nl 8 8 Q - M-^J ^ ECHOES OF THE /ESTHETIC SOCIETY OF JERSEY CITY & NOS. 51 & 53 MAIDEN LANE MDCCCLXXXII. To our esteemed President, MRS. ERMINNIE A. SMITH, this volume is lovingly and respectfully dedicated, by the Daughters of the Aesthetic Society." CELIE GAINES, ADDIE HELME, . ALICE HAMBLIN, MARY JEWETT, EMILIE GROESBECK, FLORENCE NEWTON, ANNIE HORNIG, LOUIE HORNIG, LIZZIE R. BURST, IMOGENS KENZEL, GEORGIE WELCH, CLARE BUNCE. &&G6573 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PA9E. Dedication, .......... v Introduction, .......... ix Preface, xiii New- Year Greeting 1879, ........ i " Croaker and Co.," ........ 4 Jamie, ........... 21 Through a Window, ........ 23 Rip Van Winkle, . . . . . . . .25 Gems, ........... 34 The Last Ride, 57 Tis Better Not to Know, ....... 63 Love s Belief, . . . . . . . . . .65 Miss Preciosa s Principles, ....... 67 Budge s Story of the Flood, 80 New-Year Greeting 1880, ...... 82 To a Lizard in Amber, . ....... 86 Rest and Leisure, 89 Kitty of Coleraine, . . . . . . 102 Como, ...... 103 From Dusk to Dawn, IO 8 Mrs. Lofty and I, ......... 109 Children, . . . . .. . . . IZI In School-days, ..... 116 The Fading Rosebud, . . . . . . .119 A Royal Princess, ......... 123 The Cows are in the Corn, .... ... 129 viii Table of Contents. The Fish-ball, ... , T 3i Foe s House at Fordham, A Rhyme of the Rain, T 45 Old Huldah, J 5 2 Maid of Athens, ..... J 57 Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette, . I5 8 The Irishman s Panorama, l66 For Cupid Dead, .... .169 New-Year Greeting 1881, . . . . H 1 Myths of the Iroquois, ..... I 7^ ) A Jawful Story, ..... 1Q3 Lorraine, . ..... IQ7 Lines to Mrs. Smith, . . . IQ9 Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch, Science and Religion, .....- 206 Lines on a Boquet, . . . 2I 7 Blown Away, . . . . . 2I 9 Punchinello, ........ 230 A Fragment from "La Dame Aux Came lias," 232 Bedouin Love-Song, ...... 2 33 The Petrified Fern, 2 34 She is Dead, . . . .^ 236 Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep, 239 A Story in Verse, 2 4O A Royal Greeting, 2 45 Paul on the Hill-side, 248 We Lay Us Down to Sleep 250 Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye, 252 To Meet Again 2 54 INTRODUCTION. JN the spring of the year 1876, a number of young ladies met by invitation of Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, at her residence, No. 203 Pacific Avenue, Jersey City, to organize a society for mutual improvement. Mrs. Smith was chosen President, and Miss Clara Frasse Secretary. The object of the organization being the cultivation and education of a taste for the beautiful in literature, science, and art, it was decided to adopt the name of " The ^Esthetic Society." As a guide in their studies the President advised the use of White s Eighteen Christian Centuries^ whicli was chosen as a text-book, and the topics for essays and dis cussion were taken up in chronological order. Beginning with the twelve Caesars, the first lesson was Introduction. a study of Julius Caesar. Suetonius and other authorities were consulted, and Shakspeare s play was read aloud, the different characters being allotted to certain members. After this the meetings were held every Saturday, and the conspicuous personages and events in each succeeding century down to the present epoch, were taken up conse cutively as the subjects of essays or discussion, after which the entire course was reviewed. The membership gradually increased, and the reunions were made still more enjoyable by the introduction of music and recitations. At the expiration of two years the Association had grown so large as to necessitate more extended accom modations, and persons interested in its progress were invited to attend the meetings on one Saturday of each month, and to participate in its advantages. Programmes were printed, and, at the request of the President, distinguished artists and literati willingly con sented to add their contributions. The success of the organization, as well as its origin, is Introduction. XI due to the ability and energy of its efficient President ; and it is to her efforts that we who have enjoyed and profited by its privileges, are indebted for its existence. The contents of the volume, which is now presented to the friends of the Society, as a souvenir of the past five years of its existence, will, we trust, though robbed of their original brilliant setting of wit and repartee, receive a cordial welcome, as meriting to be "Twice Told Tales." CELIE GAINES. PREFACE. HIS volume is offered to the members and friends of the ^Esthetic Society of Jersey City, as a souvenir of the many interesting meetings which have been held