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

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

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

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

Language: English

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WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?

BY A THINKING MAN.

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

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

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

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

206Very well; but we shall never ‘get ahead’ unless you define transcendentalism according to your understanding of the word.

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

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

‘No,’ said my friend; ‘for aught I can perceive, they might have been uttered by any one who was not a transcendentalist. Let me see the books.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Precisely so. I did not yesterday give you the meaning which I attached to transcendentalism; in truth, practically you meant one thing by that term, and I another, though I now see that in principle they are the same. The spiritualism which I like, looks through nature and revelation up to God; that which I abhor, condescends hardly to make 208use of nature at all, but demands direct converse with God, and declares that it enjoys it too; a sort of continual and immediate revelation. Itself is its own authority. The ultra-spiritualist contains within himself the fulness of the Godhead. He allows of nothing external, unless it be brother spirits like himself. He has abolished nature, and to the uninitiated seems to have abolished God himself, although I am charitable enough to believe that he has full faith in God, after his own fashion. He claims to be inspired; to be equal to Jesus; nay superior; for one of them lately said: ‘Greater is the container than the contained, therefore I am greater than God, for I contain God!’ The ultra-spiritualist believes only by and through and in his own inward light. Let him take care, as Carlyle says, that his own contemptible tar-link does not, by being held too near his eyes, extinguish to him the sun of the universe. Now the true spiritualist makes use not only of his own moral and religious instincts, but all that can be gathered by the senses from external nature, and all that can be acquired by untiring consultation with the sages who have gone before him; and from these materials in the alembic of his mind, with such power as God has given him, he distils truth.’

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

And privately, between you and me, my good friend, I cannot help thinking it rather ungrateful in him, after becoming so deeply indebted to his senses, to books, and the Bible for his spiritual education, to turn round and despise these means of advancement, and declare that they are mere non-essential circumstances, and that a man may reach the same end by studying himself in himself. It is as if a man should use a ladder to reach a lofty crag, and then kick it over contemptuously, and aver that he could just as well have flown up, and ask the crowd 209below to break up that miserable ladder and try their wings. Doubtless they have wings, if they only knew it. But seriously, I am not inclined to join in the hue-and-cry against even the ultra-transcendentalist. He has truth mixed up with what I esteem objectionable, and some truth to which others have not attained; and as I deem the eclectic the only true mode of philosophy, I am willing to take truth where I can find it, whether in China or Boston, in Confucius or Emerson, Kant or Cousin, the Bible or the Koran; and though I have more reverence for one of these sources than all others, it is only because I think I find there the greatest amount of truth, sanctioned by the highest authority. To put the belief in the Bible on any other ground, is to base it on educational prejudice and superstition; on which principle the Koran should be as binding on the Mahometan as the Bible on us. Do we not all finally resort to ourselves in order to decide a difficult question in morals or religion? and is not the decision more or less correct accordingly as we refer it to the better or to the baser portion of our nature?

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

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

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

Very true; but we should never arrive at the height of wisdom, which consists in knowing our own ignorance and weakness, unless we made full trial of our powers. The fall of which you speak should give us a modesty not to be otherwise obtained, and make us very careful how we ridicule others, seeing how open to it we ourselves are. Every man may build his tower of Babel, and if he make a right use of his failure, may in the end be nearer heaven than if he had never made the 210attempt. Ridicule is no argument, and should only be used by way of a jeu d’esprit, and never on solemn subjects. It is very hard, I know, for one who has mirthfulness strongly developed, to restrain himself on all occasions; and what is solemn to one may not be so to another; hence we should be very charitable to all; alike to the bigots, the dreamers, and the laughers; to the builders of theoretic Babel-towers, and the grovellers on the low earth.

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

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

‘You wanted a short name for transcendentalism; if a long one will make this modification of it more odious, let us call it Incomprehensibilityosityivityalityationmentnessism.’

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

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

Note by the ‘Friend.’—The foregoing is a correct sketch of our conversations, especially as the reporter has, like his congressional brother, 211corrected most of the bad grammar, and left out some of the vulgarisms and colloquialisms, and given me the better side of the argument in the last conversation; it is very correct. But it seems to me that the question put at the commencement is as far from being solved as ever. It is as difficult to be answered as the question, What is Christianity? to which every sect will return a different reply, and each prove all the others wrong.

Portsmouth, (N. H.)J. K. Jr.

LINES SENT WITH A BOUQUET.

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

212

THE ALMS HOUSE.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

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

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

A meeting for the purpose of disposing of the poor of the town for the ensuing year was held at the house of the person who had kept them the previous year, (and where these unfortunates still were) as well because it was supposed he would again bid for them, as that those who wished to become competitors might ascertain their number and condition. It was in the afternoon of a day in November, one of those dark and dreary days so common to the season and climate, adding gloom to the surrounding objects, in themselves sufficiently cheerless. The house was situated on an obscure road in a remote part of the town, surrounded by level and sandy fields; and the monotony of the prospect only broken by scattered clumps of dwarf-pine and shrub-oak; a few stunted apple-trees, the remains of an orchard which the barren soil had refused to nourish; some half ruinous out-houses, and a meagre 213kitchen garden enclosed with a common rough fence, completed the picture without.

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

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

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

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

A person who was that year one of the select-men,1 and a deacon in the church, was delegated by his colleagues to bring to the alms-house the ‘lone woman’ who forms the chief subject of our homely story. The widow Selden (a brief history of whom it will be necessary to 214give) had received an education suited rather to the respectability and former wealth of her family, than to its subsequent reduced condition, became in early life the wife of a merchant of our village, a man of good character and fair prospects, to whom she was much attached. Traders in New-England where wealth is so eagerly sought, are, especially in country towns, men of much consideration, as engaged in a money-making business. Mrs. Selden, therefore, independently of her personal merits, was not likely to be neglected. Her company was sought by the best society of our place, and she exchanged visits on equal terms even with the families of the clergyman and the village lawyer.

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

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

It was observed that the lone woman declined competition for those seats so eagerly sought by the more wealthy, and selected those of a humbler character, and eventually retired to the ‘widow’s pew,’ a pew set apart, in country churches, for the gratuitous accommodation of 215those in that unhappy condition. Sincerely religious, the Christian widow still waited upon God in the house of prayer, but felt the whole sting of poverty when slowly and humbly wending her way to her obscure corner, her faded and well-worn dress was brushed by the new and rich garments of her former equals as they swept past her to their high seats. The neat and handsome dwelling with its trim garden was at length resigned for one which barely sheltered the mother and child from the weather, and was totally devoid of the cheap luxury of fruit and flowers which had enriched and beautified their former home.

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

This lady, as we have intimated, possessed a large share of that generous spirit so common in her sex, which enabled her to sustain herself amid the evils which oppressed her. And nobly did the mother strive to shield from want and ignorance the little orphan, now her only care. Her own education enabled her in some measure to supply the place of teachers, which she was unable to employ. And never was maternal care better rewarded than by the improvement of the gentle being under her charge. But in this blessed employment the poor mother was interrupted. While health continued, she had been enabled by the most unremitted exertion to prevent the approach of absolute want, slight indeed as were her earnings. (The modern improvements in machinery having destroyed domestic manufacture, properly so called, and left but little for the female to earn who is not attending its motions in the noisy factory.) But illness had intervened, and diminished even that small resource; and it was apparent to all that the want of suitable food assisted in blanching still more the fair face of the poor child. Maternal love had conquered the honest pride of the poor mother so far as to constrain her to accept the slight and uncertain donations of her neighbors. But this assistance, scanty as it was, could not continue. The tax-paying husbands of the benevolent ladies who furnished it, complained that the poor-rates were heavy, and that they had already helped to pay for a 216house of refuge for the poor and the destitute, could not, in addition to this, support them out of it.

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

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

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

When the poor woman had so far recovered from the first shock as to 217be enabled to articulate, she pleaded her ability to maintain herself without assistance, and her choice rather to starve than be removed. She appealed to him as the father of a daughter, and painted the ruin which would fall upon her own, exposed to the corruption and example of the place to which he was taking her. She appealed to him as a Christian, and reminded him that they had sat together before the sacred desk, and partaken of the symbols of the body and blood of the Son of Him who was in a peculiar manner the father of the widow and orphan. But her auditor was destitute of the imagination which enables the possessor to enter into the feelings of another; and these affecting appeals fell dead upon his worldly and unsympathizing nature. The man even extended his hand to urge her forward to the conveyance provided! At that moment, when all hope was dead within her, and the worst that could happen in her opinion had arrived, a change came over the unhappy woman. She suffered herself unresistingly to be led forward to her doom. The fine chords of the mind and heart, lately so intensely strung, had parted; her countenance relaxed, and her features settled down into a dead, unmeaning apathy; never again, during the short remainder of her life, to be animated by one gleam of the feelings which had so lately illumined but to destroy.

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

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

E. B.

APOSTROPHE TO HEALTH.

218

ISABEL.

ONE READING FROM TWO POETS.

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

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

219And thus, although in a less palpable world, do these two passages of immortal verse, wearing each its beam of golden light, stand in their effulgence before the sympathies of the observer alive to the charms and influences of moral beauty! Surely no other poet has the world produced comparable to Shakspeare for the revelation of the love of the yet unwedded girl; and who is there to be named with Milton, in the tenderness and truth with which he has touched upon conjugal relationship; and that necessity, that inappeasable requirement of intercommunion that accompanies, as its immediate consequence, the sacrament of the nuptial rite where there is destined to exist the real, the progressive, the indissoluble intermarriage of soul with soul!

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

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

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

220But then comes Wedlock; and often, with wedlock, comes marriage; or succeeds it; the marriage that God bestowed on man in Eve, when, according to that scriptural and exquisite conception, they twain become one. When the Rock shall as by a miracle receive into all its crevices, interstices, and pores, the beautiful existence that has played upon it! When the soul of man opens at every noble passion in succession and at every pulse, to embrace, imbibe, absorb, receive, possess, acquire, the being that we call Woman! finds her in every former want, or present wish, or bright, or unfrequented passage of the soul; now all occupied, all satisfied by her; fancies thoughts to be his thoughts which are her thoughts; and blesses himself, when he discovers it, that imaginations in themselves so sweet, should in some visit of her delicate spirit have been breathed into his Essence from a source so pure! is near her, when distant; is present with her, when absent; converses with her, without words; gazes upon her, without sight; listens to her, without sound; watches her, without motion; and has not yet lost her balmy presence when Death shall long have removed forever that precious image from his corporal sense. This is Marriage.

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

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

And shall the passage of one such soul across the mere brook of Death dissolve affiances so deep, so latent, and so pure as this? This Life of Life, is it to be so suddenly quenched in man, and man himself continue to exist? Shall the soul that lingers here still retaining its identity lose that which has chiefly formed for it a distinctive being? Or entering into a happier state of existence shall it be dispossessed of all that treasure of recollection and delight on which its joys and hopes have been 221so largely founded? These long remembrances of mutual beneficence and good, these intertwining and interwoven affections, and the unbounded and mingling love of their common offspring, shall these all perish and the soul itself yet be styled immortal? Or,—shall the first-gone spirit meet its arriving mate upon the border of that further shore, bless it with the radiant welcome of celestial companionship and guidance, and lead it on to higher virtue in a happier state, as it hath beamed upon it and in part educated it on Earth?——Doubt this not, my Heart! Doubt this not, my Soul!

John Waters.

WHERE IS THE SPIRIT-WORLD?

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

222

THE TYRANNY OF AFFECTION.

BY MRS. ENNSLO.

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

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

Who that enjoyed the privilege of domestic intercourse with the venerable and venerated father of the lovely Lucy Lee; he the most beloved as well as respected inhabitant of the small town of ——; she not only the prettiest but by far the most winning in her deportment of all the young female circle of the place, of whom she was beyond all question the ornament. Who that witnessed the fond pride with which the good old man gazed upon her, as she glided around him, ministering to his wants with that watchful ingenuity which characterizes woman’s affection; who that heard the tone of tenderness which marked even the most trifling word addressed to her; a tenderness that seemed as if it might by its deep pathos invoke every beneficent spirit to watch over her for good; his early morning greeting, always accompanied by an upward look, which proclaimed a daily aspiration of gratitude to the great Giver for the precious gift; the nightly benediction which ever seemed as if it might grow into a prayer for her welfare during the hours of darkness; who that witnessed all this—and they could not be seen together 223without many such hourly demonstrations of the father’s love for his child shining through his every word and action—but would have felt assured that this love fashioned his every plan, and marked his estimate of the things of life?

