward and aft.

Spike’s next material advantage was obtained by means of the cargo. By
the time the sun had set, fully two hundred barrels had been rolled into
the hatchway, and passed on deck, whence, about half of them, were sent
in the light-house boat to the nearest islet, and the remainder were
transferred to the deck of the brig. These last were placed on the off
side of the Swash, and aided in bringing her nearer upright. A great
deal was gained in getting rid of these barrels. The water in the
schooner lowered just as much as the space they had occupied, and the
vessel was relieved at once of twenty tons in weight.

Just after the sun had set, Señor Don Juan Montefalderon and his party
returned on board. They had staid on the island to the last moment, at
Rose’s request, for she had taken as close an observation of every
thing, as possible, in order to ascertain if any means of concealment
existed, in the event of her aunt, Biddy, and herself quitting the brig.
The islets were all too naked and too small, however; and she was
compelled to return to the Swash, without any hopes derived from this
quarter.

Spike had just directed the people to get their suppers as the Mexican
came on board. Together they descended to the schooner’s deck, where
they had a long but secret conference. Señor Montefalderon was a calm,
quiet and reasonable man, and while he felt as one would be apt to feel,
who had recently seen so many associates swept suddenly out of
existence, the late catastrophe did not in the least unman him. It is
too much the habit of the American people to receive their impressions
from newspapers, which throw off their articles unreflectingly, and
often ignorantly, as crones in petticoats utter their gossip. In a word,
the opinions thus obtained are very much on a level, in value, with the
thoughts of those who are said to think aloud, and who give utterance to
all the crudities and trivial rumors that may happen to reach their
ears. In this manner, we apprehend, very false notions of our neighbors
of Mexico have become circulated among us. That nation is a mixed race,
and has necessarily the various characteristics of such an origin, and
it is unfortunately little influenced by the diffusion of intelligence
which certainly exists here. Although an enemy, it ought to be
acknowledged, however, that even Mexico has her redeeming points.
Anglo-Saxons as we are, we have no desire to unnecessarily illustrate
that very marked feature in the Anglo-Saxon character, which prompts the
mother stock to calumniate all who oppose it, but would rather adopt
some of that chivalrous courtesy of which so much that is lofty and
commendable is to be found among the descendants of Old Spain.

The Señor Montefalderon was earnestly engaged in what he conceived to be
the cause of his country. It was scarcely possible to bring together two
men impelled by motives more distinct than Spike and this gentleman. The
first was acting under impulses of the lowest and most groveling nature;
while the last was influenced by motives of the highest. However much
Mexico may, and has, weakened her cause by her own punic faith,
instability, military oppression, and political revolutions, giving to
the Texans in particular, ample justification for their revolt, it was
not probable that Don Juan Montefalderon saw the force of all the
arguments that a casuist of ordinary ingenuity could certainly adduce
against his country; for it is a most unusual thing to find a man any
where, who is willing to admit that the positions of an opponent are
good. He saw in the events of the day, a province wrested from his
nation; and, in his reasoning on the subject, entirely overlooking the
numerous occasions on which his own fluctuating government had given
sufficient justification, not to say motives, to their powerful
neighbors, to take the law into their own hands, and redress themselves;
he fancied all that has occurred was previously planned, instead of
regarding it, as it truly is, as merely the result of political events,
that no man could have foreseen, that no man had originally imagined, or
that any man could control.

Don Juan understood Spike completely, and quite justly appreciated not
only his character, but his capabilities. Their acquaintance was not of
a day, though it had ever been marked by that singular combination of
caution and reliance that is apt to characterize the intercourse between
the knave and the honest man, when circumstances compel not only
communication, but, to a certain extent, confidence. They now paced the
deck of the schooner, side by side, for fully an hour, during which time
the price of the vessel, the means, and the mode of payment and
transfer, were fully settled between them.

“But what will you do with your passengers, Don Esteban?” asked the
Mexican pleasantly, when the more material points were adjusted. “I feel
a great interest in the young lady in particular, who is a charming
señorita, and who tells me that her aunt brought her this voyage on
account of her health. She looks much too blooming to be out of health,
and if she were, this is a singular voyage for an invalid to make!”

“You don’t understand human natur’ yet, altogether, I see, Don Wan,”
answered Spike, chuckling and winking. “As you and I are not only good
friends, but what a body may call _old_ friends, I’ll let you into a
secret in this affair, well knowing that you’ll not betray it. It’s
quite true that the old woman thinks her niece is a pulmonory, as they
call it, and that this v’y’ge is recommended for her, but the gal is as
healthy as she’s handsom’.”

“Her constitution, then, must be very excellent, for it is seldom I have
seen so charming a young woman. But if the aunt is misled in this
matter, how has it been with the niece?”

Spike did not answer in words, but he leered upon his companion, and he
winked.

“You mean to be understood that you are in intelligence with each other,
I suppose, Don Esteban,” returned the Señor Montefalderon, who did not
like the captain’s manner, and was willing to drop the discourse.

Spike then informed his companion, in confidence, that he and Rose were
affianced, though without the aunt’s knowledge. That he intended to
marry the niece the moment he reached a Mexican port with the brig, and
that it was their joint intention to settle in the country. He added
that the affair required management, as his intended had property, and
expected more, and he begged Don Juan to aid him, as things drew near to
a crisis. The Mexican evaded an answer, and the discourse dropped.

The moon was now shining, and would continue to throw its pale light
over the scene for two or three hours longer. Spike profited by the
circumstance to continue the work of lightening the schooner. One of the
first things done next was to get up the dead, and to remove them to the
boat. This melancholy office occupied an hour, the bodies being landed
on the islet, near the powder, and there interred in the sands. Don Juan
Montefalderon attended on this occasion, and repeated some prayers over
the graves, as he had done in the morning, in the cases of the two who
had been buried near the light-house.

While this melancholy duty was in the course of performance, that of
pumping and bailing was continued, under the immediate personal
superintendance of Mulford. It would not be easy to define, with perfect
clearness, the conflicting feelings by which the mate of the Swash was
now impelled. He had no longer any doubt on the subject of Spike’s
treason, and had it not been for Rose, he would not have hesitated a
moment about making off in the light-house boat for Key West, in order
to report all that had passed to the authorities. But not only Rose
_was_ there, and to be cared for, but what was far more difficult to get
along with, her aunt was with her. It is true Mrs. Budd was no longer
Spike’s dupe; but under any circumstances she was a difficult subject to
manage, and most especially so in all matters that related to the sea.
Then the young man submitted, more or less, to the strange influence
which a fine craft almost invariably obtains over those that belong to
her. He did not like the idea of deserting the Swash, at the very moment
he would not have hesitated about punishing her owner for his many
misdeeds. In a word, Harry was too much of a tar not to feel a deep
reluctance to turn against his cruise, or his voyage, however much
either might be condemned by his judgment, or even by his principles.

It was quite nine o’clock when the Señor Montefalderon and Spike
returned from burying the dead. No sooner did the last put his foot on
the deck of his own vessel, than he felt the fall of one of the
purchases which had been employed in raising the schooner. It was so far
slack as to satisfy him that the latter now floated by her own buoyancy,
though it might be well to let all stand until morning, for the purposes
of security. Thus apprised of the condition of the two vessels, he gave
the welcome order to “knock-off for the night.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE LOVE DIAL.


                        BY LIEUT. G. W. PATTON.


    A dial in the twilight lay,
    Reflecting back pale evening’s ray,
    When stealthily two lovers came
    And leaned beside its silent frame:
    “Mute marker of the moments’ flight,
    Oh! dial, tell us of the night!”
    —But who might trace time’s tangled way
    On dials dim with twilight gray?

    As brightly now the midnight moon
    Rode o’er the starry arch of noon,
    To learn the hour of eventide
    Again the youth and maiden sighed:
    “Mute marker of the moments’ flight,
    Oh! dial, tell us of the night!”
    —But ’neath the moon’s uncertain ray
    The shadow pointed still astray.

    Unconscious how the moments flew,
    (Bound by the spell which passion drew,)
    Unto the dial’s line of shade
    Once more approached the youth and maid:
    “Mute marker of the moments’ flight,
    Oh! dial, tell us of the night!”
    When (how could night so fast have worn?)
    The tell-tale shadow marked the morn.

    And as they watched the silv’ry face
    Where day his hours began to trace,
    In morning’s light, now stronger grown,
    This motto o’er the circle shown:
    “_When lovers meet at eventide,_
    _Time marks not how the moments glide:_
    _When lovers part at rosy light_
    _Time counts the ling’ring hours till night._”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               OLD MAIDS.