under its auspices. It embraces many con tributions not written for publication, but which were read on different occasions, and therefore deserve a place on these pages ; and some others which, although familiar to us in books that are known in every home, may still be welcomed here, because of the pleasant memories with which they are associated, in connection with the Society. In the attempt to gather into this volume such selections as would best represent the ability and culture of those who have taken part in the meetings, unforeseen difficulties have been met : some of the writers have not preserved their manuscripts ; many of the addresses and debates have been extempore, and those who regularly attend the monthly receptions given by Mrs. Smith, will doubtless regret the omission of some of the best literary contributions, which, for various causes, have been necessarily left out. We need offer no apology for the many complimentary, xiv Preface. personal allusions to the President of the Society, which are scattered through the book ; for it is to her energy and generosity that the brilliant success, and even the existence, of the Society is due. Among the distinguished persons who have taken part in the meetings of the Society may be mentioned the following : Dr. J. S. Newberry, of Columbia College ; Major Powell, Director of the United States Geological Survey ; Dr. B. F. Martin, of New-York University ; ex- Vice-President Colfax ; Prof. D. S. Martin, of Rutger s College ; Prof. Sauveur, of the School of Languages ; Prof. Thomas Egleston, of the School of Mines ; ex-Governor Fuller ; the Rev. Charles Suydam ; the Rev. Edwin Burr ; Prof. McCloskie, of Princeton ; Principal Barton, of Jersey City ; Major Pangburn ; Mr. Romyn Hitchcock ; Mr. John Baker (W. S ky) ; Mr. Winfred Martin ; Dr. Fuller Walker ; Miss Selma Borg ; Mrs. Prof. Morse ; Mrs. Eliza beth Churchill ; Prof. Kroeh ; Mr. Weidemier ; Judge Roosevelt ; Mr. Montague Marks ; Mr. Frederick Vors ; Mrs. Caroline Brooks, and Miss Julia Burnett. Among the artists who have favored the Society with musical selections, the names of several, who are not men tioned elsewhere in the book, will be recalled with pleasure by a^l who have listened to them. Miss Ida Leoni Bush, during two seasons, played selections from many of the Preface. xv classic composers ; among others, may be mentioned Messrs. Mollenhauer, Mills. Franklin, Korthauer, Salinger, and Misses Sloman, Gltick, Jewett, Read, Simonson, Hornig, Trimble, and the Misses Parker. The first exhibition of the phonograph, in Jersey City, was given by Mr. W. A. Croffut, before the Society, and Dr. Peet, of the Institution for Deaf-mutes, illustrated the uses of the audophone, with the aid of a class of pupils in his care. Many of the illustrations in the book, including the frontispiece, have been drawn and engraved by one of the active members, Mr. B. B. Chamberlin. They represent articles familiar to visitors at Mrs. Smith s residence, some of which were presented to her by the Society. The por trait of Mrs. Smith is an artotype-print, taken from a bas- relief by the celebrated sculptor, Mr. W. R. O Donovan, of New- York City. We send our " Echoes " forth, not wholly unconscious of their short-comings and defects, but trusting that all our hopes and wishes concerning them may be fulfilled, and reechoed by the friends and members of the Esthetic in such a way as to redound to the usefulness and advancement of the Society. LIZZIE R. BURST. Autographs. Autographs. Autographs. Autog?-aphs. NEW YEAR GREETING W. A. CROFFUT. NEW YEAR hail and greeting to /Esthetic ! A right-down, earnest hail and friendly greeting ! As the old year is silently retreating, Its blind eyes shut, its pulses scarcely beating, May this "preliminary monthly meeting," As Quakers call it, prove to be prophetic Of humorous recitals, songs pathetic, And speeches analytic and synthetic, To keep alive the spirit of /Esthetic. A new year hail and greeting to /Esthetic ! I speak but as a guest, whose little leisure, Finds here such entertainment, rest and pleasure, Flavorous and fine, in overwhelming measure, As e en a cynic might esteem a treasure, -CROAKER AND CO." WM. RANKIN DURYEE, D.D. |UST fifty-nine years ago, in the columns of the New- York Evening Post, appeared a few verses, bright and sparkling with allusions to the prominent persons and questions of the day. New-York then held a homogeneous American population. It was com paratively a small city, hardly reaching to Canal Street, with its closely built houses. The Battery was bordered by the homes of wealthy families, and formed the meeting- place for loungers and promenaders. On