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

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

To those too who have seen much of life, and learnt to feel its hollowness, real childishness of thought and feeling is so refreshing, that they love rather to prolong the period than to shorten it. To Mr. Lee the little Lucy seemed so entirely perfect in her infantine simplicity and 224purity, that had he breathed a wish for the future, it would probably have been that she should always continue his little Lucy; he cared for no change, and as it appeared, perceived none in her. Time passed on however, and before he had become well aware that the little fairy whose tiny form must needs so short a while since clamber on his knee to stroke and pat his cheek, had now shot up into a tall girl, who could take his arm in a long walk, or canter beside him all the morning on her well trained pony, there came a change over the course of his quiet household little startling. Visitors began to throng the hall; not those staid personages who had hitherto been wont to gather round the warm hearth in winter, or the sheltered piazza in the hot days of summer, and with feet upreared on mantel-piece or bannister, discuss the affairs of state, and the price of crops; new editions of these respected individuals now appeared; nephews and sons came in their train; young friends, more perhaps than these gentlemen were before aware of possessing, sought an introduction at their hands, or came without any, on the plea perhaps of having met at a tea-party, or some such strong necessity for acquaintanceship with the fair Lucy; while the good Mr. Lee, often to his not very pleased surprise, found on awaking from his afternoon’s nap, that the book whose contents he had purposed should perform their daily office of inspiring his dreams had been laid aside, while the voice which had lulled him to sleep was now charming other and younger ears in merry though perhaps suppressed cadences. The variety in these visitors too grew somewhat annoying; new people came, and Mr. Lee liked not new people. He was a man of warm but very exclusive feelings; he loved but a few, and he liked no others: his prejudices were strong, and having lived a very secluded life, the routine of which presented no very decided obstacle to those prejudices, his estimate of men and things had not altered with the general course of the world around him. Liberal to an extreme in his dealings with men, his intercourse with them, except in matters of business, was confined to a very limited circle. Absolute in his requisitions from such as approached him as intimates, his friendship was given only to those who met his views in every respect; especially whose political opinions coincided with his own. Indeed this seemed to be with him the one grand test. Though never meddling in his own person with public life, he had such an abstract love for its intricacies that he could at all times warm into actual enthusiasm over a newspaper; a single paragraph from the pen one of his own way of thinking sufficing to kindle his feelings into a glow of patriotism, while a civil word of dissent would seem to chill his sympathies for his kind; strong disapprobation blinding his perceptions to any good possible in those differing from his established standard. Now it was not to be expected that the young Lucy’s circle would be modelled according to such restrictions; she loved her kind old father with the clinging fondness of an unweaned infant for its mother; but though again and again she would, to gratify him, toil through a whole pamphlet, its meaning as dark to her perceptions as the close and blurred print to his failing eyes, it may well be imagined that her girlish brain failed to receive any other impression from the contents than of their excessive tedium; certainly if she formed therefrom any opinion regarding his favorite 225party, it was most probably the not very flattering one that its members were all especially tiresome and prolix.

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

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

Whether these tiresome lectures proved too burdensome for her young spirits, or some other cause operated to injure her health, did not appear; but just at this time, when Mr. Lee seemed to find his life especially comfortable and pleasant, his hitherto blooming daughter gradually began to droop; her spirits, formerly so even, were now constantly fluctuating: at times she would sit pale and distraite among a gay and laughing circle of her young associates, while at others, a ring at the bell, a step in the hall, would suffice to call the color to her cheek and kindle animation in her eye. It was this variation perhaps, together with certain animating plans of his own, which rendered her father insensible to her condition; for by a strange contradiction in the course of things, he seemed just at this time especially occupied with forming brilliant plans for her future. Fairly aware now of her being no longer a child, he would comment upon her dress, urge her to more ornament, and then with a knowing look speak of his anticipated pleasure in the society of two expected visitors, one staunch old veteran of the true faith, and his son, a worthy descendant, one who deserved the smiles of the fair for the brilliant speech he had made the last session. Poor Lucy at each reference to this subject would look more and more uncomfortable; but her father, thinking that she might be perhaps a little wayward; while he grew daily more enamoured of his plan, redoubled his tenderness, seeking 226to study her whims in every other respect. It is cruel to loose every bond but that which galls most sorely, to pluck away every thorn but that which pricks most sharply: all the perceptions gather to that point, and the suffering is in consequence tenfold more acute. Such were Lucy’s sensations, though she was perhaps scarcely conscious of them herself; while at every demonstration of her father’s tenderness, the feelings which she knew to be rebels to his dearest wishes would seem to spring up and accuse her of ingratitude. This struggle could not last; at length the fond father became suddenly aware that some strange blight had fallen upon his darling, and his whole soul was convulsed at the thought that evil might possibly threaten her; he felt ready to send a proclamation through the world to summon all its skill to spend itself for her restoration. Upon second thoughts he made up his mind that there was but one man in the world to whom he would confide the precious trust; yes, he was fully assured that in the brain of Dr. Kent, the only lineal descendant of Esculapius, were to be found all the best resources of the art of healing; he must always and on all occasions, be more right than any one else. Why? But why ask why, when he had formed this opinion ever since Dr. Kent first assumed the M. D., and had always held it firmly. Dr. Kent was summoned and soon appeared; the startled girl, sorely against her will, was called into the room; all the usual ceremony gone through; the pulse tested, the tongue examined, etc., and then suffered to slip out of the room. Mr. Lee listened with a beating heart for the doctor’s decision: this last did not deny that the young lady’s appearance was strangely altered since he had last seen her, which indeed was not since the evening above alluded to, of Mr. Lee’s violent irritation against his old friend. But the cause; the next thing for the doctor to do was to discover the cause. Now Dr. Kent, although some people did say that he was no student, had a considerable portion of what is called mother-wit; and if he did not possess the stores of learning which might have been amassed by poring over his books, he was at least without the abstraction which much scientific research is thought to occasion; he looked around him with a shrewd eye, and simply by putting two and two together, often made very successful calculations. He hesitated, reflected and recollected; ‘perhaps she wanted excitement,’ he said; ‘perhaps there was too little variety in her life for one so young.’ Mr. Lee assured him that she had always appeared very indifferent to society; that until very lately she had always seemed as happy as the day was long, and to desire no other company than that of the visitors who dropped in upon them occasionally.

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

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

‘Well, perhaps she’s been particularly dull lately; now by way of experiment, suppose you at once summon a large party to your house; let it be a very general invitation; all your acquaintances, that is the young ones, her acquaintances; all who have ever visited at the house; and as you may not be able to remember them all, it will be best to direct her to do it in your name; this will of itself furnish her with 227a rather exciting occupation. All this is by way of experiment I say, for it may not be that she needs amusement, but by the effect that company and gayety have upon her, which I shall take care to be by and watch. I have a notion that I shall be enabled to decide upon the character of her indisposition. One thing however; remember you must give me carte-blanche as to the course of treatment to be pursued; your prejudices, you confess you have them, must not hamper me.’

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

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

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

‘Of course, no father would,’ said Dr. Kent.

‘Then why the deuce do you imagine for an instant that I would?’

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

‘Oh yes, only make up your mind at once.’

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

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

228The doctor was still puzzled; the gay company had by no means yet wrought the change he looked for; how was this?—but he held to his watch. And now once more the door was thrown open, and a young gentleman, with a decidedly hesitating air and step, approached the youthful hostess. Ah! now the light no longer flickered in her clear blue eye; it literally danced: the awakened color left her cheek it is true, as before, but how soon it came again! ‘You positively have stood long enough, and must sit down now,’ said Dr. Kent, taking Lucy’s hand; not the tip-ends of her fingers; no, the doctor was not one either to be satisfied with any such superficial plan of action, or to forego his privileges; on the contrary, availing himself of his position of friend of the family, he possessed himself of the whole of the little delicate hand, when, old habit it might be, leading him to measure with some exactness the slender wrist thereto belonging, he pressed it most cordially, and after one or two moments of such demonstration of his affectionate regard, yielded his place beside her to the last comer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Oh, nothing, nothing; but what tormenting apprehensions you fill me with! Gracious heaven! my dear Sir, she is my all; my past, my 229present, my future are made by her; but you will help me if you can. May Almighty wisdom aid you!’ And the agitated father rushed out of the room, unable any longer to control himself.

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

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

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

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

‘Believe it or not, as you will; I tell you it is necessary.’

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

‘When you are cool,’ said Dr. Kent, looking any thing but cool himself, ‘I will remind you of your promise, your positive promise; there 230is Mr. Lillburgh now approaching the house; ask both your heart and conscience how he ought to be received. Good morning to you.’

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

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

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

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

‘Spare me! spare me, my friend!’ implored Mr. Lee.

‘I wish you had spared yourself,’ grumbled Dr. Kent.

The Doctor was, it must be allowed, a little rough; but he had been so thoroughly annoyed, after having, as he thought, with unparalleled cunning and discretion detected the difficulty and provided a remedy, to find his plans thwarted by an obstinate wilfulness, that he could not help boiling over a little: his kind feelings however soon got the ascendency; the deep contrition of the poor father touched his heart, and the 231lovely girl who had only increased his interest in her by making good his words, received from him the most attentive care; nor could he doubt that at length his advice was appreciated, when he heard Mr. Lee take every opportunity of mentioning Mr. Lillburgh’s name with approbation and kindness, always regretting that he had made such a mistake as to send him away the last time he had called at the house.

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

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

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

232

THE FRATRICIDE’S DEATH.

A RHAPSODY.

236

SICILIAN SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES.

NUMBER TWO.

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

237On a neighboring hill are the vestiges of the ancient city, a few ruined towers, probably of the citadel, and a theatre, the stone seats of which are almost entire; part of the sculptured figure of a faun still remains on the proscenium; wild shrubs shade a great part of the ruin, and where manhood and beauty once sat, listening to the tragedies of an Eschylus or Euripides, the adder and the lizards sun themselves. The next ruins we visited were those of Selinunte, anciently Selinus or Selinuntium, which lies on the southern coast of the island. This city was founded by a colony of Greeks about twenty-five hundred years ago. It was taken during the Carthaginian wars, and in a great measure destroyed by Hannibal the son of Giscon, four hundred and nine years before Christ. The country on approaching Selinunte is a dreary plain covered with the palmetto. On gazing toward the sea, when distant two or three miles, the traveller’s eye catches what he would take for a rocky hill, were it not for a few mutilated columns which rise above the blue horizon. As he approaches, the stupendous scene of ruin strikes him with awe. There in a mighty heap lie column and capital, metope and cornice; and the mind is lost in wonder at the power that raised these giant structures, and the power that overthrew them. Only one complete column, and that without its capital, and several mutilated ones, remain standing of the great temple supposed to be of Neptune; the rest are prostrate; and all lying in one direction, bear evidence that they have been thrown down by an earthquake.

The first temple is Grecian Doric, as are all those of which I shall speak. Its columns are about eleven feet across, and they must have been, including their capitals, more than sixty feet high. Above these lofty columns was placed the architrave, one of the stones of which, that we measured, was twenty-five feet in length, eight in height, and six in thickness; but another is still larger; forty feet long, seven broad, and three deep. To transport these enormous masses of stone from their quarry, which is several miles distant, with a deep valley and river intervening, would trouble the modern engineer; but to poise and place them on the top of the columns, seventy feet from the ground, with our mechanical means, were indeed a great feat. The columns were not of single pieces, but composed of several, and they now lie, to use an unpoetical phrase, like rows of enormous cheeses. The great temple was three hundred and thirty-four feet long, one hundred and fifty-four wide; its porticoes at each end were four columns in depth, eight in width; a double row on the sides of the cella or interior edifice, which in all Grecian temples was the sanctum sanctorum. In all, there must have been eighty columns. There is one remarkable feature about this temple, which is, that none of the columns were fluted except those of the eastern end. About thirty paces from this ruin, which the Sicilians call the Pileri di Giganti, or Pillars of the Giants, are the remains of another temple which was about two hundred feet long: its entablature was supported by thirty-six fluted columns of seven feet in diameter and thirty-five feet long, each of a single piece of stone. Only a few fragments of the columns remain standing in their places. Treading another thirty paces, you come to a temple which is of rather larger dimensions than the one last mentioned. The columns of this were also fluted, 238but no part of the edifice is standing, except a solitary pilaster, which was probably a portion of the cella. These temples were built of a hard but porous stone, of a light color, and were probably covered with a thin coat of cement. They command an extensive view both of sea and land, and in their primal days must, with their tower-like columns, their sculptured entablatures and pediments, have risen above the scene in majestic grandeur.