                    OR KATE WILSON’S MORNING VISIT.


                             BY ENNA DUVAL.


               And now I see with eye serene,
               The very pulse of the machine;
               A being breathing thoughtful breath,
               A traveler between life and death;
               The reason firm, the temperate will,
               Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
               A perfect woman, nobly planned
               To warn, to comfort, and command;
               And yet a spirit still, and bright
               With something of an angel-light.
                                             WORDSWORTH.

“I have just been visiting Miss Agnes Lincoln,” said my young friend
Kate Wilson to me one morning. “Truly, Miss Enna, she is the most
charming woman I have ever known—always excepting, of course, your own
dear self. Though no longer young, she is still beautiful—intelligent,
clever, without the slightest tinge of pedantry; gentle and loveable.
Why is it that she has never married? She has been a devoted daughter
and sister; I have always felt surprise and regret that she should not
have been a wife.”

The tone of voice told the regret which those words expressed, and
caused me to smile as I looked at my bright-eyed friend, who, being on
the eve of marriage herself with one she loved very dearly, thought, of
course, the married state the only true vocation for a woman.

“But, Kate,” I replied, “Agnes Lincoln has always had duties sufficient
to employ her in her home circle—her heart has been too much occupied
with providing for the comfort of her brothers and sisters, and nursing
a poor invalid mother, to go out on voyages, in order to seek a fellow
heart, or to attend to the said fellow heart, should it come wooing.
Only unoccupied, free-from-care bodies, like your sweet self, can find
time to fall in love and marry—”

“Nonsense!” said the blushing Kate, “do not tease me with such
_badinage_. I wish you would tell me Miss Lincoln’s history—romantic I
have already determined it is—for those deep, dark eyes of hers give
evidences, by their bright flashings at times, of the existence of a
fount of passion, which, I am sure, must have welled up and bubbled over
at some period of her life. You have known her intimately from girlhood,
Miss Duval, come, tell me the tale. See, it is the very time for a long
story, we are certain of being alone, no stupid visiters will interrupt
us, for those threatening, overhanging clouds are already beginning to
let down their watery contents—the fire snaps and sparkles in a most
sociable manner, and I will spend the whole day with you in this cheery
little room of yours.”

Accordingly she threw aside her bonnet and shawl—pushed what she called
“the troublesome desk, and still more wearying work-basket,” away from
me, then throwing herself on a low ottoman beside me, looked most
persuasively into my face for the web of romance she was determined I
should weave, and with the air of one determined not to be denied.

“Do you deserve, Kate,” I said, “that I should entertain you, when you
seem to think so slightingly of the mission of my sisterhood? Saucy
girl! are old maids always to be regarded by such sparkling, merry
witches like yourself, as leading lives useless to both man and
womankind?”

“No, no, dear Miss Enna,” exclaimed the lovely girl, as she gathered her
graceful limbs on her favorite seat beside me, in order to make her dear
little luxurious form still more comfortable, gazing into my face with
her bright dancing eyes, and holding my hands caressingly, “Heaven
knows, I have had need to bless the sisterhood, for what would I have
been without such a dear, good, kind—” I stopped her rosy flattering
lips with my hand, and yielded to her request. Kate Wilson promised to
be lenient should my story have less of interest and romance in it than
she expected—will you, my dear reader, be as merciful and indulgent?

As Kate said, I had known Agnes Lincoln from girlhood—yes,
babyhood—for we had been introduced by our proud, happy mothers to each
other, in our first long dresses, and had taken infinite delight, so our
nurses had said, in tearing the blue and pink cockades off of each
other’s caps. We were always warm friends; went to the same schools,
and, as our parents were intimate, when we grew up visited in the same
circles. Agnes’ father was the senior member of one of the most opulent
firms in the city—his wealth was said to be immense, and truly they
lived in a style of princely magnificence. She was the eldest of several
children. The three next to her died in infancy, which made quite a
difference between her and the other children in point of age. Her
mother was a woman of exceedingly delicate frame, and sickness and the
distress she had suffered on losing her children, weakened still more a
mind never very strong. I always remember her as an invalid—surrounded
by every luxury wealth could purchase; possessing a doting husband and a
family of noble children; yet always repining and melancholy.

Agnes had been educated by her father with exceeding great care; and as
she grew up was a most agreeable companion for him. He accompanied her
into society; they studied, rode, drove and walked together; indeed one
could rarely see them apart. How proud was he of her; and he lavished
every costly gift upon her with an unsparing hand. She was beautiful—a
tall, splendid looking creature—a fine erect figure, with the bearing
of a queen, and a head fitted for a Zenobia—but the classic severity of
her features was softened by the most melting, lovely eyes, and the
gentle melodious tones of her voice were bewitching. Beautiful, rich and
young, of course Agnes Lincoln was a belle. She had been full two years
in society, and to the surprise of her friends she was still disengaged.
“I shall never marry, Enna,” she would say to me, in answer to my
playful reproaches upon her want of susceptibility—“how could my poor
mother or lonely father spare me?” and at last I began to think, as many
others did, that Agnes was one of those born to a life of “single
blessedness,” when

        “Lo! the troubled joy of life,
         Love’s lightening happiness,”

became known to her. Agnes’ choice surprised us all. Evart Berkely was a
young merchant reputed wealthy, but not at all agreeable or pleasing to
my fancy. He was handsome and tolerably intelligent—had been well
educated and had traveled abroad, bringing with him from his travels
various “foreign airs and graces,” which did not improve his
agreeability to my taste. He was certainly much inferior to Agnes in
point of intellect; but she loved him nevertheless. I always thought him
a cold, calculating man, and the passionate love he expressed for my
beautiful friend seemed so unnatural, falling from his cold unexpressive
lips. Mr. Lincoln was at first as much dissatisfied and surprised at
Agnes’ choice as the rest of her friends; but when he discovered how
completely her whole heart was given up to this infatuation, as he could
make no serious objection to the gentleman, he quickly quieted all
expressions of disapprobation, and only stipulated that their engagement
should be a long one, pleading his wife’s health and his own lonely
state as excuses. The lover, of course, was impatient at these
obstacles, but Agnes, always alive to her father’s happiness, steadily
refused to shorten the period of two years, decided upon by her father.
Evart was a devoted lover, and seemed to exist only in the presence of
his mistress; and dear Agnes was so supremely happy—I fancifully
imagined her beauty increased under this new influence of love.

She had been engaged to Evart Berkely about a year, when one evening we
all met at Mr. Lincoln’s, on our way to a gay private ball. I had always
gone into society with Agnes and Mr. Lincoln; for my mother dying while
I was quite a young girl, my father had been so deeply affected by her
death—as she had been to him companion, guide, and comforter—that he
avoided all society, and sought consolation in close application to his
profession. He had been from boyhood on the closest terms of intimacy
with Mr. Lincoln, and willingly consented that I should accompany Agnes
on her entrance into society, under Mr. Lincoln’s care. Accordingly, on
the night I allude to, I had been driven to Mr. Lincoln’s, that I might
be one of their party. I particularize this one evening, for it was the
most eventful night of Agnes’ life—the turning point in her existence.
Events occurred on that night which gave the stamp and impress to her
future. I remember thinking, as I looked upon her, after the completion
of her toilette, that I had never seen her so magnificently beautiful.
Her father and lover were rather gorgeous in their tastes, and to please
them Agnes always dressed with more splendor than accorded with her own
fancy; but the peculiar style of her beauty was well suited to this
manner of dressing. Her tall, full form could well bear the heavy folds
of rich drapery that always swept around her, and the brilliant jewels
that gleamed and flashed in her dark hair, and on her snowy throat and
arms, were admitted by even the most fastidious to be in good taste. She
was the daughter of a reputed _millionaire_, beautiful and
noble-looking—costly garments and rich gems seemed well fitted for her.
It was a grand ball we were going to, and after spending the accustomed
half hour in Mr. Lincoln’s library, he gave us into Evart Berkely’s
charge. Agnes entreated her father to accompany her with more than her
customary earnestness; but he pleaded indolence, and laughingly reminded
her that her lover’s presence should be sufficient. I could not account
for the tinge of sadness that gloomed over her features; and when Evart
and I rallied her on her absence of mind, during our drive to the ball,
she frankly confessed her feelings were unaccountable, and said she had
been suffering all day from a vague, indefinable sense of approaching
evil. We cheered her, and attributed her feelings to nervousness; what
evil could one so prosperous and happy have to fear?