the City Hall Park, Tammany Hall, now the Sun building, sent forth on election days its " Bucktails," as the political opponents of Gov. De Witt Clinton were termed, from their practice of wearing a deer s tail on the cap. On Broadway, opposite to where Stewart s wholesale store now stands, Scudder s Museum, the predecessor of Barnum s, gave notice of its attractions by a melancholy band in the balcony. And, since New-York was small and yet advancing, it was marked with a social and political life which was far more concen trated than the city life of to-day. Politicians came near one another and dealt in personalities with a bitterness to which our Congressional squabbles seem tame, and then Croaker and Co. maintained their opinions over at Weehavvken by shooting one another. In society there was just the same folly as now is displayed, and the satirist could find his theme at every party and ball. The writer of that time thus had a great advantage. If his prose or poetry were good, everybody quoted it and he became at once a celebrity. And so when Mr. William Coleman, the scholarly editor of the Evening Post, drew attention to the lines to which we have referred, and pronounced them the " production of genius and taste ; " they were read and applauded through the whole city. We read them with different feelings, for their allusions belong to a misty past. W T e have forgotten Tammany s great Sachem, John Targee, in the contemplation of the later glories of Tweed and Kelly. General Jackson s popularity after the Florida campaign, and De Witt Clinton s struggle for an Erie Canal, no longer interest us. Yet we must still eel there is a glow in the ashes we hear still the faint chime of the bells which then pealed so loudly. Here are three of the five verses, which were signed " Croaker," and entitled : To ENNUI. " Avaunt, arch enemy of fun, Grim nightmare of the mind ! Which way, great Momus, shall I run, A refuge safe to find ? Croaker and Co. My puppy s dead ; Miss Rumor s breath Is stopt for lack of news, And Fitz is almost hyp ed to death, And Lang has got the blues. " I m sick of General Jackson s toast, Canals are naught to me, Nor do I care who rules the roast, Clinton or John Targee : No stock in any bank I own, I fear no lottery shark, And if the Battery were gone, I d ramble in the park. " In vain ! for like a cruel cat That sucks a child to death, Or like a Madagascar bat Who poisons with his breath ; The fiend, the fiend is on me still ; Come, Doctor, here s your pay, What lotion, potion, plaster, pill, Will drive the beast away ? " The next day other verses followed, " On Presenting the Freedom of the City to a Great General," the allusion, of course, being to Jackson. These began : Croaker and Co. " The Board is met the names are read ; Elate of heart, the glad Committee Declare the mighty man has said, He ll take the freedom of the city. He thanks the Council and the Mayor, Presents them all his humble service, And thinks he s time enough to spare To sit an hour or two with Jervis." These verses were also signed " Croaker." Soon others followed over the nom de plume of " Croaker, Jr." In every literary and political circle of the city every one was asking who wrote them ? Even Coleman was ignorant and inserted a paragraph in his paper requesting an introduction to the author. Just after the request, two young gentlemen, of about twenty-four years of age, came to Coleman s house in the evening and desired a private interview. The door was locked ; and then one of the visitors said to the veteran editor, "I am Croaker, and this, sir, is Croaker, Jr." They were overwhelmed by the editor s compliments. They told him that spending a morning with Dr. William Langstaff, an eccentric apothecary of the day, they had amused them selves with writing burlesque rhymes on passing topics, and then had decided to send them to the Post. Mr. Coleman instantly claimed for his paper all they could produce, Croaker and Co. promising to maintain the greatest secrecy as to authorship. Imitations were already pouring upon him, and he wanted only originals. So matters were arranged, and for the next three months the series kept on until, in July, 1819, the strains ceased almost as abruptly as they had begun, with the lines on "A Curtain Conversation." The names of the writers began to be whispered around. One was a young physician, Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake. The other was a banker s clerk, called Fit/ Greene Halleck. Their names are to-day linked together in the literary firmament ; and as long as New- York City has a pride in her history, the two will shine side by side. The intimacy