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

Girgenti, anciently called Agragas and Agrigentum, is situated on the southern coast of Sicily, in a delicious country; the modern city was built by the Saracens on the summit of a hill upward of eleven hundred feet above the level of the sea. The site of the ancient city is lower, and about a mile distant. It was probably founded in the eighth century before Christ. In its flourishing state it contained two hundred thousand inhabitants, who were celebrated for their hospitality, their love of the arts and luxurious style of living. Plato was so much struck with the solidity of their buildings and the sumptuousness of their dinners, that he said they ‘built as though they thought themselves immortal, but ate as though they never expected to eat again.’ The horses of Agrigentum were celebrated; and one of the citizens returning from the Olympic games, on entering his native town, was followed by three hundred chariots, each drawn by four white horses sumptuously caparisoned. The government of this little state, whose inhabitants never amounted to more than eight hundred thousand, was at first monarchical, afterward democratic; but neither the forms of its institutions, nor its riches and grandeur, could save it from misfortune: it was besieged several times by the Carthaginians, and at length, after a siege of three years, was taken and sacked by Hannibal, the son of Giscon. In alluding to these misfortunes, the historian says: ‘Yet of all the Sicilian cities, the fate of Agrigentum seemed the most worthy to be deplored, from the striking contrast of its fallen state with its recent splendor and prosperity. The natural beauties of Agrigentum were secured by strength and adorned with elegance; and whoever considered either the innumerable advantages of the city itself, or the gay cultivation of the surrounding territory, which abounded in every luxury of the sea and land, was ready to pronounce the Agrigentines the most favored inhabitants of the earth. The exuberant fertility of the soil, particularly the rich luxuriance of the vines and olives, exceeded every thing that is related of the happiest climates, and furnished the means of lucrative commerce with the populous coast of Africa, which was sparingly provided with those 239valuable plants. The extraordinary wealth of the Agrigentines was displayed in the magnificence of public edifices and in the splendid enjoyment of private fortunes. They had begun and almost completed the celebrated Temple of Jupiter, built in the grandest style of architecture, employed by the Greeks on the greatest and most solemn occasions.’

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

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

240Turning a little to the right, we come upon the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, commonly called of the Giants, the largest sacred edifice in Sicily, and one of the most stupendous works of the ancients. It was in length three hundred and sixty-eight feet, in breadth one hundred and eighty; the breadth or diameter of its columns at the base thirteen feet four inches; the height of the columns must have been seventy-five feet; above these rose a massive entablature, and the top of the pediments could not have been less than one hundred and twenty feet high! The grandeur of the door and vestibule corresponded to the simple majesty of the whole building, whose sculptured ornaments represented, with the finished elegance and laborious accuracy that distinguished each particular figure, the ‘Defeat of the Giants and the Taking of Troy.’ In the interior ranged twenty-four antæ, or square pillars, of fifty feet in height; on the top of each was a sculptured giant twenty-seven feet in height, which with his hands clasped over his head supported the lofty roof. One can scarcely conceive any thing more noble and majestic than this wonderful edifice, in comparison with which, though covering much more ground, St. Peter’s in Rome is a splendid gew-gaw. But what remains of this great temple? A wide heap of ruin; the interior of which, the columns and walls having fallen outward, is a flowery field, in which lie some fragments of those huge giants that once supported the roof. One of these is tolerably entire: the curls of his hair form a sort of garland: it lies with its face upward, and when I stood by it, my own head scarcely reached as high as the brow of the statue. It is composed of several pieces of stone, as are the columns of this temple, and most of the others of Agrigentum. On every side of this elevated field lie the walls, entablatures, and columns in enormous fragments: the capitals of the columns look like huge rocks that have been hurled there by some violent convulsion of nature.

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

Let us now proceed to Syracuse, once the capital of Sicily, and the birth-place of the great Archimedes. It was founded by Archias, one of the Heraclidæ, more than seven hundred years before the Christian 241era, and according to some authors contained within its walls at one time, one million two hundred thousand inhabitants; could maintain an army of one hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, with a navy of five hundred armed vessels. Little now remains of a place once so populous and so powerful, save the shrunken modern city of Syracusa, containing about nine thousand inhabitants, and a few almost unintelligible ruins scattered among vineyards, olive-groves, and fields of corn, or over the high wastes of the barren Epipole, on the summit of which the curious will find ruined walls and fortresses of massive and beautiful masonry. From these the eye commands the whole site of the ancient city. There lies, at the distance of three miles, the small island of Ortygia, on which is the modern town; on its right is the narrow entrance from the sea, which lies beyond, to the greater harbor, that appears like a beautiful lake, and is about two miles long and one and a half broad. On the left of the island of Ortygia is all that remains of the lesser port of Syracuse. On this side the island is connected with the main land by means of a draw-bridge. In Ortygia is the famous fountain of Arethusa: the spring is yet clear and copious; but the only nymphs I was fortunate enough to see were engaged in the necessary vocation of cleansing the soiled linen of Syracusa. The remains of a beautiful temple of Minerva form a part of the cathedral church. Near the small river Anapus are two columns, the remnants of a temple of Jupiter, which once contained a statue of that god, wearing a robe of gold; but Dionysius the tyrant stripped it off, saying ‘it was too cold for winter and too hot for summer.’ Among the seats of a noble theatre now stands a mill, that is supplied with water diverted from an ancient aqueduct close by: a strange metamorphosis indeed! This aqueduct conveys the water thirty miles. It may have been of Greek construction originally, but that part of it which I have seen is evidently Saracenic. The rocky site of Syracuse is in many parts perforated with tombs; the roads are literally honey-combed with them. There is a street excavated in the limestone rock which on either side is full of cells, and it may indeed be said of Syracuse that it is a great burying-ground. The oranges, vines, and figs of Syracuse are still flourishing, and the earth yet yields its hundred fold; but its glory is departed, and the traveller looks in vain for satisfactory vestiges of that mighty city.

There are many other interesting remains of antiquity in Sicily, but I must hasten to a conclusion. I trust the reader will have found the subject of this article interesting, although treated briefly and imperfectly. The traveller is unworthy of his privilege, and forgetful of duty if he extracts not from the scenes described some moral lesson or religious truth. The reader has accompanied me in imagination through classic Sicily. He has seen the lonely temple of Segeste, standing among the mountains like a widowed thing, mourning in silence the departed. Where is the multitude that once thronged around its walls? Mount Erix still battles with the clouds, as in the days of Agathocles. He has clambered with me among the prostrate columns of Selinunte: once, from beneath those massive porticoes, the Selinuntine, in the pride of his heart, looked upon the crowded port and distant mountains as we look on the Hudson, with its white sails and swift steamers, and the 242neighboring hills. Where and what are they? The distant mountains stand, but the great works which he erected to be a living honor to his name and country, are perished forever. He has lingered with me among the ruins of the splendid Agrigentum. Its numerous temples are dilapidated, or crumbling on the earth; its walls, once its vaunted strength, are strewed in shattered fragments on the steeps around. The dust of its multitudes serves to fertilize the soil of its ancient site! But the stream still flows which gave its name to the city, and the hills around yet produce the oil, the wine, and the grain. We have sojourned for a time among the melancholy vestiges of Syracuse; the scene of battles far more bloody than this land has ever known. The army which the Athenians, inflated with pride and presumption, sent against Syracuse, was here defeated. In yonder land-locked bay the Athenian fleet, the mightiest that republic had ever sent forth, and which they believed invincible, was destroyed. And the Roman orator has eloquently said, that not only the navy of Athens, but the glory and the empire of that republic, suffered shipwreck in the fatal harbor of Syracuse. It was there the wonderful mechanical skill of Archimedes was displayed against the Roman fleet, and those quiet waters have been strewed with the dying and the dead. From this deserted citadel, called of ‘Labdalus,’ the eye embraces the whole site of the once populous Syracuse; and what does it behold? On the distant island of Ortygia, an insignificant town, with a few small craft at anchor in the bay; nearer, a desert of rocky hills, a goat-herd, and a few straggling goats. Turning away from the melancholy scene, we behold afar off the snow-clad Ætna. What a contrast is this to what we have just reviewed in the mind’s eye! That is the work of God! Since its huge pyramid arose, nation after nation has possessed its fertile slopes. The Siculi have labored on its sides; the Greek, the Carthaginian and the Roman; the Norman and the Saracen have struggled for mastery at its foot; but the roar of the battle is past; the chariot and the charioteer are mingled in the dust. Yet yon earth-born giant, fed by continual fires, each century augments, and in all probability will continue to do so until

May we not in these things read deep lessons applicable to ourselves? The history of the people whose noble works I have endeavored to describe, should in the first place teach us how noble a thing it is to construct works of beauty and utility, not only for our own gratification, but for the benefit of posterity also. The selfish and unreflecting, even the modern utilitarian, will perhaps laugh at the thought, and say: ‘What folly to undertake such labors for the benefit of posterity! We will labor for ourselves.’ I would ask such persons, what would have been our state if the ancients had entertained such grovelling notions? Do they not know that most of the elegant as well as the useful, is the rich bequest of these ancients whom they affect to despise? There is not in the whole city of New-York a house, however lowly, but in some part of it I could point out a moulding or an ornament that comes from the 243ancients. But there are other points of view perhaps of higher consequence. Their temples were erected to the gods; mistaken as they were in their religious notions, we Christians may be put to shame by the devotion of the pagan. Not to man were their temples erected. Man enjoyed their beauty; gazed with admiration on their exquisite forms, and lingered under their shady porticoes; but the eye of the god to whom each temple was dedicated was supposed to be on the work, and the aim of the builders was perfection in every part; and even that which the eye of the multitude never rested on, was finished with elaborate care. I would ask, is there such a lofty feeling among us? Are we willing to expend toil and cost on that which will never gratify our senses? You will answer no. Is not this then a lesson to us? Another view of the matter: These works of art were the objects of veneration and love; city vied with city in their construction; it was a noble emulation—think you not nobler than the competition for sordid gold? The citizen gazed with pride upon the marble triumphs of his native place; he loved it more than ever, and felt his patriotism kindle as he gazed.

Let us not think that rail-roads and canals are the only works worthy of modern civilization. If we look to intents, (and what ought we to look at?) I doubt much but the ancients rose superior to us. We are in the enjoyment of many advantages of which they knew nothing. The wonder-working press was unknown to them; and above all, the beautiful light of Christianity had not been shed on the world. We have the broad day; they wrought in the twilight gloom. What majestic monuments of art! what enduring legacies of beauty! what objects to make a man love his country more and more, could have been erected with the means expended a few years ago in reckless speculations! Instead of turning with melancholy loathing to those broken bubbles on which the hopes and fortunes of many of us were suspended, we could at least look with admiration on the marble pile, and exclaim, ‘I also can be proud of the genius and taste of my country!’ Another lesson we may learn from the fate of ancient states: it is to beware of presumptuous pride and overweening conceit: these are the result of inconsiderate ignorance. It was through presumptuous pride that Athens fell, as I have before intimated. We have reason to fear there are many, some unconscious of the injury they do, and perhaps with just intentions, who feed this appetite for undue praise. Others, for mere popularity or the applause of the day, minister with adroitness the sweet though poisonous morsel for which our vanity and self-love are open-mouthed; which (to carry on the simile,) puffs us up with the comfortable notion that we are superior in every respect to all other nations, ancient or modern. It would be well to turn a deaf ear to this syren’s song: let us learn if possible to know ourselves; let us remember that there is no perfection, either in men or their institutions; and by avoiding a vain and presumptuous spirit, and scanning with a careful eye the causes of the greatness which under Providence we possess, we shall be most likely to approach the perfection which we all desire. We can have little doubt that the Agrigentine considered the institutions of his country as perfect as we do ours; and the citizens of greater states, Athens, even Rome itself, indulged 244in the same pleasing thought. Our only means of judging of the future is the past. We see that nations have sprung from obscurity, risen to glory, and decayed. Their rise has in general been marked by virtue; their decadence by vice, vanity, and licentiousness. Let us beware!