As usual, she was the centre of attraction, and crowds followed her.
Evart hovered around her incessantly, and her quiet, happy looks, as she
received his attentions, so openly offered, were to me most fascinating.
Her sadness and home yearnings seemed to melt before the bright light of
the ball-room, and the merry laughter and gay looks of her friends, put
to flight all gloomy thoughts. I thought I had never heard her voice so
melodious, her laugh more buoyant, nor her dancing so graceful; she
appeared as the embodiment of happiness. During the course of the
evening, I was standing alone by a window, in a recess, that opened into
a conservatory, almost, if not quite, hidden by the folds of the
drapery, enjoying, in a sort of dreamy state, the rich odors of the
flowers, and the bewitching strains of the music. The movements of the
crowd brought two old gentlemen directly in front of me, in such a
manner that I could not have moved if I had wished from my hiding-place.

“Hugh Lincoln’s daughter is a beautiful creature,” said one to the
other.

“She is, indeed,” replied the friend, “and she dresses like a
sultana—look at her magnificent gems and gorgeous clothing. Hugh
Lincoln has been a fortunate man, and his daughter will be a rich wife
for the one that marries her.”

“May be so, and may be not,” said the first speaker; “one cannot tell
how a man’s estate may turn out while still engaged in business. Hugh
Lincoln has been a bold, daring merchant; he always incurs fearful
risks, and although he has hitherto been fortunate, one turning of luck
may sweep all his grandeur from him—for he perils all on every great
speculation.”

“She is engaged,” said the friend, “to young Berkely, who is so
constantly with her. He is a shrewd, calculating fellow; one might feel
certain of Hugh Lincoln’s wealth by the mere knowledge of that
engagement.”

A movement of the crowd took place, and the two worldly old croakers, as
I deemed them, passed away. I kept my place, and my thoughts were filled
with Agnes and her future. Vague forebodings pressed upon me, and all my
old dislike and distrust of Evart returned to me. Low passionate
murmurings of love came next upon my ear. Evart and Agnes stood beside
me with the heavy folds of the curtain between us, and I became again an
unintentional listener. Evart poured out the most fervent expressions of
love—he besought my friend to delay their wedding no longer.

“Think, my idolized one,” he murmured, “how long has been my probation
already.”

“No, no, Evart,” replied Agnes, steadily, “do not urge me. My father,
who, from my earliest recollection has been devoted to my happiness,
asks me to delay my marriage. I will not act against his wishes. It
would be but a poor promise for our future happiness were I to be thus
regardless of my father’s comfort. Adel is too young to supply my place
to him for a year or two yet. We are together constantly, and a year
will soon pass around.”

“And the coming year may see you wedded to another,” exclaimed her lover
passionately.

“Evart,” said Agnes, reproachfully, “have I not promised to be your
wife?”

“But, Agnes,” replied Evart, in hurried words, “suppose sorrow were to
overtake me—men in business are daily exposed to ruin—what then could
I depend on? Your father would never consent to your marriage with a
bankrupt; and to my troubles would be added the fearful necessity of
yielding you up forever.”

“Say not so, dear Evart,” replied Agnes, in earnest, loving tones; “in
the hour of trouble you would be dearer to me, if possible, than now. I
have promised to be your wife—I hold that promise sacred, believe me;
and, moreover, I know my father’s generous nature too well to think as
you do—in misfortune he would be kinder to you than in prosperity. But
why talk of misfortune—are there any clouds on your business horizon?
Come, tell me your troubles, and if you are, indeed, on the eve of
bankruptcy, which Heaven avert, seek advice from my father; never fear,
Evart, he will willingly assist you; and if it would lighten your heart
in the midst of such affliction, I would be your wife instantly; in such
a case my father would no longer object—you would need the consoling
society of a wife more than he would need his daughter;” and Agnes’ face
wore a look of mingled affection and anxiety as she took his hand.

“Truly,” exclaimed Evart, laughing, “I have half a mind to declare
myself a bankrupt, if it would have that effect. But do not look so
anxiously, my blessed one—my affairs are in a most prosperous
condition. I was wrong to alarm you, yet it proved to me your love,
dearest, which, indeed, I sometimes am weak enough to doubt. I torment
myself with a thousand fancies. You are so beautiful, Agnes, so
superior—I so unworthy of you, that I am always fearing a change in
your feelings.”

“Now that is really unkind, Evart,” was Agnes’ reproachful answer; “am I
prone to changing—who have I ever loved but you? You should not be thus
suspicious, or you will make me fearful of change, not in myself but in
you.”

Then followed from Evart the most fervent, passionate declarations,
which were interrupted by the approach of some friends, who came to seek
their assistance in forming a favorite dance; and I escaped from my
hiding-place. I was so intimate with Agnes—her second self, as she
playfully called me—that I felt no annoyance at having been forced to
play the listener to her love scene; on the contrary, congratulated
myself that no stranger, or mere acquaintance, had been in my place. I
descended from the steps of the window into the conservatory, and spent
a full hour in examining the beautiful plants—imagining myself in fairy
land. The pure, beautiful light shed from the alabaster vases, which,
containing lamps, were placed in different parts of the conservatory;
the bewitching tones of music that came sweeping from the ball-room, and
the soft night air that poured in from the open, outer windows, all
heightened the illusion, and I fancied I was listening to the divine
spirit-melody of the flower-sylphs, and inhaling their balmy atmosphere.
How every moment of that night is impressed upon my memory; every word,
every change of feeling—all were treasured up.

I was roused from my delicious reveries by Agnes and Evart, who came to
announce to me it was time to retire. “As usual,” said Agnes, tenderly
putting her arm around me, “I find you dreaming waking visions among the
flowers. I fear my sad thoughts, dear Enna, have flown to you. I was so
full of vague forebodings, when I left home, and now they have all
vanished. I am as happy and light-hearted as I have ever been in my
life; every thing around me seems to wear a fairy, heavenly hue.”

Thus she chatted away during our drive home. We bade her good night at
Mr. Lincoln’s door, and the carriage drove away, bearing us to our own
homes—one short half-hour after, and the same carriage bore me back
again to that house in deep affliction. Agnes, after bidding us good
night, entered the hall, and was proceeding up the stair-case to her own
room, when, as she passed the library, she saw the library light still
burning, which was to her a notice of her father’s waiting up for her
return. She entered with a light heart and a merry song. Her father was
seated in his chair, leaning his head forward on his reading-desk,
apparently asleep. She bent over him to awaken him by gentle caresses,
but ere her lips touched his brow, the expression of his face startled
her. She gave one long, searching look, then uttered a piercing shriek
of agony, which startled the whole house. He was dead. There, in that
solitary room, his spirit had taken flight, alone, without daughter or
friend beside him to receive his parting words of love. Poor Agnes! with
what agony she leaned over him—vainly calling on him to speak to
her—to look, if only once more, upon his own Agnes. It was a sad
sight—this beautiful girl bending over her dead father—her rich
drapery falling heavily around her, and her magnificent hair, which had
escaped from the circlet of gems which bound it, swept the ground,
making her pale face appear still more pallid, as its heavy, dark masses
hung over her fair shoulders. Her earnest, heart-rending appeals were
terrifying; not a tear flowed from her dark eyes—they seemed distended
with agony; and the physicians who had been hastily summoned feared that
the shock would deprive her of reason, if not of life. I at last
succeeded in leading her away from her father, and, exhausted by her
intense grief, she lay for hours in a heavy stupor.

Every means were resorted to, to restore Mr. Lincoln—but all in vain.
The physicians, after an examination, decided that he had labored under
an affection of the heart, unconsciously, for some time; that he had
been on the brink of the grave for many months, undoubtedly—he, who had
seemed so healthy; and this it was which had caused his death, which
they thought had taken place some time before Agnes’ return, and with
little or no suffering, possibly without a consciousness of the
approaching fearful change. Poor Agnes! her sufferings were intense, but
her naturally strong mind, and strict sense of duty, aided her, when in
the morning, after the heavy stupor of exhaustion had passed away, the
fearful consciousness of her great sorrow arose vividly before her. She
recollected there were others to suffer, who were weaker to bear—her
poor invalid mother, and fatherless brothers and sisters. She wept long
and bitterly, when her eyes opened upon my tearful, anxious face, as I
bent over her. I blessed those tears, for I knew they would relieve her.
She at last, however, bowed meekly to the burden imposed upon her, and
hastened to soothe and comfort her almost heart-broken mother, and the
poor startled, weeping children.