between Drake and Halleck is said to have begun in a romantic way. In the year 1815 there was a slight acquaintance. In that year Drake, with Dr. De Kay, his brother-in-law, had been surprised by a shower while walking on the Battery. Seeking a refuge, the two were thrown into Halleck s company. As the shower ended and a rainbow came out, Halleck whimsically remarked that it would be heaven for him just then u to ride on that rainbow and read Tom Campbell." The idea touched Drake s fancy. From that moment the two were fast friends. The plan of writing satirical and humorous verses on New- York City life was one for which both had special adaptation, connected as they were with the best circles, and keenly alive to all the Croaker and Co. " sensations " of the hour. The iwm de plume of " Croaker," which was varied sometimes to " Croaker, Jr." and " Croaker and Co.," was taken from one of Goldsmith s amusing char acters in the play of "The Good-natured Man." That two persons were engaged was disclosed to the public in four verses addressed to "Croaker, Jr." when the series was well under way. We quote the first and last stanzas: u Your hand my dear Junior ! we re all in a flame To see a few more of your flashes ; The Croakers forever ! I m proud of the name : Rut, brother, I fear though our cause is the same We shall quarrel, like Brutus and Cassius. " Fun ! prosper the union ; smile, fate, on its birth ; Miss Atropos shut up your scissors, Together we ll range through the regions of mirth, A pair of bright gemini dropped on the earth, The Castor and Pollux of quizzers ! " Not only were the two equal to writing easily in all styles of metre, but the gossip of the city gave them con stant themes. And so the Post kept on printing the bright and witty poems filled with personal allusions, till one of the editors could write, " every person was on tenter-hooks ; io Croaker and Co. neither knavery nor folly has slept quietly since our com mencement." The secret of authorship was held for some months, and only after the midsummer of 1819, when the series ended, did the public learn to whom it must attribute its pleasure or its pain. In all there were about fifty sepa rate poems. And though as merely clever vers de socttti they now mainly excite the antiquarian s interest ; yet one poem has become immortal. It was written by Drake ; but its last four lines, as a magnificent climax, were added by Halleck. It is the ode to the American flag, beginning : " When freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there." Who does not know the ending ? " Forever float that standard-sheet ; Where breathes the foe but falls before us ? With freedom s soil beneath our feet, And freedom s banner waving o er us." As long as the Union stands, that poetic tribute of praise to the symbol of our nationality will thrill the hearts of those to whom our undivided land is dear. When the " Croakers " had left the field, Drake s health Croaker and Co. n was very delicate. Consumption had already marked its victim. But his genius gave to his country one more note worthy poem before he passed away. At West Point, in the Summer of 1819, Drake and Dr. De Kay were talking on poetry with Halleck and Fenimore Cooper. Speaking of the success of Sir Walter Scott, Halleck and Cooper contended that the streams of Scotland were far better adapted to poetic purpose, by their romantic and historical associations, than the rivers of our new world. It was also asserted that a poem with purely imaginative characters was an impossi bility ; that humanity, with its known passions and needs, must somehow enter into every story. Drake took the opposite view, and two days afterwards read to his friends the "Culprit Fay." It is a fairy story with its scenes in the Hudson River Highlands ; although as Drake noted on a manuscript copy, " the reader will find some of the inhabi tants of the salt water a" little further up the Hudson than they usually travel, but not too far for the purposes of poetry. No one who has ever read this exquisite poem but feels that its author was among the gifted few to whom the highest power of expression belongs. It was, alas ! his last earthly work. In one year, at the age of twenty-five, Joseph Rod man Drake was buried in Westchester County, and on the simple grave his friend laid the tribute, the opening lines of which have become household words : 12 Croaker and Co. " Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ; None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee but to praise." Fitz Greene Halleck survived his friend for forty-six years. They both belong to a fading past. The echoes of their songs have