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

T. C.

STANZAS.

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

245

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE.

Harry Harson.

CHAPTER XXII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jones shook it.

‘No; there’s a drop or two in it. D—n him! I don’t like his 246drinking out of this bottle, I don’t; I use it myself; and blow me, if I don’t think his mouth ’ud p’ison it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whether these remarks reached Rust’s ear, or whether it was that his mind, after the first shock of the intelligence was over, was beginning to rally, is a matter of doubt; but from some cause or other, he suddenly discontinued his singing, passed his hand across his forehead, held his long hair back from his face, and stared about him; his eye wandering from Grosket to Jones, and around the room, and then resting on the floor. He sat for some time looking steadfastly down, his face gradually regaining its stern, unbending character; his thin lips compressing 247themselves, until his mouth had assumed its usual expression of bitterness, mingled with resolution.

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

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

Turning to Jones, he said, in the same quiet tone: ‘Murderer of your bosom-friend, good bye.’ The door closed, and he was gone.

A bitter execration from the two men followed him. From Jones, it burst forth in unbridled fury, and he sprang forward to avenge the taunt, but was withheld by Grosket, who grasped his arm, then as suddenly relinquished his hold, and said:

‘Quick! quick! Jones. Drag him back! It concerns your safety and my plans to get him back.’

The man dashed to the door and down the stairs. In a moment he reäppeared:

‘It’s too late. He’s in the street.’

‘Curse it! that was a blunder! We should have searched him. He carries all his papers with him.’

But almost at the same moment he seemed to overcome his vexation, for he said: ‘Well, it can’t be helped, so there’s no use in grumbling about it. And now, Bill Jones,’ said he, turning to the other, ‘you know what you’ve done, and who set you on. So do I. He’s worse than you are. If you were him, I’d arrest you on the spot. As it is, I say you had better make yourself scarce. Your neck is in danger, for although the death of Tim, if the rumor is true, was accidental——’

‘It was, it was, Mr. Grosket,’ interrupted Jones. ‘D—n it, if it was Rust, if it was only him, I wouldn’t mind it. I’d die myself, to see him swing.’

‘Well, hear me,’ continued Grosket. ‘You were committing a felony when you killed Craig, and his death, although accidental, is murder. I’m no lawyer, but I know that. You must run for it.’

‘I’d cuss all danger,’ said Jones, gnawing his lip, ‘if I could only lug Rust in it too.’

‘Well, well,’ returned Grosket, ‘you must take your own course; but remember I’ve warned you. You have some good traits about you, Bill, and that’s more than Rust has. Good bye!’ He extended his hand to the burglar. Jones grasped it eagerly.

‘Thank you! thank you, Mr. Grosket,’ said he, the tears starting to his eyes. ‘If you only knew how I was brought up, how I suffered, what has made me what I am, you wouldn’t think so hard of me as some do. But there is blood on me, now; that’s worse than all. I’ll never get over that. I might, if it wasn’t Tim’s. Good bye, God bless ye, Mr. Grosket! My blessing won’t do you much good, but it can’t hurt you.’

Grosket shook his hand, and left the room; and the desperate man, 248whom he left melted by a transient word of kindness, which had found its way to his rugged heart, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

Once in the street, Rust endeavored to bear up against his fortune. But he could not. His mind was confused, and all his thoughts were strange, fantastic and shadowy. He paused; dashed his hand impatiently against his forehead, and endeavored to shake off the spell. No, no! it would not leave him. Failure in his schemes! dishonor in his child! He could think of them, and of them only. Once on this theme, his mind became more bewildered than ever; and yielding himself to its impulses, he fell into a slow pace, and sauntered on, with his chin bent down on his breast.

From the thickly-settled parts of the town he went on, until he came to streets where the bustle and crowd were less; then to others, which were nearly deserted; then on he went, until he reached a quarter where the houses stood far apart, with vacant lots between them. Still he kept on. Then came fields, and cottages, and farm-houses, surrounded by tall trees. Still on he went, still wading through a mass of chaotic fancies, springing up, and reeling and flitting through his mind; shadows of things that had been, and might be; ghosts of the past; prophets of the future. He had become a very child. At last he stood on the bank of the river; and then for the first time he seemed to awaken from his trance.

It was a glorious day, whose sunshine might have found its way even into his black heart. Oh! how soft, and mellow, and pure, the hurricane of the last night had left it! Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath to ripple the water, or to wave the long trailing locks of the hoary willows, which nodded over its banks.

Rust looked about him, with a bewildered gaze, until his eye became fixed upon the water. ‘It’s very quiet, very quiet,’ said he; ‘I wonder if a man, once engulfed in it, feels peace.’ He pressed his hand to his breast, and muttered: ‘Here it is gone forever!’

He loitered listlessly on, under the trees. His step was feeble; and he stooped and tottered, as if decrepid. He stopped again, shook his head, and went on, looking upon the ground, and at times long and wistfully at the river.

An old man, leaning on a stout cane, who had been watching him, at last came up. Raising his hat, as he did so, he said:

‘You seem, like myself, to be an admirer of this noble river?’

Rust looked up at him sharply, ready to gather in his energies, if necessary. But there was nothing in the mild, dignified face of the speaker to invite suspicion, and he replied in a feeble tone:

‘Yes, yes; it is a noble river.’

‘I’ve seen many, in my long life,’ said the other, ‘and have never met its equal.’

Rust paused, as if he did not hear him, and then continued in a musing tone:

‘How smooth it is! how calm! Many have found peace there, who never found it in life. Drowning’s an easy death, I’m told.’

The stranger replied gravely, and even sternly:

‘They have escaped the troubles of life, and plunged into those of 249eternity;’ and then, as if willing to give Rust an opportunity of explaining away the singular character of the remark, he said: ‘I hope you do not meditate suicide?’

‘No,’ replied Rust, quietly, ‘not at present; but I’ve often thought that many a wrecked spirit will find there what it never found on earth—peace.’

‘The body may,’ returned the other, ‘but not the soul.’

Rust smiled doubtfully, and walked off. The man watched, and even followed him; but seeing him turn from the river, he took another direction, occasionally pausing to look back. Not so Rust. From the time he had parted with the stranger, he had forgotten him, and his thoughts wandered back to their old theme. It was strange that he should believe so implicitly Grosket’s tale, coming as it did from one whom he knew hated him. Yet he did believe it. There was proof of its truth in Grosket’s manner; in his look; in his tone of assured triumph. Yet although Rust brooded over nothing else that livelong day, he could not realize it; he could not appreciate how desolate and lonely he was. He could only fancy how life would be, if what Grosket had told him had happened. ‘This is not all a dream, I suppose,’ muttered he, pausing as he went, and passing his hand across his forehead. ‘No, no; I’m awake—wide awake; and I am Michael Rust; that’s more strange than all.’

After hours of wandering, he found himself at his office. He ascended the stairs, opened the door, and went in. It was dark, for the lights had been twinkling in the shop-windows before he left the street; but he sat down without observing it; and there he remained until Kornicker came in with a light.

Rust made no reply to the salutation which he received. Kornicker placed the light on the table; and after loitering round the room, and busying himself with a few papers which he had arranged on the table, to give it a business-like appearance, he asked:

‘Do you want me any more, to-night?’

‘No; you may go.’

The dismissal and departure of Mr. Kornicker were almost simultaneous. His heavy foot went thumping from step to step, and finally the street-door banged after him. Rust sat without moving, listening to every tramp of his heavy foot, until the door shut it out.

‘So, he’s gone,’ said he, drawing a long breath, and cuddling himself up on his chair. ‘He’ll be in my way no more to-night.’

He shivered slightly; and then got up and drew his chair nearer the grate, although there was no fire in it. ‘And this is then the end of my scheme,’ muttered he; ‘I have gone on for years in the same beaten track, fighting off all who could interfere with me. The affection of those who would have loved me; friends, relatives, those nearest to me, with the same blood in our veins, nursed in the same arms, who drew life from the same source; this cold heart has repulsed, until they have all abandoned me!’

He leaned his head on his hands, and tears, scalding tears, gushed from his eyes. ‘I did it for her. It was to get gold to lavish on her. I would have chained myself for life to that old man’s daughter, to get 250wealth; I would have added the murder of those children to the catalogue of my crimes, that I might have grasped their inheritance, to have showered all that I had gathered by toil and crime upon her. She was my hope, my pride, my own dear darling child; but she is shipwrecked now; she has withered my heart. I would have shed its last blood for her. I would—I would; indeed I would! But it’s useless to think of it. She can never be what she was; the bright, pure-souled, spotless child whom I worshipped. Yes, yes; I did worship her; Why deny it? Better, far better, she had died, for then I might still have cherished her memory. It’s too late. She’s become a castaway now.’

He paused. From a state of deep and querulous despondency, he gradually recovered composure; then his mood grew sterner and sterner; until his compressed lips and flashing eye showed that he had passed from one extreme to the other.

‘Is there nothing left to live for?’ exclaimed he; ‘nothing left? One thing can yet be done. I must ascertain her disgrace beyond a doubt. Then atonement can and shall be made, or he had better never have been born!’

Rust stood up, with an expression of bold, honest indignation, such as he had rarely worn, stamped on every feature. ‘This must be accomplished,’ said he. ‘Everything else must be abandoned: this done, let me die; for I cannot love her as I did, and I might hate her: Better die!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.

Richard Holmes, Esq. was sitting in his office, two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, with his nose within a few inches of a law-book which rested on his knees, when he was aroused by the opening of the door, and the entrance of a man. Holmes was so much out of the world, and out of the current of business, that he did what a practitioner at the bar of his age and standing rarely does; that is, he looked up without waiting till he was addressed.

‘Ah, Harson?—it’s you, is it?’ said he, laying aside his book, but without rising.

Harry walked up, shook hands with him, and seated himself.

‘We’ve been hard at work, and have made some progress,’ said he, taking off his hat, and placing it on the table. ‘We’ve got the woman.’

‘What woman?’

‘Blossom,’ replied Harson; ‘I’ve brought her here to answer for herself. She was in Rust’s employ, and received the children from him. She’s below.’

‘What news of the boy?’ inquired Holmes.

‘Grosket is after him. He knows where he is. Would you like to see the woman?’

‘It would be as well,’ said Holmes, drumming on the table. ‘We’ll hear what she has to say. Does she communicate what she knows willingly or under compulsion?’

‘She’s not very talkative;’ answered Harson, ‘and seems terribly afraid of Rust.’

251‘I think we can squeeze the truth out of her,’ replied Holmes. ‘Bring her up.’

Harson went out, and in a few minutes reäppeared with Mrs. Blossom at his heels. The lawyer pointed to a chair, into which the lady sank, apparently in a state of great exhaustion and agitation; for she moaned and rocked to and fro, and wrung her hands.

‘Your name’s Blossom, I think,’ said Holmes, evincing no sympathy whatever with her sufferings.

‘Ah’s me! ah’s me! I’m very old! I’m very old!’ exclaimed the lady, moaning from the very bottom of her lungs, but without making any reply to the question.

‘Hark ye,’ said Holmes, in a stern tone, ‘I have not sent for you, to listen to your moaning, nor to be trifled with in any other way. You have come here to disclose the deeds of a scoundrel; and disclose them you must. You shall answer all my questions, truly, honestly, and without equivocation, or it will be the worse for you. I am aware of offences committed by you, which, if punished as they merit, would send you to prison. I tell you this, that you may know exactly how we stand with reference to each other. If you wish to serve yourself, you will find true and prompt replies to whatever I ask. What’s your name?’

Mrs. Blossom oscillated in her chair, glanced at the wall, replied ‘Blossom,’ and buried her face in a rag of a shawl.

‘Good! Where do you live?’ demanded the lawyer. The woman answered, and Holmes wrote it down.

‘Do you know a man by the name of Michael Rust?’

Mrs. Blossom’s chair became very uneasy, and she was seized with a violent cough. The lawyer waited until her cough was better, and repeated the question, accompanying it by a look which produced an answer in the affirmative.

‘What other name did you ever know him to bear?’

Mrs. Blossom suddenly found her voice, and replied boldly: ‘No other;’ and here she spoke the truth; for Rust had trusted her no farther than was absolutely necessary.