Everybody grieved for Mr. Lincoln, for he was much beloved; “but,” said
the out-of-doors world, “how fortunate are his family, possessing wealth
in the midst of their sorrow. Mr. Lincoln has left them an immense
fortune to comfort them in their affliction;” as if money could
compensate for the loss of loved ones. Agnes would have gladly toiled
for their daily bread to have purchased one look from those eyes closed
in death, one accent of love from those cold, livid lips. After the
funeral, Mr. Lincoln’s will was opened. It was one made three or four
years previous to his death; and my father was one of the executors, and
sole guardian to the children. This will had been made previous to
Agnes’ engagement; but in it Mr. Lincoln expressed a wish, almost a
command, that if ever Agnes married, my father should insist upon having
the greater part of her immense fortune settled upon her.

A week or two passed by, when one evening my father returned home from
his office, later than usual, and his face wore an anxious, troubled
expression. Some case of more than ordinary misery and sadness, I
thought, has come before him, in which fate has woven a darker weft of
trouble. I hastened to procure for him the soothing cup of tea, which he
so much loved, and sat beside his chair, as he silently despatched his
light meal, expecting every moment to hear the new tale of human
suffering—but I was disappointed; my father drank his tea quietly, and
it was not until the tea-service was removed, and I seated at my
sewing-table beside his large arm-chair, that the good, kind old man
broke the silence.

“Enna, my child,” he said, in gloomy tones, “poor Agnes Lincoln, her
mother and those fatherless children are penniless.”

“Penniless—impossible!” I exclaimed. “I thought Mr. Hugh Lincoln was
admitted to be immensely wealthy.”

“His immense wealth,” said my father, “proves to be a magnificent
dream—a shining bubble. He must have been lamentably ignorant of his
own affairs, for things have evidently been going wrong for some months
past. Such wild, mad-cap speculations as the house have engaged in, I am
sure my sensible, prudent friend would never have countenanced.”

I now understood the allusions of the old gentleman, in the first
conversation which I had overheard in the ball-room, the night of Mr.
Lincoln’s fearful death, and I repeated them to my father.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied, “daring indeed have been their operations,
and not only that, but reckless and wild in the extreme. I remember now,
although I gave but little heed at the time, noticing in Hugh Lincoln,
for some months past, a heavy, growing indolence, as I deemed it. It
must have proceeded from his fatal disease, and he has left the affairs
of the concern in the hands of the junior partners, who have mismanaged
not only wildly but wickedly. Poor fellow! he has been spared the
sorrow, but what is to become of the poor invalid widow and orphans? Six
little helpless creatures beside Agnes—Adel is not more than fourteen?”

“Scarcely thirteen,” I replied.

“Poor creatures!” exclaimed my father, brushing a tear aside. “But we
must do all that we can for them. I am a poor man, but what little I
have shall be freely shared with Hugh Lincoln’s children.”

“You forget, my dear father,” I said, “that Agnes is engaged to Evart
Berkely.”

“True,” replied my father. “But, Enna, I have very little confidence in
him; I only hope Agnes may not love him too dearly, for I very much fear
that Evart’s love is rather too weak to bear the present news.”

“Does he know of the insolvency of the firm?” I inquired.

“Oh, yes,” said my father, “the mere suspicion of the insolvency of such
a firm as Lincoln, Murray & Co., would of course spread like wild-fire.
I never dreamed of such a thing myself, however, and heard this morning
with great surprise, on going to my office, from an old merchant, that
it had been rumored for several days. You must break it to Agnes, poor
girl.”

“You think Evart Berkely knows of it?” I said, after a long silence.

“Oh, yes,” replied my father, “I met him in company with some other
merchants this afternoon, and he spoke of Mr. Lincoln only as he would
of any other well-known merchant, and united in self congratulations
with some others as to being unaffected, fortunately, by the
failure—not at all in the tone of one interested in his family.”

The conversation between Agnes and Evart returned to my memory, and I
contrasted his feelings with hers—how differently would she have acted
had he been overtaken by poverty. “But,” said I to myself in the
morning, when preparing for my customary visit to Agnes, “it may be but
fancy after all—we may be wronging Evart; he did not choose to exhibit
his feelings before a crowd of men,” and with this consolatory
conclusion, I set out on my walk.

I ascended the broad steps of Agnes’ noble residence, and passed through
the wide hall and up the spacious stair-case, noting the magnificence of
the furniture with a sigh. I entered the library, where I was told I
would find Agnes. It was a grand, noble room, and in its adornments
proved that immense wealth had been guided by the subduing hand of
taste. It was lighted from above; the brick-and-mortar world without was
completely unknown in that stately room; only the blue sky by day, and
the bright stars by night, could be seen. The soft, unworldly light
gleamed down on beautiful works of art, rare and costly pieces of
sculpture, medals, gems, and here and there alcoves filled with the
productions of those whom the intellectual world call Masters.

I paused at the threshold unheard by Agnes, who was writing at an
escritoir—my eyes wandered over this intellectual Paradise and then
rested upon the Eve. I was struck with the impression of her face; it
bore a more beaming, hopeful look than I had seen on it since the night
of her father’s death. “Poor girl!” I sighed to myself, “how soon is
that brilliant expression to be dimmed by the care-clouds of life—not
only heart trials, but poverty, privation, and, worse than all to your
noble spirit—dependence.”

I moved forward, but the luxurious carpet told no tales of my
foot-falls, and my hand rested on her shoulder ere she was aware of my
entrance. She looked up, and her eyes were gleaming with tears—not
tears of sadness—and a bright flush rested on her hitherto pale cheeks;
I looked surprised, and she noting it said in trembling tones,

“Ah! dear Enna, I never valued the possession of wealth before. Read
this letter, dearest, while I finish the answer.”

I took from her hands an open letter—it was from Evart, written the
previous night, announcing anticipated severe and heavy losses, and
freeing her from her engagement—he could not, he said, ask her to wed a
penniless man—and after lamenting in a fine round period his
unworthiness of her, his misery and wretchedness, concluded with a
farewell forever. After I concluded the note, I felt that my father was
right, my hands dropped before me, and for a few moments I felt as in a
dream—a spell was over me—I could not tell my poor wronged friend the
real truth—at last she broke the silence.

“Ah! Enna,” were her words, “I bless Heaven I have enough for both. My
share of my poor father’s princely fortune will fully cover his losses,
and again establish him in life. How unkind and yet how natural is his
note—poor Evart! I can fancy his wretchedness when releasing me from my
engagement—and he must have known it was useless—but I cannot censure
him—even thus would I have acted had the loss of fortune happened to
me.”

“Would you, dear Agnes?” said I, throwing my arms over her beautiful
neck caressingly.

“Indeed would I, Enna,” she replied sadly. “It would have been a hard
duty, but steadily would I have performed it.”

“Agnes,” I said, in low, earnest tones, inwardly imploring for
assistance and strength in my painful task, “that duty is required of
you. You are the penniless one instead of Evart. He is as prosperous as
ever, but you, my poor friend, are bereft of all—but friends.”

She gazed wildly at me, then with one low wailing cry of deep agony
became insensible. She was laid on her couch, surrounded by all the
appliances of wealth so soon to be taken from her, and the heavy stupor
that hung over her spirit the bitter hours after her father’s death
ensued. But I knew her inward strength, and although I could scarcely
pray for her recovery to such misery as would be hers, I felt that the
helpless ones dependent on her for consolation would, as in the former
dark hours, sustain her. The heavy clouds passed over, and she at last
aroused her suffering broken spirit.

“Where are the letters?” she murmured in low tones.

“One I destroyed, dearest,” I replied—“the other—”

“Destroy it likewise, Enna, and help me to forget. I have others to
think of now,” and with a quiet look of repressed agony she hastily
employed herself in preparing for their future change of circumstances.
Evart was never alluded to by any one; and day after day she engaged
herself in entering into the investigation of her father’s affairs, with
the firm, quiet air of a woman of business. The investigation proved
only the painful truth—ruin, hopeless ruin stared them in the
face—every thing was swept from them. Poor Mrs. Lincoln had seemed
overwhelmed with sorrow at her husband’s death, but this new grief
appeared to her weak, indolent nature still harder to bear, and she
helplessly implored to be taken from life.

“For myself, dear Mr. Duval,” said my friend, in a calm voice, but the
tones of which showed repressed suffering, “I care not—I can endure
hardships—but my poor mother, how can she bear the change?”