not, however, ceased, nor can they cease for years to come. In times when American authors were scarcely recognized, when Irving, and Paulding, and Cooper had only begun their career, when Bryant and Longfellow had but penned their youthful poems, Drake and Halleck won public attention to the fact that in our land some could woo the Muse as successfully as Byron, and Moore, and Campbell on the other side of the Atlantic. No one would pretend to claim for them the highest rank, but it can be safely asserted that they had poetic fervor and skill equal to companion singers, and that they wrote sufficient to adorn and render famous the land which gave them birth. It remains for us to briefly criticise the literary work of the longest-lived of the famous firm of " Croaker and Co." In the year 1821, Halleck published his longest poem, entitled " Fanny," which was marked by the general style and the personal allusions of the series in which he and Drake had been associated. Mingled with the satirical hits Croaker and Co. at the political and social follies of New- York are bits of fine description and humorous parodies of popular songs, which have been often quoted. One of the best of the latter is the imitation of Moore s song in " Lalla Rookh," known as the " Bower of Bendemeer." The parody begins : l< There s a barrel of porter at Tammany Hall, And the bucktails are swigging it all the night long. In the time of my boyhood twas pleasant to call For a seat and cigar mid the jovial throng." As marking the descriptive power of the poet, the lines on Weehawken are deservedly the most famous. They begin: " Weehawken ! In thy mountain scenery yet, All we adore of Nature in her wild And frolic hour of infancy is met." And then, as he describes the clamberer of the cliff ; reaching the verge of the height, the poet writes : " In such an hour he turns, and on his view Ocean and earth and heaven burst before him ; Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue Of summer s sky in beauty bending o er him ; The city bright below ; and far away, Sparkling in golden light, his own romantic bay. 14 Croaker and Co. " Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement, And banners floating in the sunny air, And white sails o er the calm blue waters bent, Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there In wild reality. When life is old, And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold " Its memory of this ; nor lives there one Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood s days Of happiness were passed beneath that sun, That in his manhood s prime can calmly gaze Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand, Nor feel the prouder of his native land." After the publication of " Fanny " and a companion poem called the "Recorder," Halleck s verses were eagerly sought for by the various periodicals of the day. He wrote sparingly, however. At last, in the midst of a popular wave of sympathy for the patriotic struggles of the Greeks against the Turks, the splendid ode of " Marco Bozzaris " appeared in the North American Review. It ran like wildfire through our whole country, and its poetic vigor is still attested by the favor with which the uncorrupted taste of every school boy orator regards it. What boy-speaker but has pumped his right arm up and down three times to " strike " the Croaker and Co. 15 " unspeakable Turk " with Halleck s ringing cry, and then with a woeful face depicted the unfortunate Bozzaris in his remarkable effort of " bleeding at every vein." Jesting aside, it has always seemed to us that in " Marco Bozzaris " Halleck touches the summit of lyric power, and ranks with the very best of English writers. Worthy, however, to stand close to "Bozzaris," are the " Lines to Robert Burns," so marked by their melody and wonderful sympathy with the Ayrshire ploughman s charac ter and work. The younger sister of the Scotch bard gave it as her judgement, that " Nothing finer has been written about Robert than Mr. Halleck s poem." The lovers of Burns seem certainly to confirm the decision by their constant quotations from the lines during the past half century. With this poem may be grouped Halleck s " Alnwick Cas tle," "Red Jacket," and the unfinished sketches entitled "Connecticut" and "Wyoming." With these it seems that Halleck s genius exhausted itself. For the last thirty years of his life he wrote now and then at long intervals. There was seen the same easy rythm, and there sounded an echo of the ancient melody, but somehow the themes were trivial and the thoughts of little worth. Perhaps the poet in his personal life had grown weaker, as age and flattery com bined against