‘How long have you known him?’

Mrs. Blossom again lost her voice, but found it instantly on meeting the eye of Holmes; and she answered bluntly, ‘About four years.’

‘What led to your acquaintance?’

The woman cast a shrewd suspicious glance at him, as if calculating how far she might trifle with impunity; but there was something in his manner that was not encouraging, and she replied, ‘that she could not remember.’

Holmes laid down his pen, and pushing back his chair so that he faced her, said in a quiet but very decided manner:

‘Mrs. Blossom, you have been brought here for the purpose of giving us such information as will enable us to do justice to a person who has been greatly injured by this man Rust. I mention this, not because I suppose the motive will have any great weight with you, but to let you see that the object of our investigation is nothing against yourself. Your answers are important to us; for at present we know no other 252than yourself, of whom we can obtain the information we require. I do not conceal this, nor will I conceal the fact that unless you do answer me, you shall leave this room for a prison. I told you so before; I repeat it now; I will not repeat it a third time. I already know enough of the matter on which I am interrogating you, to be able to detect falsehood in your answers.’

There was something either in the words of the lawyer or in the formation of her chair that caused Mrs. Blossom to move very uneasily; and at the same time to cast a glance behind her, as if there existed a strong connection between her thoughts and the door. She was however used to trying circumstances, and did not lose her presence of mind. She made no reply, but sat with every faculty, which long training had sharpened to a high degree of cunning, on the alert; but she was not a little taken by surprise when Holmes, after taking from the table a packet of papers, selected one, and having spent a few minutes in examining it, said to her:

‘To convince you that we are perfectly acquainted with the nature of your dealings with Rust, I will enter into a few details, which may perhaps enable you to recollect something more. Four years since, on the sixteenth of December, a man by the name of Blossom, with whom you lived, and whose name you bear, although you are not his wife, proposed to you to take charge of two children, a boy and girl. At first you refused, but finally agreed to do it on receiving five hundred dollars, and the assurance that no inquiry would be made as to the treatment they received at your hands, and that whether they lived or died was a matter of indifference to the person who placed them in your charge, and would not be too closely investigated. The children came. They were quite young. You had them for a week, and were then informed that they must go, for a time, to the country. You asked no questions, but gave them up, and they were sent away, the money for their support being furnished by the same hand that threw them upon your mercy. In a year or so they were brought back, and were again entrusted to you, with instructions to break them down, and if possible to send them to their graves; but if their bodies were proof against cruelty, then so to pollute their very souls, and familiarize them with crime, that they should forget what they had been; and that even those who should have loved them best would blush to see what they were. You began your work well, for you had a stern, savage master over you—Michael Rust. Thus much,’ said he, ‘I know; but I must know more. You must identify the children as the same first delivered to you by Rust. You must disclose the names of the persons with whom they lived in the country. You must also give me such information as will enable us to fasten this crime on Rust. Another person could have proved all this—the man Blossom; but you know he is dead.’

He paused, for Mrs. Blossom’s face grew deadly pale as he spoke. It was momentary, however; and might have passed away entirely, had not a strange suspicion fastened itself on his mind. He added in a slow tone: ‘What ailed him, you know best.’

Mrs. Blossom’s thin lips grew perfectly white; and moved as if she were attempting to speak.

253‘Will you give me the information I require? or will you accept the alternative?’ said Holmes, still keeping his eye upon her.

‘Go on; what do you want?’ demanded she, in a quick husky voice.

‘You are acquainted with Michael Rust?’

‘I am,’ replied she, in the same quick, nervous manner.

‘How did you first become acquainted with him?’

‘You know all that,’ was the abrupt reply. ‘Why should I go over it again? It’s all true, as you said it.’

Holmes paused to make a note of it, and then asked:

‘What is the name of the person, in the country, who took charge of the children?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied the woman. ‘Michael Rust sent a man for them, who took them off.’

‘Who was this man?’

‘I don’t know; I never saw him. Mr. Blossom gave the children to him, and never told me his name.’

‘Good,’ said Holmes, in his short, abrupt manner: ‘Where are these children now?’

‘One’s at his house,’ replied she, pointing to Harson. ‘The other, by this time, is with a man named Grosket. He’s been arter him, and I suppose has got him by this time.’

‘Enoch Grosket?’ inquired Holmes.

The woman nodded. ‘I told him where he’d find him. He went straight off to fetch him.’

‘Will you swear that they are the same children brought to you four years since?’ said Holmes, pausing in his writing, and running his eye over the notes which he had made. ‘Do you know them to be the same?’

‘The man said so, who brought ’em back at the end of the year. That’s all I know about it. They never left me arter that.’

‘Who was that man?’

‘Tim Craig,’ replied the woman.

‘And he’s dead. The only person who could reveal their place of concealment during that year, and the name of those who had the care of them. The chain is broken, by which to identify them as the lost children of George Colton. Who can aid us in this?’

‘I CAN!’ said a voice.

All three started, for there, at their very elbow, stood Michael Rust; but Rust, fearfully altered, worn down, wan, haggard, with sunken cheeks, and features rigid and colorless, as if cut from wax, and with an eye of fire. But wrecked as he was, there was still that strange sneering smile on his lip, which seemed as if only parting to utter sarcasm and mockery. But now he was serious in his mood, for he repeated:

‘I can, and without my aid the secret must be hid forever.’

Holmes rose, angrily, from his seat.

‘What brought you here?’ demanded he.

‘Be seated, I beg of you,’ said Rust, bowing, and speaking in a low, mocking tone. ‘What brought me here? You called upon me, I think; it was but civil to return the visit. I have come to do so.’

254‘This is idle, Sir,’ replied Holmes, coldly. ‘You came for some purpose. Name it. The sooner this interview is over, the more agreeable I suppose it will be for both of us.’

‘For me, certainly,’ said Rust, in a manner so constrained and different from his usual one, that the lawyer was in doubt whether he was in jest or earnest. Then he added, in a bitter tone: ‘You ask what brought me here. Destiny, folly, revenge perhaps against my own heart’s blood. Call it what you will; here I am; and ready to assist in the very matter which now perplexes you. What more do you want?’

Holmes replied with a sarcastic smile: ‘The assistance of Michael Rust is likely to be as great as his sincerity. We certainly should place great reliance on it.’

Rust, perfectly unmoved by the taunt, answered in a tone so bitter, so full of hatred to himself, so replete with the outpouring of a cankered heart, so despairing and reckless, that the lawyer felt that even in him there might be some truth:

‘I care not whether you trust me or not; I care not whether you believe me or not. If Michael Rust could ever have been swayed by the opinions of others, it would have been before this; it’s too late to begin now. I came here because I have failed in all I undertook; because I am beginning to hate the one for whom I have toiled, until I grew gray with the wearing away of mind and body; because the soul of life is gone. I do it out of revenge against that person. There is no remorse; no conscience; but it’s revenge. Look at me; that person has blasted me. Do I not show it in every feature and limb? Now you understand me. My schemes are abandoned; and I shall soon be where neither man nor law can reach me. My secret can do me no good; why should I keep it? Perhaps the recollection of past days and of past favors from one whom I have wronged, may have had its weight; perhaps not. I’ve come to tell the truth. If you will hear it, well; if not, I go, and it goes with me.’

Holmes and Harson exchanged looks, and Harson nodded, as if in acquiescence to some proposition which he supposed the looks of the other to indicate.

‘Well, Sir,’ replied Holmes, ‘we will hear what you have to say.’

‘Stop,’ said Rust; ‘before uttering a word, I must have a promise.’

The lawyer looked at him, and then at Harson, as much as to say: ‘I expected it. There’s some trick in it.’

Rust observed it, and said: ‘Spare your suspicions; I have come here to be frank and honest in word and deed; and Michael Rust can be so, when the fancy seizes him. The promise I require is this; whatever I may reveal, no matter what the penalty, you will not set the blood-hounds of the law on my track within forty-eight hours. I have yet one act to perform in the great farce of life. That accomplished, you may do your worst.’

‘This is all very strange,’ said Holmes, eyeing the thin, excited features of his visitor, as if not altogether sure of his sanity; ‘if you fear the punishment of your misdeeds, why reveal them? Why place yourself in our power, or run the risk of our interfering with your future movements?’

255Rust replied bitterly: ‘You shall hear. My whole life has been spent for one person, my own child. Every faculty of mind and body has been devoted to her, and every crime I have committed was for her. Scruples were disregarded; ties of blood set at defiance; every thing that binds man to man, that deters from wrong, were disregarded, if they stood in the way of that one grand aim of life. She forgot all! She has broken me down, heart and spirit. Love and devotion were crushed with them, and revenge has sprung up from their ruins. Ay! revenge against my own child! Should any thing prevent my doing what I have yet to do, and should my brother die, and his children not be found, she would be his heir. I would have labored and succeeded, for one who has disgraced me, and made me what you see me!’

He stretched out his thin hands, displaying the large veins, coursing beneath the skin, and apparently full to bursting. ‘How wasted they are!’ He smiled as he looked at them, and then asked: ‘Will you promise?’

The lawyer turned to Harson, and then said: ‘I promise; do you, Harson?’ Harry nodded.

‘Good!’ said Rust, abruptly. ‘You know my name, and much of my history. All the facts which you detailed to me at my office a short time since are true—true almost to the very letter. Michael Rust and Henry Colton are one. The plodding, scheming, heartless, unprincipled Henry Colton, who could sell his brother’s own flesh and blood for gold; who could forget all the kindnesses heaped upon him, and stab his benefactor, and this wreck of Michael Rust, are one!’

He struck his hand against his chest, and strode up and down the room, biting his lips. ‘He was rich, and I was poor: he gave me the means of living, but I wanted more. I had my eye on his entire wealth, and I wanted him to be in his grave. But he thwarted me in that. Feeble and sickly, so that a breath might have destroyed him, he lived on, and at last, as if to balk me farther, he married. Two children were born; two more obstacles between me and my aim. Two children!—two more of the same blood for me to love. Ho! ho! how Michael Rust loved those babes!’ exclaimed he, clutching his fingers above his head, and gasping as he spoke. He turned, and fastening his glaring eye on the lawyer, griped his fingers together, with his teeth hard set and speaking through them, said in a sharp whisper: ‘I could have strangled them!’

He paused; and then went on: ‘At last came the thought of removing them. At first it was vague: it came like a shadow, and went off; then it came again, more distinct. Then it became stronger, and stronger, until it grew into a passion—a very madness. At last my mind was made up, and my plans formed. I trusted no one, but carried them off myself, and delivered them to the husband of that woman,’ pointing to Mrs. Blossom. ‘I told him nothing of their history: he was paid to take charge of them, and asked no questions. Then came the clamor of pursuit. I daily met and comforted my broken-hearted brother and his wife: I held out hopes which I knew were false; I offered rewards; I turned pursuit in every direction except the right one. They both thanked me, and looked upon me as their best friend; and 256so I was, for I kept up hope; and what is life without it? At last the search approached the neighborhood where the children really were, and they were sent to the country. A man by the name of Craig took them. The only person who was in the secret was Enoch Grosket; but he knew nothing respecting the history of the children, nor where they went.’

‘Where was it?’ inquired Holmes, anxiously, ‘and to whom did you entrust them?’

‘I have prepared it all,’ said Rust; he drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to him. ‘You’ll find it there, and the names of the persons; they know nothing of the children; but they can identify them as those left with them four years ago; and they still have the clothes which they wore at the time; but the girl’s resemblance to her mother will save all that trouble.’

He paused, with his dark eyes fastened on the floor, and his lips working with intense emotion.

‘And is it possible that the love of gold can lead one to crimes like these!’ said Holmes, in a subdued tone.

‘Love of gold!’ exclaimed Rust, fiercely; ‘what cared I for gold? Ho! ho! Michael Rust values gold but as dross; but it is the world; the cringing, obsequious, miser-hearted world, that kisses the very feet of wealth, which set Michael Rust on; it was this that lashed him forward; but not for himself. I married a woman whom I loved,’ said he, in a quick, stern tone; ‘she abandoned me and became an outcast, and paid the penalty by an outcast’s fate: she died in the streets. The love which I bore her I transferred to my child. I was poor, and I resolved that she should be rich. Can you understand my motive now? I loved my own flesh and blood better than my brother’s. I have now relinquished my plans, and have told you why.’