“You will all come to us, dear Agnes, and we will be as one family,”
said my kind father, as they at last ended the careful examination of
the affairs. “You and Enna have always been as sisters, my poor dead
wife loved your mother as a sister. The income my profession yields you
and Enna can manage so as to supply us all. We will live plainly but
happily, I know. You are both sufficiently well informed to educate the
girls, and Adel will soon be old enough to assist you. Horace and Frank
will in a few years be able to help themselves, and supply my place when
I grow too old to fill the purse.”

Agnes sat by the table quietly gazing as upon vacancy, when my dear,
good father commenced his kind plan, and as he proceeded her dark eyes
beamed with childlike fondness on the good old man.

“Surely Heaven will bless you and yours, dear Mr. Duval, for being thus
kind to the widowed and fatherless,” she exclaimed, as he concluded.
“But I must not accept your kind offer. Your plan, however, has
confirmed me in the scheme I have been forming for some days past. If I
am sufficiently well fitted to take charge of my sisters’ education, why
not of others? If you will aid me I will open a school.”

The thought was a good one, and my father, finding Agnes steady in her
determination yielded, and used every endeavor to forward her in her
project. The creditors had refused to accept the costly wardrobe and
magnificent jewels belonging to Mrs. Lincoln and Agnes. These were
disposed of, and the money arising from their sale was appropriated by
Agnes to the furnishing of her new establishment.

“I take this money only as a loan,” said Agnes to my father. “If I am
spared, and have health and strength, at some future time it shall be
returned. I never shall feel light-hearted until my father’s liabilities
are all satisfied.”

A house was procured, every thing arranged for the opening of the
school; and it was announced in society, that the Miss Lincoln who had
been “the glass of fashion and the mould of form,” a few short months
before, was about to enter the work-day world as a teacher. Much is said
and much written about summer-friends—those who hover around the
favorites of fortune, then flee from them in the dark hour of
sorrow—but truly I have seen but little of such heartlessness, long as
I have lived in the world. People do not wish to desert those who are in
trouble. There is more of kindness of heart and sympathy in the world
than we are willing to give credit for. Circumstances and events press
so quickly in this life of change, that when one amongst us is stricken
down, although we grieve, we are urged on in the stream, and though we
would gladly aid our sinking companion, we are hurried on unconsciously.
But let the stricken one give signs of life—evidences of aiding itself,
then all are ready to give a helping hand. The race must be
completed—life’s journey accomplished—but any one exhibiting a desire
to unite in the struggle is willingly assisted. So was it with the
friends of Agnes Lincoln. Had she weakly yielded to her troubles, and
shown no disposition to aid herself, the world would have felt sorry for
her, but they would have had no time to tarry by the way-side—but when
she appeared amongst them prepared to take her part in life’s great
contest, they willingly united to help her forward.

Agnes Lincoln’s accomplishments, her elegant manners—her strong mind,
all her good qualities, were remembered; and mothers and fathers, who
had admired the beautiful girl in society, hastened to place under her
care their own daughters, asking that she might make them like her own
lovely self, and they would be satisfied. She entered heart and soul
into her new vocation; and hers became the most popular establishment in
the city. In the course of two or three years the small house had to be
changed, and a residence as large as her father’s princely mansion
taken, in order to accommodate her large school. The luxurious comforts,
necessary to her mother’s happiness, were gratified; her brothers and
sisters carefully attended to; but her own wants were few, indeed. She
was most carefully and studiously economical. Every year she deposited
in my father’s hands, a sum of money, small at first, but gradually
increasing, which she, with a sad smile, called her father’s fund; this
was devoted to the settling off the remaining accounts against her
father.

Noble creature! how every one revered her as she moved steadily on in
the path of her duty. Hers was not an easy life; hard mental labor, from
morning till night, she endured for many years. At day-dawn she was up,
superintending her household, and directing the studies of those pupils
who resided with her. The influence she exercised over those entrusted
to her care, was a subject of remark. Her commands were insisted upon
with words of love, but looks of firmness. Her girls hovered around her,
quietly watching every glance; and in that whole troop of young,
thoughtless creatures, the most of them the indulged, spoiled children
of fortune, not one but would have dreaded to disobey the simplest
request of their gentle teacher.

We met daily, as formerly, and I still was to her the confidante and
bosom friend I had been in the days of her wealth. She never spoke of
Evart—we both avoided all allusion to him; and when, a few years after
their separation, he married a wealthy woman from a neighboring city,
and his marriage was mentioned before her, by those who knew not of her
former connection with him, or else had forgotten it, a mere
acquaintance could not have detected any trace or evidence of feeling.
The marble paleness of her cheek, the firm closed mouth, and quiet, but
sad look, which told of inward suffering, betrayed to me, however, that
her thoughts were with the past, and I noticed in her, for some time
after, a closer attendance to her duties—not one moment, night or day,
left unoccupied; and her brow bore a more serious expression, that told
of self-combatings and heart-struggles.

Year after year passed, and Agnes had the satisfaction of seeing her
sisters growing up charming women, admired in society, and her two
brothers displaying the good qualities, and honorable, high spirits of
their father. By her exertions they were educated; and ten years after
her father’s death she paid off his last debt, and had the pleasure of
seeing her eldest brother, Horace, who had just completed his studies,
enter his profession as a partner with my father. The little Frank, her
father’s darling, would be nothing but a merchant, as his father had
been, and was dreaming seventeen-year-old visions of future grandeur,
such as his father had probably dreamed at his age, and realized. He
would wreath his mother’s fretful, complaining countenance with smiles,
as he would describe the wealth he intended to accumulate, and the
splendid things that should once more be hers. Two weddings were
celebrated by Agnes—her two sisters, Adel and Mary, who married upright
and warm-hearted men, prosperous in business; and Agnes felt almost a
maternal pride as she furnished their houses, and provided the wedding
wardrobes. The world wondered she did not marry, for her beauty never
left her, nor were opportunities wanting. Many a fond, widowed father
would have gladly persuaded the idolized teacher of their daughters to
share their fortunes; but she calmly and quietly refused all offers, and
seemed at last to find real happiness in her business.

Fifteen years passed by, and found Agnes still at her post. One only of
those little ones, bequeathed by a loving father to her care, remained
under her roof—and she was soon to leave Agnes to become a wife. All
were married, happy, and well. The poor old mother had at last ceased
all wailings, and had laid down to her long rest, when a new care
devolved upon Agnes. Evart Berkely, who had appeared for years to be a
prosperous man, and thought by many to possess great wealth, suddenly
failed, and in a moment of despair put a violent end to his existence.
His wife had died some five or six years before, many said of a
broken-heart; and his three children were left upon the world homeless
orphans. Evart left a letter, commending his children to Agnes, who, he
said, had promised to be a mother to his children, should they ever need
her care. Then was disclosed what Agnes had kept a secret. A year after
his wife’s death, he had again sought Agnes; but his overtures were
indignantly rejected by her; he continued his addresses by letters for
some time, until Agnes refused to receive them, returning them unopened,
saying, however, in her final note, that, should his children ever be
left alone in life, she would be a mother to them; and to her home did
she take those helpless ones, and devoted herself to her business with
renewed energy to provide for their support and future establishment in
life. People shrugged their shoulders, and called her conduct Quixotic
and absurd, but the good and kind-hearted applauded her.

When my young friend, Kate Wilson, requested me to relate the history of
Agnes, forty-five years had stealthily crept over her, but even the
bitter, bleak winters of her adversity had failed to whiten her dark
locks, or dim those beaming eyes—time had dealt gently with her beauty.
Evart’s children have proved as blessings to her, and by them, and by
her brothers and sisters, and by their children, Agnes is revered almost
as a saint.

“Ah, Kate, Kate,” I said, as I arrived at this part of my “_ower true
tale_,” “has not Agnes Lincoln’s lot, as an old maid, been quite as
useful, and still more happy, than she would have been as Evart
Berkely’s broken-hearted wife?”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            THE BRICKMAKER.


                        BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.


                I.

    Let the blinded horse go round
    Till the yellow clay be ground;
    Let no weary arms be folded
    Till the mass to brick be moulded.

    In no stately structures skilled,
    What’s the temple we would build?
    When its massive walls are risen
    Call it palace—call it prison;
    View it well from end to end,
    See its arching courts extend!
    ’Tis a prison, not a palace!
    Hear the culprit vent his malice!
    Hear the mad and fettered fire
    Pour the torrent of his ire!
    Wrought anon to wilder spells,
    Hear him tell his loud alarms,
    See him thrust his glowing arms
    Through the windows of his cells!