him. Perhaps the rise of a new school of poetry had dimmed our poet s glory. Whatever the reason, 1 6 Croaker and Co. Halleck was compelled to live on his youthful reputation for nearly forty years. He died and was buried at Guildford, Connecticut, in 1867. As we know, there were friends and admirers enough to secure a lasting memorial of him in the Central Park, a memorial, it is to be feared, which "Croaker and Co." would have ridiculed unmercifully in the style of its art, had it ever come before their youthful gaze. In Halleck s best work there is an exquisite versifica tion and a general lyric power which cannot be resisted. In most of his poems there is also a blending of humor with sentiment, which he probably caught from his favorites, Byron and Moore. It differs from theirs, however, in always being healthy and pure. As such, its admission in descriptive poetry is to be defended, as it lights up the land scape, or puts a bright side on a serious theme. To some critics it may seem an element of weakness, but we often wish Wordsworth himself could have smiled. The contrast between the ages of romance and reality could never have been better painted than in u Alnwick Castle," where, after describing " the lofty halls trod by the Percys of old fame," he writes of these prosaic years : " Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt, The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt, Croaker and Co. 17 The Douglas in red herrings ; And noble name and cultured land, Palace, and park, and vassal-band, Are powerless to the notes of hand Of Rothschild or of Barings." With these criticisms we close. As we have looked back through nearly two generations, may we not crown Drake and Halleck as the earliest poet-laureates of New- York City ? In the streets and houses of our great commer cial metropolis they first found fit themes for graceful and fervid verse, and by their very satire advanced their city s name. The " counterfeit presentments " of Fitz Greene Halleck in Central Park may seem at least to recall the golden day when the city had a character far different from that which is now stamped upon it, a day when its cultured and its intellectual life thought it no disgrace to be mingled with its political progress. There is one name in our own time, to which the years to come will grant yet higher honors than we have yielded to the " Croakers," one who by his prose and poetry has established his right to the same laure ate crown. I need hardly name Edmund C. Stedman. For him we send up the aspiration of Horace, " Serus in ccelum rede as. To end as we began, let us read one of the last Croaker and Co. Croaker poems which was first entitled " A Curtain Conversation," though afterwards included by Halleck in his own works, under another heading : " Beside the nuptial curtain bright The bard of Eden sings, Young love his constant lamp will light, And wave his purple wings. But rain-drops from the clouds of care May bid that lamp be dim, And the boy Love will pout and swear Tis then no place for him. " So mused the lovely Mrs. Dash, ( Tis wrong to mention names,) When for her surly husband s cash She urged in vain her claims, I want a little money, dear ; For Vandervoort and Flandin Their bill, which now has run a year, Tomorrow mean to hand in. " More ? cried the husband, half aslee;), You ll drive me to despair : The lady was too proud to weep, And too polite to swear. Croaker and Co. She bit her lip for very spite, He felt a storm was brewing, And dreamed of nothing else all night But brokers, banks, and ruin. " He thought her pretty once, but dreams Have sure a wondrous power, For to his eye the lady seems Quite altered since that hour ; And Love, who, on their bridal eve, Had promised long to stay, Forgot his promise, took French leave, And bore his lamp away." Had Halleck lived in our time, we doubt whether he would have written those last verses. Creditors seem to be the least trouble we have in cities or in Congress. If a profane hand may venture to show the " modern improve ments " which keep our lovely Mrs. Dashes in perfect ease, we would change to this : " More ? " cried the husband, "yes, my dear, The cash shall be at call : No odious bill shall cause a tear, I ll fail before you fall." 20 Croaker and Co. He spoke, and turned to gentle sleep Like child by breezes fanned, And smiling in his slumbers deep He looked like Mr. Bland. The morning came, the debt was paid, At ten per cent, twas scaled, While Beauty was again arrayed, And up Broadway she sailed ; And Love (not that you read about, All sacrifice and thrill, But modern Love) forgot to pout, And blessed the " silver-bill." JAMIE. AS