A pause of some moments ensued, and Rust said: ‘Is there any thing more that you want? If so, tell me at once, for after to-day we shall never meet again.’

Holmes ran his eye over the papers, and selecting two letters, handed them to Rust, and said:

‘How do you account for the difference of that hand-writing, if Michael Rust and Henry Colton are one?’

‘Michael Rust wrote one hand, Henry Colton another,’ said Rust; ‘but I wrote both.’ He seized a pen, wrote a few words, signed the names Michael Rust and Henry Colton, and flung it on the table. ‘The game had been well studied before it was played.’

‘Your writing is well disguised indeed,’ said the lawyer, comparing it with the letters; ‘it solves that difficulty.’

‘Any thing else?’ demanded Rust, impatiently; ‘my time is limited.’

Holmes shook his head; but Harson said: ‘A few words about Jacob Rhoneland.’

‘Well?’

‘You accuse him of forgery; what does that mean?’

‘He was a fool: I wanted to marry his daughter; I represented myself to him as very rich, to tempt his avarice; that failed. I added 257entreaties; they failed. Then I tried the effect of fear. He was not deaf to that for a long time, but at last he overcame even that.’

‘And the tale?’

‘Was well fabricated, but false.’

‘And Ned Somers?’

‘I had to get rid of him: what could I do while he was dallying round the girl? I did get rid of him: a few lies whispered to the old man sent him adrift. But I’m tired of this; I came to tell what I pleased, and nothing more, and I must be at work. You must respect your promise,’ said he, turning to Holmes.

‘I shall, and I hope your present errand at least is an honest one.’

‘It is,’ said Rust, with a strange smile; ‘it is to punish a criminal.’ He opened the door and went off without another word.

NIGHT AND MORNING.

262

THE LEGEND OF DON RODERICK.6

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCH BOOK.

When in the year of Redemption 701, Witizia was elected to the Gothic throne, his reign gave promise of happy days to Spain. He redressed grievances, moderated the tributes of his subjects, and conducted himself with mingled mildness and energy in the administration of the laws. In a little while, however, he threw off the mask and showed himself in his true nature, cruel and luxurious. Considering himself secure upon the throne, he gave the reins to his licentious passions, and soon by his tyranny and sensuality acquired the appellation of Witizia the Wicked. How rare is it to learn wisdom from the misfortunes of others! With the fate of Witizia full before his eyes, Don Roderick was no sooner established as his successor, than he began to indulge in the same pernicious errors, and was doomed in like manner to prepare the way for his own perdition.

As yet the heart of Roderick, occupied by the struggles of his early life, by warlike enterprises, and by the inquietudes of newly-gotten power, had been insensible to the charms of women; but in the first voluptuous calm the amorous propensities of his nature assumed their sway. There are divers accounts of the youthful beauty who first found favor in his eyes, and was elevated by him to the throne. We follow, in our legend, the details of an Arabian chronicler, authenticated by a Spanish poet. Let those who dispute our facts produce better authority for their contradiction.

Among the few fortified places that had not been dismantled by Don Roderick was the ancient city of Denia, situated on the Mediterranean coast, and defended on a rock-built castle that overlooked the sea.

The Alcayde of the castle, with many of the people of Denia, was one day on his knees in the chapel, imploring the Virgin to allay a tempest which was strewing the coast with wrecks, when a sentinel brought word that a Moorish cruiser was standing for the land. The Alcayde gave orders to ring the alarm bells, light signal-fires on the hill tops, and rouse the country; for the coast was subject to cruel maraudings from the Barbary cruisers.

In a little while the horsemen of the neighborhood were seen pricking along the beach, armed with such weapons as they could find; and the Alcayde and his scanty garrison descended from the hill. In the meantime the Moorish bark came rolling and pitching toward the land. As it drew near, the rich carving and gilding with which it was decorated, its silken bandaroles, and banks of crimson oars, showed it to be no warlike vessel, but a sumptuous galleot, destined for state and ceremony. It bore the marks of the tempest: the masts were broken, the oars shattered, 263and fragments of snowy sails and silken awnings were fluttering in the blast.

As the galleot grounded upon the sand, the impatient rabble rushed into the surf to capture and make spoil; but were awed into admiration and respect by the appearance of the illustrious company on board. There were Moors of both sexes sumptuously arrayed, and adorned with precious jewels, bearing the demeanor of persons of lofty rank. Among them shone conspicuous a youthful beauty, magnificently attired, to whom all seemed to pay reverence.

Several of the Moors surrounded her with drawn swords, threatening death to any that approached; others sprang from the bark, and, throwing themselves on their knees before the Alcayde, implored him, by his honor and courtesy as a knight, to protect a royal virgin from injury and insult.

‘You behold before you,’ said they, ‘the only daughter of the King of Algiers, the betrothed bride of the son of the King of Tunis. We were conducting her to the court of her expecting bridegroom, when a tempest drove us from our course, and compelled us to take refuge on your coast. Be not more cruel than the tempest, but deal nobly with that which even sea and storm have spared.’

The Alcayde listened to their prayers. He conducted the princess and her train to the castle, where every honor due to her rank was paid her. Some of her ancient attendants interceded for her liberation, promising countless sums to be paid by her father for her ransom; but the Alcayde turned a deaf ear to all their golden offers. ‘She is a royal captive,’ said he; ‘it belongs to my sovereign alone to dispose of her.’ After she had reposed, therefore, for some days at the castle, and recovered from the fatigue and terror of the seas, he caused her to be conducted, with all her train, in magnificent state to the court of Don Roderick.

The beautiful Elyata entered Toledo more like a triumphant sovereign than a captive. A chosen band of Christian horsemen, splendidly armed, appeared to wait upon her as a mere guard of honor. She was surrounded by the Moorish damsels of her train, and followed by her own Moslem guards, all attired with the magnificence that had been intended to grace her arrival at the court of Tunis. The princess was arrayed in bridal robes, woven in the most costly looms of the orient; her diadem sparkled with diamonds, and was decorated with the rarest plumes of the bird of paradise; and even the silken trappings of her palfrey, which swept the ground, were covered with pearls and precious stones. As this brilliant cavalcade crossed the bridge of the Tagus, all Toledo poured forth to behold it; and nothing was heard throughout the city but praises of the wonderful beauty of the princess of Algiers. King Roderick came forth attended by the chivalry of his court, to receive the royal captive. His recent voluptuous life had disposed him for tender and amorous affections, and, at the first sight of the beautiful Elyata, he was enraptured with her charms. Seeing her face clouded with sorrow and anxiety, he soothed her with gentle and courteous words, and, conducting her to a royal palace, ‘Behold,’ said he, ‘thy habitation where no one shall molest thee; consider thyself at home in the mansion of thy father, and dispose of any thing according to thy will.’

264Here the princess passed her time, with the female attendants who had accompanied her from Algiers; and no one but the king was permitted to visit her, who daily became more and more enamoured of his lovely captive, and sought, by tender assiduity, to gain her affections. The distress of the princess at her captivity was soothed by this gentle treatment. She was of an age when sorrow cannot long hold sway over the heart. Accompanied by her youthful attendants, she ranged the spacious apartments of the palace, and sported among the groves and alleys of its garden. Every day the remembrance of the paternal home grew less and less painful, and the king became more and more amiable in her eyes; and when, at length, he offered to share his heart and throne with her, she listened with downcast looks and kindling blushes, but with an air of resignation.

One obstacle remained to the complete fruition of the monarch’s wishes, and this was the religion of the princess. Roderick forthwith employed the Archbishop of Toledo to instruct the beautiful Elyata in the mysteries of the Christian faith. The female intellect is quick in perceiving the merits of new doctrines: the archbishop, therefore, soon succeeded in converting, not merely the princess, but most of her attendants; and a day was appointed for their public baptism. The ceremony was performed with great pomp and solemnity, in the presence of all the nobility and chivalry of the court. The princess and her damsels, clad in white, walked on foot to the cathedral, while numerous beautiful children, arrayed as angels, strewed the path with flowers; and the archbishop, meeting them at the portal, received them, as it were, into the bosom of the church. The princess abandoned her Moorish appellation of Elyata, and was baptised by the name of Exilona, by which she was thenceforth called, and has generally been known in history.

The nuptials of Roderick and the beautiful convert took place shortly afterward, and were celebrated with great magnificence. There were jousts, and tourneys, and banquets, and other rejoicings, which lasted twenty days, and were attended by the principle nobles from all parts of Spain. After these were over, such of the attendants of the princess as refused to embrace Christianity, and desired to return to Africa, were dismissed with munificent presents; and an embassy was sent to the King of Algiers, to inform him of the nuptials of his daughter, and to proffer him the friendship of King Roderick.

For a time Don Roderick lived happily with his young and beautiful queen, and Toledo was the seat of festivity and splendor. The principal nobles throughout the kingdom repaired to his court to pay him homage, and to receive his commands; and none were more devoted in their reverence than those who were obnoxious to suspicion, from their connection with the late king.

Among the foremost of these was Count Julian, a man destined to be infamously renowned in the dark story of his country’s woes. He was of one of the proudest Gothic families, lord of Consuegra and Algeziras, and connected by marriage with Witizia and the Bishop Oppas; his wife, the Countess Frandina, being their sister. In consequence of this connection, and of his own merits, he had enjoyed the highest dignities and 265commands: being one of the Espatorios, or royal sword-bearers; an office of the greatest confidence about the person of the sovereign. He had, moreover, been intrusted with the military government of the Spanish possessions on the African coast of the strait, which at that time were threatened by the Arabs of the East, the followers of Mahomet, who were advancing their victorious standard to the extremity of Western Africa. Count Julian established his seat of government at Ceuta, the frontier bulwark, and one of the far-famed gates of the Mediterranean Sea. Here he boldly faced, and held in check, the torrent of Moslem invasion.

Don Julian was a man of an active, but irregular genius, and a grasping ambition; he had a love for power and grandeur, in which he was joined by his haughty countess; and they could ill brook the downfall of their house as threatened by the fate of Witizia. They had hastened, therefore, to pay their court to the newly elevated monarch, and to assure him of their fidelity to his interests.

Roderick was readily persuaded of the sincerity of Count Julian; he was aware of his merits as a soldier and a governor, and continued him in his important command; honoring him with many other marks of implicit confidence. Count Julian sought to confirm this confidence by every proof of devotion. It was a custom among the Goths to rear many of the children of the most illustrious families in the royal household. They served as pages to the king, and handmaids and ladies of honor to the queen, and were instructed in all manner of accomplishments befitting their gentle blood. When about to depart for Ceuta, to resume his command, Don Julian brought his daughter Florinda to present her to the sovereigns. She was a beautiful virgin, that had not as yet attained to womanhood. ‘I confide her to your protection,’ said he to the king, ‘to be unto her as a father; and to have her trained in the paths of virtue. I can leave with you no dearer pledge of my loyalty.’

King Roderick received the timid and blushing maiden into his paternal care; promising to watch over her happiness with a parent’s eye, and that she should be enrolled among the most cherished attendants of the queen. With this assurance of the welfare of his child, Count Julian departed, well pleased, for his government at Ceuta.

The beautiful daughter of Count Julian was received with great favor by the queen Exilona, and admitted among the noble damsels that attended upon her person. Here she lived in honor and apparent security, and surrounded by innocent delights. To gratify his queen, Don Roderick had built for her rural recreation, a palace without the walls of Toledo, on the banks of the Tagus. It stood in the midst of a garden, adorned after the luxurious style of the east. The air was perfumed by fragrant shrubs and flowers; the groves resounded with the song of the nightingale; while the gush of fountains and waterfalls, and the distant murmur of the Tagus, made it a delightful retreat during the sultry days of summer. The charm of perfect privacy also reigned throughout the place; for the garden walls were high, and numerous guards kept watch without to protect it from all intrusion.

In this delicious abode, more befitting an oriental voluptuary than a Gothic king, Don Roderick was accustomed to while away much of that 266time which should have been devoted to the toilsome cares of government. The very security and peace which he had produced throughout his dominions, by his precautions to abolish the means and habitudes of war, had effected a disastrous change in his character. The hardy and heroic qualities which had conducted him to the throne, were softened in the lap of indulgence. Surrounded by the pleasures of an idle and effeminate court, and beguiled by the example of his degenerate nobles, he gave way to a fatal sensuality that had lain dormant in his nature during the virtuous days of his adversity. The mere love of female beauty had first enamoured him of Exilona; and the same passion, fostered by voluptuous idleness, now betrayed him into the commission of an act fatal to himself and Spain. The following is the story of his error, as gathered from an old chronicle and legend.