    But his chains at last shall sever,
    Slavery lives not forever;
    And the thickest prison wall
    Into ruin yet must fall!
    Whatsoever falls away
    Springeth up again, they say;
    Then when this shall fall asunder,
    And the fire be freed from under,
    Tell us then what stately thing
    From the ruin shall upspring?

    There shall grow a stately building,
      Airy dome and columned walls;
    Mottoes writ in richest gilding
      Shall be blazing through its halls.

    In those chambers, stern and dreaded
      They, the mighty ones, shall stand;
    There shall be hoary-headed
      Old defenders of the land.

    There shall wondrous words be spoken,
      Which shall thrill a list’ning world;
    Then shall ancient bonds be broken
      And new banners be unfurled!

    But anon these glorious uses
      In those chambers shall lie dead,
    And the world’s antique abuses,
      Hydra-headed, rise instead.

    But this wrong not long shall linger—
      The old capitol must fall;
    For behold the fiery finger
      Flames along the fated wall!

                II.

    Let the blinded horse go round
    Till the yellow clay be ground;
    Let no weary arms be folded
    Till the mass to brick be moulded;
    Till the heavy walls be risen
    And the fire is in his prison:
    Then when break the walls asunder
    And the fire is freed from under,
    Say again what stately thing
    From the ruin shall upspring?

    There shall grow a church whose steeple
      To the heavens shall aspire,
    There shall come the mighty people
      To the music of the choir.

    O’er the infant, robed in whiteness,
      There shall sacred waters fall,
    While the child’s own angel-brightness
      Sheds a halo over all.

    There shall stand enwreathed in marriage
      Forms that tremble—hearts that thrill;
    To the door Death’s sable carriage
      Shall bring forms and hearts grown still!

    To the sound of pipes that glisten
      Rustling wealth shall tread the aisle;
    And the poor, without, shall listen,
      Praying in their hearts the while.

    There the veteran shall come weekly
      With his cane, and bending o’er
    ’Mid the horses stand, how meekly,
      Gazing at the open door.

    But these wrongs not long shall linger—
      The presumptuous pile must fall,
    For behold the fiery finger
      Flames along the fated wall!

                III.

    Let the blinded horse go round
    Till the yellow clay be ground;
    Let no weary arms be folded
    Till the mass to brick be moulded,
    Say again what stately thing
    From the ruin shall upspring?

    Not the dome and columned chambers,
      Starred with words of liberty,
    Where the Freedom-canting members
      Feel no impulse of the free.

    Nor the pile where souls in error
      Hear the words, “Go, sin no more!”
    But a dusky thing of terror
      With its cells and grated door!

    To its inmates each to-morrow
      Shall bring in no tide of joy.
    Born in darkness and in sorrow
      There shall stand the fated boy.

    With a grief too loud to smother,
      With a throbbing, burning head—
    There shall groan some desperate mother,
      Nor deny the stolen bread!

    There the veteran, a poor debtor,
      Marked with honorable scars,
    List’ning to some clanking fetter,
      Shall gaze idly through the bars:—

    Shall gaze idly, not demurring,
      Though with thick oppressions bowed;
    While the thousands doubly erring
      Shall go honored through the crowd!

    Yet these wrongs not long shall linger—
      The benighted pile must fall,
    For behold the fiery finger
      Flames along the fated wall!

                IV.

    Let the blinded horse go round
    Till the yellow clay be ground;
    Let no weary arms be folded
    Till the mass to brick be moulded;
    Till the heavy walls be risen
    And the fire is in his prison!
    Every dome and church and jail,
    Like this structure, soon must fail;
    Every shape of earth shall fade!
    But the temple God hath made,
    For the sorely tried and pure,
    With its Builder shall endure!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             TO MRS. A. T.


                         BY DR. JNO. C. M’CABE.


    I would, oh! gentle lady, that the minstrel’s art were mine,
    I’d weave a wreath of poesy as an off’ring at thy shrine;
    But my wild and tuneless harp in vain essays its meed to bring,
    And the brooding spirit of despair has hushed each trembling string.

    In vain, in vain I’ve tried to wake some gentle lay for thee,
    But the chords refuse the melody they once gave out for me;
    And when I fain a few wild notes from memory’s lyre would sweep,
    Sad spirits of the past appear and mournful vigils keep.

    There was a time when borne along on wild ambition’s wing,
    I sought to place my name above—where storied minstrels sing;
    Nor dreamed the crown, so bright and green, by laureate genius worn,
    Though gorgeous to the eye, each leaf concealed a cruel thorn.

    But when I saw that those who gazed above with eagle eye,
    And dared the tempest and the storm of fate’s malignant sky,
    With folded wing, and wearied foot sat down at evening’s gloom,
    And sought beneath the withered flowers a rest within the tomb;

    ’Twas then I bade the spell dissolve that chained my soul so long,
    And sighed a trembling, sad farewell to all entrancing song;
    And though I may not weep that I forsook sweet poesy’s train,
    A foolish boy—I sometimes wish I was her child again!

    When gentle ones like thee invoke, then, then I feel how dear
    The boon I madly forfeited, nor gave one farewell tear;
    The gift of song, oh! hallowed gift! Song, bright, entrancing, sweet!
    Had I again its rosy wreath I’d fling it at thy feet!

    ’Tis gone, ’tis gone! I may no more its thrilling impulse feel,
    Yet I can pray for thee and thine, when to my God I kneel;
    And, gentle lady, well I know thou wilt not, wouldst not, blame,
    Instead of song that I should blend God’s blessings with thy name.

    May every joy that life can give, around thy path be strewn,
    May its young morn to thee foreshow a bright and happy noon;
    And when thy last sweet song on earth in lapses faint is given,
    Oh may it be a prelude soft to deathless strains in Heaven!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           AMERICAN INDIANS.


                           WITH AN ENGRAVING.


We have thought proper, in conducting a magazine of higher reputation
and aim than the usual run of the light periodicals of the day, to
devote a part of the pictorial department to pictures of American
Scenery and Indian Portraiture, as better fitted to give the work a
permanent value in libraries and on centre-tables, than the ordinary
catch-penny pictures which disgrace a number of the magazines. Our
illustrations of Southern and Western Scenery have commanded the respect
and support of a very large class of readers; and the constantly growing
celebrity and profit of Graham’s Magazine, indicate that we have judged
wisely and well.

We have engaged the services of Mr. Bird, the author of “Nick of the
Woods,” “Calavar,” etc., to furnish us a series of articles upon the
Indians of America; a writer whose intimate acquaintance with the
subject promises articles of great interest to our readers. We present
our subscribers this month with an admirably drawn and engraved plate of
Saukie and Fox Indians “on the look out.” Also, a beautiful view of a
Waterfall in Georgia.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: Ch. Bodmer pinx. ad. nat.           Eng^{d} by Rawdon,
  Wright & Hatch
Saukie and Fox Indians]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.


    _Poems. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1
    vol. 12mo._

We cannot do justice either to the faults or merits of this singular
volume, in a brief notice. The author has one of the most peculiar and
original minds of which we have any record in literature, and a thorough
analysis of his powers, even if successful, would occupy a large space.
No reader of Mr. Emerson’s works need be informed that the poems are
full of imagination, fancy, and feeling, and display a great command of
expression. For our own part we prefer those poems in the volume which
are least connected with the author’s system of ethics and metaphysics,
such as “Each and All,” “The Forerunners,” “The Humble Bee,” and “The
Problem.” In many of the others there is an evident attempt at
versifying opinions; and the opinions are generally of that kind which
readers will either pronounce unintelligible, or false and pernicious.
“The Sphinx,” “Woodnotes,” “Merlin,” “Initial, Demoniac, and Celestial
Love,” “Blight,” “Threnody,” and many other pieces, though containing
many deep and delicate imaginations, are chiefly remarkable as embodying
a theory of life, and system of religion, whose peculiarity consists in
inverting the common beliefs and feelings of mankind. Here and there we
perceive traces of the leading idea contained in that aggregation of
fancy, sensibility, blasphemy, licentiousness, plagiarism, and noble
sentiments, going under the name of “Vestus,”—we mean the idea that
there is no essential difference between evil and good. Thus, in the
“pure realm” to which celestial love mounts, in Mr. Emerson’s theory of
love,

                “Good and ill,
        And joy and moan,
        Melt into one.”