SUNG BY MRS. CLEMENTINE LASAR STUDWELL. AMIE ! do you hear me calling in the gloaming, Calling to you laddie to come home ? Long and lone I m watching, and my heart is \von- Why upon the hill so late you roam. [d ring, Jamie ! Jamie ! Are you never coming To the little heart that s waiting sad at home ? Ah ! if he were never, never more to leave me, Never to come back to me again. Sure I m only-dreaming and I know he s coming, All the same the tears will fall like rain. Jamie ! Jamie ! Ah ! the fear is on me, And my heart is aching with dull pain. 22 Jamie. Jamie ! Echo ! Answer ! And it says he s coming coming down the hillside, Well I know his voice, my bonnie lad, Now I hear him singing to the cattle blithely And the little sheep-bells tinkling glad. Jamie ! Jamie ! Ah the joy is on me, And my heart is going just like mad. Jamie ! Welcome to you laddie, Welcome in the gloaming, And my heart is crying welcome, Jamie. THROUGH A WINDOW. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. (Read by the Author.) LIE here at rest in my chamber, And look through the window again, With eyes that are changed since the old time, And the sting of an exquisite pain. Tis not much that I see for a picture, Through boughs that are green with spring, A barn with its roof gray and mossy, And above it a bird on the wing ; Or, lifting my head a thought higher, Some hills and a village I know, And over it all the blue heaven, With a white cloud floating below. Ah ! once the roof was a prison, My mind and the sky were free, My thoughts with the birds went flying, And my hopes were a heaven to me. 24 Through a Window. Now I come from the limitless distance Where I followed my youth s wild will, Where they press the wine of delusion That you drink and are thirsty still ; And I know why the bird with the springtime To the gnarled old tree comes back, He has tried the south and the summer, He has felt what the sweet things lack. So I come with a sad contentment, With eyes that are changed I see : The roof means peace, not a prison, And heaven smiles down on me. RIP VAN WINKLE. PART I. HE following scene is taken from the first act of the celebrated play of "Rip Van Winkle," as recited by Mr. A. P. Burbank. The language is but slightly altered from the original. The characters introduced are :- RIP VAN WINKLE. DERRICK VON BEEKMAN, the villain of the play, who endeavors to get RIP drunk, in order to have him sign away his property to VON BEEKMAN. NICK VEDDER, the village inn-keeper. SCENE. The Village Inn. Present, VON BEEKMAN, alone. Enter RIP, shaking off the CHILDREN, who cling about him like flies to a lump of sugar. RIP (to the CHILDREN). Say ! hullo, dere, du Yacob Stein ! du kleine spitzboob. Let dat dog Schneider alone, 26 Rip Van Winkle. will you ? Dere, I tole you dat all de time, if you don d let him alone he s goin to bide you ! Why, hullo, Derrick ! how you was ? Ach, my ! Did you hear dem liddle fellers just now ? Dey most plague me crazy. Ha, ha, ha ! I like to laugh my outsides in every time I tink about it. Just now, as we was comin along togedder, Schneider and me I don d know if you know Schneider myself ? Well, he s my dog. Well, dem liddle fellers, dey took Schneider, und ha, ha, ha ! dey ha, ha ! dey tied a tin kettle mit his tail ! Ha, ha, ha ! My gracious ! of you had seen dat dog run ! My, how scared he was ! Veil, he was a-runnin an de kettle was a-bangin an ha, ha, ha ! you believe it, dat dog, he run right beturixt me an my legs ! Ha, ha, ha ! He spill me und all dem liddle fellers down in de mud togedder. Ha, ha, ha ! VON BEEKMAN. Ah, yes, that s all right Rip, very funny, very funny ; but what do you say to a glass of liquor, Rip? RIP. Well, now, Derrick, what do I generally say to a glass ? I generally say its a good ting, don d I ? Und I generally say a good deal more to what is in it, dan to de glass. VON B. Certainly, certainly. Say, hello, there ! Nick Vedder, bring out a bottle of your best ! RIP. Dat s right fill em up. You wouldn t believe it, Rip Van Winkle. 27 Derrick, but dat is de first one I have had to-day. I guess maybe de reason is, I couldn t got it before. Ah, Derrick, my score is too big ! Well, here is your good health und your family s may they live long and prosper. (They drink.