In a remote part of the palace was an apartment devoted to the queen. It was like an eastern harem, shut up from the foot of man, and where the king himself but rarely entered. It had its own courts, and gardens, and fountains, where the queen was wont to recreate herself with her damsels, as she had been accustomed to do in the jealous privacy of her father’s palace.

One sultry day, the king, instead of taking his siesta, or mid-day slumber, repaired to this apartment to seek the society of the queen. In passing through a small oratory, he was drawn by the sound of female voices to a casement overhung with myrtles and jessamines. It looked into an interior garden, or court, set out with orange trees, in the midst of which was a marble fountain, surrounded by a grassy bank, enamelled with flowers.

It was the high noontide of a summer day, when, in sultry Spain, the landscape trembles to the eye, and all nature seeks repose, except the grasshopper, that pipes his lulling note to the herdsman as he sleeps beneath the shade.

Around the fountain were several of the damsels of the queen, who, confident of the sacred privacy of the place, were yielding in that cool retreat to the indulgence prompted by the season and the hour. Some lay asleep on the flowery bank; others sat on the margin of the fountain, talking and laughing, as they bathed their feet in its limpid waters, and King Roderick beheld delicate limbs shining through the wave, that might rival the marble in whiteness.

Among the damsels was one who had come from the Barbary coast with the queen. Her complexion had the dark tinge of Mauritania, but it was clear and transparent, and the deep rich rose blushed through the lovely brown. Her eyes were black and full of fire, and flashed from under long silken eye-lashes.

A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry.

The Spanish beauties were on the point of giving up the contest, when they bethought themselves of the young Florinda, the daughter of Count Julian, who lay on the grassy bank, abandoned to a summer slumber. The soft glow of youth and health mantled on her cheek; her fringed eyelashes scarcely covered their sleeping orbs; her moist and 267ruby lips were lightly parted, just revealing a gleam of her ivory teeth; while her innocent bosom rose and fell beneath her bodice, like the gentle swelling and sinking of a tranquil sea. There was a breathing tenderness and beauty in the sleeping virgin, that seemed to send forth sweetness like the flowers around her.

‘Behold,’ cried her companions exultingly, ‘the champion of Spanish beauty!’

In their playful eagerness they half disrobed the innocent Florinda before she was aware. She awoke in time, however, to escape from their busy hands; but enough of her charms had been revealed to convince the monarch that they were not to be rivalled by the rarest beauties of Mauritania.

From this day the heart of Roderick was inflamed with a fatal passion. He gazed on the beautiful Florinda with fervid desire, and sought to read in her looks whether there was levity or wantonness in her bosom; but the eye of the damsel ever sunk beneath his gaze, and remained bent on the earth in virgin modesty.

It was in vain he called to mind the sacred trust reposed in him by Count Julian, and the promise he had given to watch over his daughter with paternal care; his heart was vitiated by sensual indulgence, and the consciousness of power had rendered him selfish in his gratifications.

Being one evening in the garden where the queen was diverting herself with her damsels, and coming to the fountain where he had beheld the innocent maidens at their sport, he could no longer restrain the passion that raged within his breast. Seating himself beside the fountain, he called Florinda to him to draw forth a thorn which had pierced his hand. The maiden knelt at his feet to examine his hand, and the touch of her slender fingers thrilled through his veins. As she knelt, too, her amber locks fell in rich ringlets about her beautiful head, her innocent bosom palpitated beneath the crimson boddice, and her timid blushes increased the effulgence of her charms.

Having examined the monarch’s hand in vain, she looked up in his face with artless perplexity.

‘Senior,’ said she, ‘I can find no thorn, nor any sign of wound.’

Don Roderick grasped her hand and pressed it to his heart. ‘It is here, lovely Florinda!’ said he, ‘It is here! and thou alone canst pluck it forth!’

‘My lord!’ exclaimed the blushing and astonished maiden.

‘Florinda!’ said Don Roderick, ‘dost thou love me?’

‘Senior,’ said she, ‘my father taught me to love and reverence you. He confided me to your care as one who would be as a parent to me, when he should be far distant, serving your majesty with life and loyalty. May God incline your majesty ever to protect me as a father.’ So saying, the maiden dropped her eyes to the ground, and continued kneeling; but her countenance had become deadly pale, and as she knelt she trembled.

‘Florinda,’ said the king, ‘either thou dost not or thou wilt not understand me. I would have thee love me, not as a father, nor as a monarch, but as one who adores thee. Why dost thou start? No one shall 268know our loves; and, moreover, the love of a monarch inflicts no degradation like the love of a common man; riches and honors attend upon it. I will advance thee to rank and dignity, and place thee above the proudest females of my court. Thy father, too, shall be more exalted and endowed than any noble in my realm.’

The soft eye of Florinda kindled at these words. ‘Senior,’ said she, ‘the line I spring from can receive no dignity by means so vile; and my father would rather die than purchase rank and power by the dishonor of his child. But I see,’ continued she, ‘that your majesty speaks in this manner only to try me. You may have thought me light and simple and unworthy to attend upon the queen. I pray your majesty to pardon me, that I have taken your pleasantry in such serious part.’

In this way the agitated maiden sought to evade the addresses of the monarch; but still her cheek was blanched, and her lip quivered as she spake.

The king pressed her hand to his lips with fervor. ‘May ruin seize me,’ cried he, ‘if I speak to prove thee! My heart, my kingdom, are at thy command. Only be mine, and thou shalt rule absolute mistress of myself and my domains.’

The damsel rose from the earth where she had hitherto knelt, and her whole countenance glowed with virtuous indignation. ‘My Lord,’ said she, ‘I am your subject, and in your power; take my life if it be your pleasure; but nothing shall tempt me to commit a crime which would be treason to the queen, disgrace to my father, agony to my mother, and perdition to myself.’ With these words she left the garden, and the king, for the moment, was too much awed by her indignant virtue to oppose her departure.

We shall pass briefly over the succeeding events of the story of Florinda, about which so much has been said and sung by chronicler and bard: for the sober page of history should be carefully chastened from all scenes that might inflame a wanton imagination; leaving them to poems and romances, and such-like highly seasoned works of fantasy and recreation.

Let it suffice to say, that Don Roderick pursued his suit to the beautiful Florinda, his passion being more and more inflamed by the resistance of the virtuous damsel. At length, forgetting what was due to helpless beauty, to his own honor as a knight, and his word as a sovereign, he triumphed over her weakness by base and unmanly violence.

There are not wanting those who affirm that the hapless Florinda lent a yielding ear to the solicitations of the monarch, and her name has been treated with opprobrium in several of the ancient chronicles and legendary ballads that have transmitted, from generation to generation, the story of the woes of Spain. In very truth, however, she appears to have been a guiltless victim, resisting, as far as helpless female could resist, the arts and intrigues of a powerful monarch, who had nought to check the indulgence of his will, and bewailing her disgrace with a poignancy that shows how dearly she had prized her honor.

In the first paroxysm of her grief she wrote a letter to her father, blotted with her tears, and almost incoherent from her agitation. ‘Would to God, my father,’ said she, ‘that the earth had opened and 269swallowed me ere I had been reduced to write these lines! I blush to tell thee, what it is not proper to conceal. Alas! my father; thou hast entrusted thy lamb to the guardianship of the lion. Thy daughter has been dishonored, the royal cradle of the Goths polluted, and our lineage insulted and disgraced. Hasten, my father, to rescue your child from the power of the spoiler, and to vindicate the honor of your house!’

When Florinda had written these lines, she summoned a youthful esquire, who had been a page in the service of her father. ‘Saddle thy steed,’ said she, ‘and if thou dost aspire to knightly honor, or hope for lady’s grace—if thou hast fealty for thy lord, or devotion to his daughter—speed swiftly upon my errand. Rest not, halt not, spare not the spur; but hie thee day and night until thou reach the sea; take the first bark, and haste with sail and oar to Ceuta, nor pause until thou give this letter to the count my father.’

The youth put the letter in his bosom. ‘Trust me, lady,’ said he, ‘I will neither halt nor turn aside, nor cast a look behind, until I reach Count Julian.’ He mounted his fleet steed, sped his way across the bridge, and soon left behind him the verdant valley of the Tagus.

The heart of Don Roderick was not so depraved by sensuality, but that the wrong he had been guilty of toward the innocent Florinda, and the disgrace he had inflicted on her house, weighed heavy on his spirits, and a cloud began to gather on his once clear and unwrinkled brow.

Heaven, at this time, say the old Spanish chronicles, permitted a marvellous intimation of the wrath with which it intended to visit the monarch and his people, in punishment of their sins; nor are we, say the same orthodox writers, to startle, and withhold our faith, when we meet in the page of discreet and sober history with these signs and portents, which transcend the probabilities of ordinary life; for the revolutions of empires and the downfall of mighty kings are awful events, that shake the physical as well as the moral world, and are often announced by forerunning marvels and prodigious omens. With such-like cautious preliminaries do the wary but credulous historiographers of yore usher in a marvellous event of prophecy and enchantment, linked in ancient story with the fortunes of Don Roderick, but which modern doubters would fain hold up as an apocryphal tradition of Arabian origin.

Now, so it happened, according to the legend, that about this time, as King Roderick was seated one day on his throne, surrounded by his nobles, in the ancient city of Toledo, two men of venerable appearance entered the hall of audience. Their snowy beards descended to their breasts, and their gray hairs were bound with ivy. They were arrayed in white garments of foreign or antiquated fashion, which swept the ground, and were cinctured with girdles, wrought with the signs of the zodiac, from which were suspended enormous bunches of keys of every variety of form. Having approached the throne and made obeisance: ‘Know, O King,’ said one of the old men, ‘that in days of yore, when Hercules of Libya, surnamed the strong, had set up his pillars at the 270ocean strait, he erected a tower near to this ancient city of Toledo. He built it of prodigious strength, and finished it with magic art, shutting up within it a fearful secret, never to be penetrated without peril and disaster. To protect this terrible mystery he closed the entrance to the edifice with a ponderous door of iron, secured by a great lock of steel; and he left a command that every king who should succeed him should add another lock to the portal; denouncing wo and destruction on him who should eventually unfold the secret of the tower.

‘The guardianship of the portal was given to our ancestors, and has continued in our family, from generation to generation, since the days of Hercules. Several kings, from time to time, have caused the gate to be thrown open, and have attempted to enter, but have paid dearly for their temerity. Some have perished within the threshold, others have been overwhelmed with horror at tremendous sounds, which shook the foundations of the earth, and have hastened to re-close the door, and secure it with its thousand locks. Thus, since the days of Hercules, the inmost recesses of the pile have never been penetrated by mortal man, and a profound mystery continues to prevail over this great enchantment. This, O King, is all we have to relate; and our errand is to entreat thee to repair to the tower and affix thy lock to the portal, as has been done by all thy predecessors.’ Having thus said, the ancient men made a profound reverence and departed from the presence chamber.

Don Roderick remained for some time lost in thought after the departure of the men: he then dismissed all his court, excepting the venerable Urbino, at that time archbishop of Toledo. The long white beard of this prelate bespoke his advanced age, and his overhanging eye-brows showed him a man full of wary counsel.

‘Father,’ said the king, ‘I have an earnest desire to penetrate the mystery of this tower.’ The worthy prelate shook his hoary head: ‘Beware, my son,’ said he; ‘there are secrets hidden from man for his good. Your predecessors for many generations have respected this mystery, and have increased in might and empire. A knowledge of it, therefore, is not material to the welfare of your kingdom. Seek not then to indulge a rash and unprofitable curiosity, which is interdicted under such awful menaces.’

‘Of what importance,’ cried the king, ‘are the menaces of Hercules, the Lybian? Was he not a pagan? and can his enchantments have aught avail against a believer in our holy faith? Doubtless, in this tower are locked up treasures of gold and jewels, amassed in days of old, the spoils of mighty kings, the riches of the pagan world. My coffers are exhausted; I have need of supply; and surely it would be an acceptable act in the eyes of Heaven, to draw forth this wealth which lies buried under profane and necromantic spells, and consecrate it to religious purposes.’