Perhaps this opinion is a necessary result of the principles of
pantheism, but it makes as bad poetry as false philosophy. Indeed, Mr.
Emerson’s poems expressive of opinions, are the harshest in metre, and
least poetical in feeling, which the volume contains; and cannot be
compared, in respect to artistical merit, with the prose statements of
the same, or similar doctrines, in his “Essays.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Chaucer and Spenser. Selections from the Writings of Geoffrey
    Chaucer, by Charles D. Deshler. Spenser and the Fairy Queen. By
    Mrs. C. M. Kirkland. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 2 Parts. 12mo._

Such a work as this deserves an extensive circulation, and we wish that
any advice of ours could impel our readers to procure it. Here, in a
compact and available form, are some of the finest passages in English
poetry. The selections from Chaucer were evidently a labor of love to
Mr. Deshler, and he has hit upon those portions most likely to entertain
the reader, and awake an affection for the poet. The life of Chaucer,
and the criticism of his mind and works, is exceedingly genial and
truthful.

Mrs. Kirkland has done equal justice to Spenser. Taken together, these
volumes cannot be praised too highly, and their circulation through the
country would do much to raise the taste of the community. Although
these poets occupy the first rank among English authors, they are known
but imperfectly to the large majority of readers. The publishers deserve
the thanks of the public for issuing them in a form, at once cheap and
elegant, so that the treasures of thought and imagination they contain
can be placed within the reach of the humblest lovers of poetry.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Modern Standard Drama: A Collection of the most Popular
    Acting Plays, with Critical Remarks, &c. Edited by Epes Sargent.
    New York: Wm. Taylor & Co. 4 Vols. 12mo._

This publication has now run to forty numbers, and promises to be the
best of all the various collections of acting plays. It is edited by
Epes Sargent, Esq., a gentleman whose knowledge of the stage and of
English dramatic literature is very extensive, and who is himself well
known as a fine poet and successful dramatist. To members of the
profession the collection is invaluable, as it contains directions
regarding stage business, costumes, and other information of much
importance. As a work, also, for the general reader, it has great
merits. It is to contain all the standard plays produced within the last
two centuries, and also the popular dramas of the present day, including
those of Knowles, Bulwer, and Talfourd. Mr. Sargent introduces each play
with a biographical and critical notice, referring to the great actors
who have won renown in its principal character, and discussing also its
intrinsic merits. The field of selection is very rich and extensive, and
includes much, in tragedy and in comedy, of which no one can be
ignorant, who pretends to have on acquaintance with the masterpieces of
English genius. Down to the middle of the last century, a large
proportion of the best English poets were dramatic writers. The theatre
was the place where, in fact, the poet was published. Thousands heard
and saw, who never read. A body of dramatic literature, therefore, on
the comprehensive plan adopted by Mr. Sargeant, will contain a large
number of plays which are part and parcel of English literature.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Letters on Astronomy, Addressed to a Lady, in which the
    Elements of the Science are Familiarly Explained in Connection
    with its Literary History. With numerous Engravings. By Denison
    Olmstead, LL. D. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 Vol. 12mo._

This is one of the best popular works on astronomical science which we
have seen. It is clear in exposition, familiar in style, and orderly in
arrangement. There is, of course, nothing of the quackery which
disgraces many works of popularized science. The author is Professor of
Natural Philosophy in Yale College.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Songs and Ballads, by Samuel Lover. Including those sung in his
    Irish Evenings, and hitherto unpublished. New York: Wiley &
    Putnam. 1 Vol. 12mo._

Sam Lover is a name which would sell this book even if its merits were
below mediocrity. Personally, and as a writer, he has wrinkled with
happy smiles the faces of thousands. The volume, as might be expected,
is brimful of sentiment and fun, gushing out of a true Irish heart and
brain, and instinct with animation and good feeling. Many of the songs
have been sung by himself, at his “Irish Evenings,” in the principal
cities of the Union. The book could have no better advertisement than
the recollection of the entertainment they occasioned.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Poems of Thomas Campbell. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1
    vol. 16mo._

This is the best and most complete edition of Campbell yet issued in the
United States. It contains a handsome portrait, six fine steel
engravings, a racy life of the author from Frazer’s Magazine, the
brilliant essay on his genius and writings contained in Gilfillan’s
“Literary Portraits,” and all of Campbell’s later productions, including
the melancholy rhymes entitled “The Pilgrim of Glencoe.” In this volume
we see Campbell in the dawn, progress, and sottish decline of his
powers—as the author at once of the most spirit-stirring lyrics and
most beautiful romantic poems, and as the feeble poetaster, mumbling in
his old age a few verses of polished imbecility, hateful to gods and
men. The greater part of the volume, however, is, in its kind, of first
rate excellence, and will live with the language. We have only to regret
that Campbell did not write more poetry while his genius was in its
prime. What he has written has passed into the hearts and memories of
his countrymen, to a greater extent, perhaps, than the poetry of any of
his contemporaries, even of those who were his superiors in the range of
their genius. Byron, Scott, and Moore, are the only modern poets who
approach him in popularity. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, are
still the poets of a few, in spite of the endeavors of publishers and
critics to make them poets of the million. We think each of them
superior to Campbell in genius, but we should despair of ever seeing
them his equals in popularity. One element of his success is the moral
character of his writings, and his sweetness and purity of sentiment;
yet all accounts seem to concur in representing him, personally, as
sottish in his habits, coarse in his conversation, and not without
malice and envy in his disposition. Perhaps his intemperance was the
source of many of his errors; and his intemperance had its source in
laziness. Judging from the records of his conversation, it is fortunate
that the vices of Campbell’s tongue were not the vices of his pen.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _English Synonymes Classified and Explained. By G. F. Graham.
    Edited by Henry Reed, LL. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol.
    12mo._

To the student of verbal distinctions this volume will be an important
aid. The author points out the shades of distinction between apparently
synonymous words with an admirable nicety of criticism. The study of the
book will tend to sharpen the intellect. It is very much better than the
_chatty_ work of Mrs. Piozzi, and the heavy quarto of Dr. Crabbe, on the
same subject. We note some occasional blunders, such as the distinction
drawn between genius and talent, and understanding and intellect; but
these are but exceptions to the general rule of correctness. Prof. Reed
has furnished on introduction, and apt illustrative quotations from
Shakspeare, Milton, and Wordsworth.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _History of the Netherlands; Trial and Execution of Count Egmont
    and Thorn; and the Siege of Antwerp. Translated from the German
    of Frederic Schiller. By the Rev. A. J. W. Morrison. New York:
    Harper & Brothers. 1 Vol. 12mo._

This volume is a fit companion to the “History of the Thirty Years War,”
issued by the same publishers. Both works are admirable, and place
Schiller in a prominent rank among philosophical historians; but of the
two, we prefer the present. The subject is a noble one, and gives full
exercise to Schiller’s large intellect, and heroic and humane spirit.
The plan of the history is especially excellent, and we have only to
regret that it was never completed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Hudibras. By Samuel Butler. With Notes and a Literary Memoir,
    by the Rev. Treadway Russell Nash, D.D. New York: D. Appleton &
    Co. 1 Vol. 12mo._

The publishers have issued this masterpiece of wit in a form similar to
their editions of Dante, Tasso, and Campbell. The edition is enriched
with curious and copious notes, illustrative of Butler’s time, and
contains a well written biography. It is the only good edition of
Hudibras ever published in the United States, and we hope that thousands
who have never enjoyed its perusal, will be enabled to do it now. The
original work contained so many allusions to the author’s recondite
knowledge, and to the factions and fanaticisms of his day, that it
cannot be read understandingly without some such commentary as Dr. Nash
has supplied. Butler is the wittiest of the English poets.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Book of Anecdotes, or the Moral of History; Taught by Real
    Examples. By John Frost, LL. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1
    vol. 12mo._

This is an entertaining volume, and will be especially acceptable to the
young. It is hardly worthy, however, of being called “the moral of
history,” even that moral which history should teach the boys and girls.
The “do-me-good” air of the narratives, is strangely at variance with
the essential character of some of the events and actors. The most
superficial student will notice in the volume many incorrect impressions
conveyed of historical personages. The “moral” of the book is about on a
level with the moral of Weems’s lives of Washington and Marion.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Eclectic Moral Philosophy. Prepared for Literary Institutions
    and General Use. By Rev. J. R. Boyd. New York: Harper &
    Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo._

This work is principally made up of classified selections from standard
writers on ethics. It, of course, lacks unity, and therefore can hardly
be called a system of philosophy; but it very well answers the purpose
for which it was compiled. Its merit, as a book for schools and general
use, consists in the stringent application of moral principles to
individual conduct. All those actions and states of mind which clash
with morality, are analyzed with much acuteness, and set forth with
great directness.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Ghost Stones: Collected with a View to Counteract the Vulgar
    Belief in Ghosts and Apparations. With Ten Engravings from
    Designs by Darley. Phila.: Carey & Hart. 1 vol. 12mo._

The object of this little volume is clearly enough set forth in the
title. It contains twenty stories. The illustrations are graphic, and
add to the interest of the wonders described. We notice, however, one
omission—the Cock Lane Ghost, in which Dr. Johnson believed. So
celebrated a ghost as that should have had a prominent place among the
other spectral worthies of the volume.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _A Progressive German Reader, Adapted to the American Edition of
    Ollendorff’s German Grammar: with Copious Notes, and a
    Vocabulary. By G. J. Adler, A. B. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1
    vol. 12mo._

This is an excellent supplement to the German Grammar issued by the same
publishers. It is edited by the Professor of the German Language and
Literature, in the University of New York. The selections are from some
fifty German writers, and are admirably adapted for their purpose. The
Vocabulary of German words is an important addition.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Views A-Foot: or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff. By J.
    Bayard Taylor. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 2 Parts. 12mo._

All things considered, we deem this work one of the most deserving which
“Young America” has yet produced. It is written by a young man just of
age, who started for Europe before he was nineteen, with not more than a
hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket, and for two years literally
walked about Europe. He supported himself by literature, and at the end
of his journey had not expended more than four hundred dollars. The
excellence of the work comes from its exceeding freshness and spirit.
For every great object of nature and art which the author saw, he had to
suffer some privations; and he accordingly describes them much better
than he would have done had he possessed the “advantages” of common
tourists. Besides, his mode of traveling made him familiar with the
people of the countries he visited; and he gives many curious anecdotes
of their manners and condition. It is honorable to human nature, that
his impressions of the common people in England, Germany, Italy, and
Switzerland, were of a pleasing character, as he was often placed in
relations to them calculated to draw out their true nature, whether it
were kind or kindless. He was almost uniformly treated with hospitality,
and sometimes even with affection. He discovered, however, that they
were singularly and ridiculously ignorant of every thing regarding
America—its geography, its government, and its people.

There is one quality in this book which every reader must feel to be
fascinating—we mean the beautiful sweetness and healthiness of the
author’s mind and disposition. He never brags of the obstacles he
surmounted, nor whines at the privations he endured, but tells the story
of his journeyings with a most bewitching simplicity and modesty. Youth,
and the bright thoughts and sweet feelings of youth, are on every page,
infusing life into the narrative, and giving picturesque vigor to the
descriptions. The author must bear a brave, serene, and modest heart
under his jacket; and we cordially wish him and his delightful book all
the success which both so richly merit.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Alderbrook: a Collection of Fanny Forrester’s Village Sketches,
    Poems, &c. By Miss Emily Chubbuck. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co.
    2 vols. 12mo._

No reader of “Graham” will need any advice from us to procure these
elegant volumes, as a large portion of their contents was originally
contributed to this Magazine, and obtained a wide and deserved
popularity. We are glad to see the admirable stories of the authoress
thus collected. They will take an honorable position in the department
of literature to which they belong. Fanny Forrester, indeed, is one of
the most charming of story-tellers. She has ease, grace, invention,
vivacity, a quick eye for character and manners, and a fine flexible
style. The interest of the book is enhanced by the present position of
the gifted authoress. As Mrs. Judson, she will devote her fine talents
and beautiful enthusiasm of character to a new object. The present book,
therefore, has almost the look of a posthumous work. We need not ask for
it what it will be sure to obtain—the attention and the good-will of
the reading public.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Literary Studies, a Collection of Miscellaneous Essays. By W.
    A. Jones. New York: Edward Walker. 1 Vol. 12mo._

This elegant volume contains thirty-two essays on a wide variety of
subjects connected with literature and life. They are the production of
a gentleman who has made literature a study, and who always gives in his
essays the results of his own investigations and reflections. The style
is very condensed; the fault of the diction, perhaps, arises from the
too great desire of the author to cram the largest amount of thought and
observation into the smallest possible space. This unusual peculiarity
of style is the ideal of style when it is combined with mellowness and
vitality; but the sentences of Mr. Jones are often dry and brittle, as
well as condensed. Bating this defect, the volume is deserving of great
praise. In short essays it takes comprehensive views of wide domains of
letters, and is a good guide to the student of elegant literature. The
literary information which it contains is very large. We will venture to
say that no man in the country can read it without learning something
which he did not know before.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Amy Herbert: a Tale. By Miss Sewell. New York: D. Appleton &
    Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This work has essentially the same characteristics as the novel of
“Gertrude,” by the same authoress. Miss Sewell is the daughter, we
believe, of an English Episcopal clergyman of the Oxford school. Her
tales inculcate the piety and morality of practical life; deal with
ordinary cares and temptations, expose the moral dangers which beset
every relation of existence, and evince a clear insight into the heart’s
workings, under the pressure of every day enticements. The thoughtful
cheerfulness of her religious faith diffuses through her stories a
certain beautiful repose which sometimes almost suggests genius. Her
books are of that kind which are calculated to benefit even more than to
please.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Lucretia, or the Children of the Night. By Sir Bulwer Lytton.
    New York: Harper & Brothers._

In this strange mass of “crimson crimes,” the author of “Pelham” has
fairly rivaled the French school of novelists. It displays more morbid
strength of mind than any thing which Bulwer has previously written.
Though exceedingly interesting, and evincing much power in the analysis
of the darker passions, it leaves a disagreeable impression. The tone of
the sentiment is not English. The novel, indeed, exhibits the
characteristic qualities of the author in a form exaggerated almost to
caricature. It reads like a melo-drama. We may refer to it more at large
in our next number.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind. By George Moore,
    M. D. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 Vol. 12mo._

One of the most important subjects which can engage human attention is
in this work, so treated, that its great leading facts and principles
can be understood by the common reader. The author has evidently given
to each topic he discusses the most profound attention, and has produced
a work which, if diligently studied by the mass of people, is calculated
to remove a vast sum of that misery which springs from ignorance.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Specimens of the Poets and Poetry of Greece and Rome. By
    Various Translators. Edited by William Peter, A. M., of Christ
    Church, Oxford. Phila.: Carey & Hart. 1 Vol. 8vo._

A work like the present has long been wanted, and we are glad that an
American house has had the enterprise to undertake it. In no other
volume, with which we are acquainted, can the reader obtain so
comprehensive a view of the poetry of the Ancients. Mr. Peter’s
biographical notices are excellent. He has made selections from nearly
two hundred authors—a work of vast labor performed with great skill and
taste.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration:

LE FOLLET

61, Boulevart S^{t}. Martin, PARIS
_Toilettes de M^{me}._ Mercier, _r. N^{ve}. des Petits Champs,
  82.—Coiffures de_ Normandin, _passage Choiseul, 19._
_Dentelles de_ Violard, _r. de Choiseul, 2 bis.—Fleurs de M^{me}._ Tilman,
  _r. de Menars, 2._
_Mouchoir de_ L. Chapron & Dubois, _r. de la Paix, 7.—Eventail de_
  Vagneur-Dupré, _r. de la Paix, 19._
Graham’s Magazine.]

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic
spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been
corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below.
For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to
condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

page 145, of the Solway Frith, ==> of the Solway Firth,
page 145, the spacious workship of ==> the spacious workshop of
page 146, and critical eyes, ==> and critical eye,
page 156, yet keep the secret ==> yet kept the secret
page 156, with a pecular relish ==> with a peculiar relish
page 157, person was Sanford. ==> person was Sandford.
page 172, The watchward, “The Oath ==> The watchword, “The Oath
page 172, was suddedly transformed ==> was suddenly transformed
page 175, minister and Mr. Mowbry. ==> minister and Mr. Mowbray.
page 177, the statesque Georgine ==> the statuesque Georgine
page 177, seen the statesque— ==> seen the statuesque—
page 180, of the kaliedoscope. ==> of the kaleidoscope.
page 183, to be forgotton. In ==> to be forgotten. In
page 183, he might thing of ==> he might think of
page 185, “Is an any one  ==> “Is any one
page 197, misery and wretchednes, ==> misery and wretchedness,
page 200, ruin shall upsring? ==> ruin shall upspring?
page 203, Coleridge, and Shelly, are ==> Coleridge, and Shelley, are
page 204, obstacles he surmuounted ==> obstacles he surmounted
page 204, the two great desire of ==> the too great desire of