The venerable archbishop still continued to remonstrate, but Don Roderick heeded not his counsel, for he was led on by his malignant star. ‘Father,’ said he, ‘it is in vain you attempt to dissuade me. My resolution is fixed. To-morrow I will explore the hidden mystery, or rather the hidden treasures of this tower.’

271The morning sun shone brightly upon the cliff-built towers of Toledo, when King Roderick issued out of the gate of the city, at the head of a numerous train of courtiers and cavaliers, and crossed the bridge that bestrides the deep rocky bed of the Tagus. The shining cavalcade wound up the road that leads among the mountains, and soon came in sight of the necromantic tower.

Of this renowned edifice marvels are related by the ancient Arabian and Spanish chroniclers; ‘and I doubt much,’ adds the venerable Agpaida, ‘whether many readers will not consider the whole as a cunningly devised fable, sprung from an oriental imagination; but it is not for me to reject a fact which is recorded by all those writers who are the fathers of our national history: a fact, too, which is as well attested as most of the remarkable events in the story of Don Roderick. None but light and inconsiderate minds,’ continues the good friar, ‘do hastily reject the marvellous. To the thinking mind the whole world is enveloped in mystery, and every thing is full of type and portent. To such a mind the necromantic tower of Toledo will appear as one of those wondrous monuments of the olden time; one of those Egyptian and Chaldaic piles, storied with hidden wisdom and mystic prophecy, which have been devised in past ages, when man yet enjoyed an intercourse with high and spiritual natures, and when human foresight partook of divination.’

This singular tower was round, and of great height and grandeur; erected upon a lofty rock, and surrounded by crags and precipices. The foundation was supported by four brazen lions, each taller than a cavalier on horseback. The walls were built of small pieces of jasper, and various colored marbles, not larger than a man’s hand; so subtilely joined, however, that but for their different hues they might be taken for one entire stone. They were arranged with marvellous cunning, so as to represent battles and warlike deeds of times and heroes long since passed away; and the whole surface was so admirably polished that the stones were as lustrous as glass, and reflected the rays of the sun with such resplendent brightness as to dazzle all beholders.7

King Roderick and his courtiers arrived wondering and amazed, at the foot of the rock. Here there was a narrow arched way cut through the living stone; the only entrance to the tower. It was closed by a massive iron gate, covered with rusty locks of divers workmanship, and in the fashion of different centuries, which had been affixed by the predecessors of Don Roderick. On either side of the portal stood the two ancient guardians of the tower, laden with the keys appertaining to the locks.

The king alighted, and, approaching the portals, ordered the guardians to unlock the gate. The hoary-headed men drew back with terror. ‘Alas!’ cried they, ‘what is it your majesty requires of us? Would you have the mischiefs of this tower unbound, and let loose to shake the earth to its foundations?’

The venerable archbishop Urbino likewise implored him not to disturb 272a mystery which had been held sacred from generation to generation, within the memory of man; and which even Cæsar himself, when sovereign of Spain, had not ventured to invade. The youthful cavaliers, however, were eager to pursue the adventure, and encouraged him in his rash curiosity.

‘Come what come may,’ exclaimed Don Roderick, ‘I am resolved to penetrate the mystery of this tower.’ So saying, he again commanded the guardians to unlock the portal. The ancient men obeyed with fear and trembling, but their hands shook with age, and when they applied the keys, the locks were so rusted by time, or of such strange workmanship, that they resisted their feeble efforts; whereupon the young cavaliers pressed forward and lent their aid. Still the locks were so numerous and difficult, that with all their eagerness and strength a great part of the day was exhausted before the whole of them could be mastered.

When the last bolt had yielded to the key, the guardians and the reverend archbishop again entreated the king to pause and reflect. ‘Whatever is within this tower,’ said they, ‘is as yet harmless, and lies bound under a mighty spell: venture not then to open a door which may let forth a flood of evil upon the land.’ But the anger of the king was roused, and he ordered that the portal should be instantly thrown open. In vain, however, did one after another exert his strength; and equally in vain did the cavaliers unite their forces, and apply their shoulders to the gate: though there was neither bar nor bolt remaining, it was perfectly immoveable.

The patience of the king was now exhausted, and he advanced to apply his hand; scarcely, however, did he touch the iron gate, when it swung slowly open, uttering, as it were, a dismal groan, as it turned reluctantly upon its hinges. A cold, damp wind issued forth, accompanied by a tempestuous sound. The hearts of the ancient guardians quaked within them, and their knees smote together; but several of the youthful cavaliers rushed in, eager to gratify their curiosity, or to signalise themselves in this redoubtable enterprise. They had scarcely advanced a few paces, however, when they recoiled, overcome by the baleful air, or by some fearful vision. Upon this, the king ordered that fires should be kindled to dispel the darkness, and to correct the noxious and long imprisoned air: he then led the way into the interior; but, though stout of heart, he advanced with awe and hesitation.

After proceeding a short distance, he entered a hall, or antechamber, on the opposite side of which was a door; and before it, on a pedestal, stood a gigantic figure, of the color of bronze, and of a terrible aspect. It held a huge mace, which it whirled incessantly, giving such cruel and resounding blows upon the earth as to prevent all further entrance.

The king paused at sight of this appalling figure; for whether it were a living being, or a statue of magic artifice, he could not tell. On its breast was a scroll, whereon was inscribed in large letters, ‘I do my duty.’ After a little while Roderick plucked up heart, and addressed it with great solemnity: ‘Whatever thou be,’ said he, ‘know that I come not to violate this sanctuary, but to inquire into the mystery it contains; I conjure thee, therefore, to let me pass in safety.’

273Upon this the figure paused with uplifted mace, and the king and his train passed unmolested through the door.

They now entered a vast chamber, of a rare and sumptuous architecture, difficult to be described. The walls were incrusted with the most precious gems, so joined together as to form one smooth and perfect surface. The lofty dome appeared to be self-supported, and was studded with gems, lustrous as the stars of the firmament. There was neither wood, nor any other common or base material to be seen throughout the edifice. There were no windows or rather openings to admit the day, yet a radiant light was spread throughout the place, which seemed to shine from the walls, and to render every object distinctly visible.

In the centre of this hall stood a table of alabaster, of the rarest workmanship, on which was inscribed in Greek characters, that Hercules Alcides, the Theban Greek, had founded this tower in the year of the world three thousand and six. Upon the table stood a golden casket, richly set round with precious stones, and closed with a lock of mother-of-pearl; and on the lid were inscribed the following words:

‘In this coffer is contained the mystery of the tower. The hand of none but a king can open it; but let him beware! for marvellous events will be revealed to him, which are to take place before his death.’

King Roderick boldly seized upon the casket. The venerable archbishop laid his hand upon his arm, and made a last remonstrance. ‘Forbear, my son!’ said he; ‘desist while there is yet time. Look not into the mysterious decrees of Providence. God has hidden them in mercy from our sight, and it is impious to rend the veil by which they are concealed.’

‘What have I to dread from a knowledge of the future?’ replied Roderick, with an air of haughty presumption. ‘If good be destined me, I shall enjoy it by anticipation: if evil, I shall arm myself to meet it.’ So saying, he rashly broke the lock.

Within the coffer he found nothing but a linen cloth, folded between two tablets of copper. On unfolding it, he beheld painted on it figures of men on horseback, of fierce demeanor, clad in turbans and robes of various colors, after the fashion of the Arabs, with scimetars hanging from their necks, and cross-bows at their saddle backs, and they carried banners and pennons with divers devices. Above them was inscribed in Greek characters, ‘Rash monarch! behold the men who are to hurl thee from thy throne, and subdue thy kingdom!’

At sight of these things the king was troubled in spirit, and dismay fell upon his attendants. While they were yet regarding the paintings, it seemed as if the figures began to move, and a faint sound of warlike tumult arose from the cloth, with the clash of cymbal and bray of trumpet, the neigh of steed and shout of army; but all was heard indistinctly, as if afar off, or in a reverie or dream. The more they gazed, the plainer became the motion, and the louder the noise; and the linen cloth rolled forth, and amplified and spread out, as it were, a mighty banner, and filled the hall, and mingled with the air, until its texture was no longer visible, or appeared as a transparent cloud: and the shadowy figures become all in motion, and the din and uproar 274became fiercer and fiercer; and whether the whole were an animated picture, or a vision, or an array of embodied spirits, conjured up by supernatural power, no one present could tell. They beheld before them a great field of battle, where Christians and Moslems were engaged in deadly conflict. They heard the rush and tramp of steeds, the blast of trump and clarion, the clash of cymbal, and the stormy din of a thousand drums. There was the clash of swords, and maces, and battle-axes, with the whistling of arrows, and the hurling of darts and lances. The Christians quailed before the foe; the infidels pressed upon them and put them to utter rout; the standard of the cross was cast down, the banner of Spain was trodden under foot, the air resounded with shouts of triumph, with yells of fury, and with the groans of dying men. Amidst the flying squadrons, King Roderick beheld a crowned warrior, whose back was turned toward him, but whose armor and device were his own, and who was mounted on a white steed that resembled his own war horse Orelia. In the confusion of the flight, the warrior was dismounted, and was no longer to be seen, and Orelia galloped wildly through the field of battle without a rider.

Roderick stayed to see no more, but rushed from the fatal hall, followed by his terrified attendants. They fled through the outer chamber, where the gigantic figure with the whirling mace had disappeared from his pedestal; and on issuing into the open air, they found the two ancient guardians of the tower lying dead at the portal, as though they had been crushed by some mighty blow. All nature, which had been clear and serene, was now in wild uproar. The heavens were darkened by heavy clouds; loud bursts of thunder rent the air, and the earth was deluged with rain and rattling hail.

The king ordered that the iron portal should be closed; but the door was immoveable, and the cavaliers were dismayed by the tremendous turmoil, and the mingled shouts and groans that continued to prevail within. The king and his train hastened back to Toledo, pursued and pelted by the tempest. The mountains shook and echoed with the thunder, trees were uprooted and blown down, and the Tagus raged and roared and flowed above its banks. It seemed to the affrighted courtiers as if the phantom legions of the tower had issued forth and mingled with the storm; for amidst the claps of thunder and the howling of the wind, they fancied they heard the sound of the drums and trumpets, the shouts of armies and the rush of steeds. Thus beaten by tempest, and overwhelmed with horror, the king and his courtiers arrived at Toledo, clattering across the bridge of the Tagus, and entering the gate in headlong confusion, as though they had been pursued by an enemy.

In the morning the heavens were again serene, and all nature was restored to tranquillity. The king, therefore, issued forth with his cavaliers and took the road to the tower, followed by a great multitude, for he was anxious once more to close the iron door, and shut up those evils that threatened to overwhelm the land. But lo! on coming in sight of the tower, a new wonder met their eyes. An eagle appeared high in the air, seeming to descend from heaven. He bore in his beak a burning brand, and lighting on the summit of the tower, fanned 275the fire with his wings. In a little while the edifice burst forth into a blaze as though it had been built of rosin, and the flames mounted into the air with a brilliancy more dazzling than the sun; nor did they cease until every stone was consumed and the whole was reduced to a heap of ashes. Then there came a vast flight of birds, small of size and sable of hue, darkening the sky like a cloud; and they descended and wheeled in circles round the ashes, causing so great a wind with their wings that the whole was borne up into the air and scattered throughout all Spain, and wherever a particle of those ashes fell it was as a stain of blood. It is furthermore recorded by ancient men and writers of former days, that all those on whom this dust fell were afterwards slain in battle, when the country was conquered by the Arabs, and that the destruction of this necromantic tower was a sign and token of the approaching perdition of Spain.

‘Let all those,’ concludes the cautious friar, ‘who question the verity of this most marvellous occurrence, consult those admirable sources of our history, the chronicle of the Moor Rasis, and the work entitled ‘The Fall of Spain,’ written by the Moor, Abulcasim Tarif Abentarique. Let them consult, moreover, the venerable historian Bleda, and the cloud of other Catholic Spanish writers, who have treated of this event, and they will find I have related nothing that has not been printed and published under the inspection and sanction of our holy mother church. God alone knoweth the truth of these things; I speak nothing but what has been handed down to me from times of old.’

ANACREONTIC.

St. Paul’s College. G. H. H.

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