} Ach ! you may well smack your lips, und go ah, ah ! over dat liquor. You don d give me such liquor like dat every day, Nick Vedder. Well, come on, fill em up again. Git out mit dat water, Nick Vedder, I don d want no water in my liquor. Good liquor and water, Derrick, is just like man und wife, dey don d agree well togedder dat s me und my wife, anyway. Well, come on again. Here is your good health und your family s, and may dey all live long und prosper ! NICK VEDDER. That s right, Rip ; drink away, and "drown your sorrows in the flowing bowl." RIP. Drown my sorrows ? Ya, dat s all very well, but she dond drown. My wife is my sorrow und you can t drown her ; she tried it once, but she couldn t do it. What, didn t you hear about dat, de day what Gretchen she liked to got drownded ? Ach, my ; dat s de funniest ting in de world. I ll tell you all about it. It was de same day what we got married. I bet you I don d forgot dat day so long what I live. You know dat Hudson River what dey git dem boats over well, dat s de same place. Well, you know dat boat what Gretchen she was a-goin to come over in, dat got 28 Rip Van Winkle. upsetted ya, just went righd by der boddom. Biit she wasrit in de boat. Oh, no ; if she had been in de boat, well, den, maybe she might have got drownded. You can t tell any- ting at all about a ting like dat ! VON B. Ah, no ; but I m sure, Rip, if Gretchen were to fall into the water now, you would risk your life to save her. RIP. Would I ? Well, I am not so sure about dat my self. When we was first got married ? Oh, ya ; I know I would have done it den, but I don d know how it would be now. But it would be a good deal more my duty now as it was den. Don d you know, Derrick, when a man gits mar ried a long time mit his wife, he gits a good deal attached mit her, und it would be a good deal more my duty now as it was den. But I don d know, Derrick, I am afraid if Gretchen should fall in de water und should say, " Rip, Rip ! help me oud " I should say, " Mrs. Van Winkle, I will just go home and tink about it." Oh, no, Derrick ; if Gretchen fall in de water now she s got to swim, I told you dat ha, ha, ha, ha ! Hullo ! dat s her a-comin now ; I guess it s better I go oud ! (Exit RIP. Rip Van Winkle. 29 PART II. Shortly after his conversation with Von Beekman, Rip s wife catches him carousing and dancing upon the village green with the pretty girls. She drives him away in no very gentle fashion, and he runs away from her only to go and get more drunk than before. Returning home after night fall in a decidedly muddled condition, he puts his head through the open window at the rear, not observing his irate wife, who stands in ambush behind the clothes-bars with her ever-ready broomstick, to give him a warm recep tion ; but seeing only his little daughter Meenie, of whom he is very fond, and who also loves him tenderly, RIP says : Meenie ! Meenie, my darlin ! MEENIE. Hush-sh-h. (S/iaki/ig her finger, to indicate the presence of her mother?) RIP. Eh ! what s de matter ? I don d see noting, my darlin . MEENIE. Sh-sh-sh ! , RIP. Eh ! what ? Say, Meenie, is de ole wild cat home ? (GRETCHEN catches him quickly by the hair?] Oh, oh ! say, is dat you, Gretchen ? Say, dere, my darlin , my 3 o Rip Van Winkle. angel, don d do dat. Let go my head, wond you ? Well, den, hold on to it so long what you like. (GRETCHEN releases him.) Dere, now, look at dat, see what you done you gone pull out a whole handful of hair. What you want to do a ting like dat for? You must want a bald-headed husband, don d you ? GRETCHEN. Who was that you called a wild cat ? RIP. Who was dat I call a wild cat ? Well, now, let me see, who was dat I call a wild cat? Dat must a been de same time I come in de winder dere, wasn t it ? Yes, I know, it was de same time. Well, now, let me see. (Sud denly.) It was de dog Schneider dat I call it. GRETCHEN. The dog Schneider ? That s a likely story. RIP. Why, of course it is a likely story ain t he my dog? Well, den, I call him a wild cat just so much what I like, so dere now. (GRETCHEN begins to weep.) Oh, well ; dere, now, don d you cry, don d you cry, Gretchen ; you hear what I said ? Lisden now. If you don d cry, I never drink anoder drop of liquor in my life. GRETCHEN (crying). Oh, Rip ! you have said so, so many, many times, and you never kept your word yet. RIP. Well, I say it dis time, and I mean it. GRETCHEN. Oh, Rip ! if I could only trust you. RIP. You mustn t suspect me. Can t you see repentance in my eye ? Rip Van Winkle. 31 GRETCHEN. Rip, if you will only keep your word, I shall be the happiest woman in the world. RIP. You can believe it. I nefer drink anoder drop so long what I live, if you don d cry. GRETCHEN. Oh, Rip, how happy \ve shall be ! And you ll get back all the village, Rip, just as you used to have it ; and you ll fix up our little house so nicely ; and you and 1^ and our darling little Meenie, here how happy we shall be ! RIP. Dere, dere, now ! you can be just so happy what you like. Go in de odder room, go along mit you ; I come in dere pooty quick. (Exit GRETCHEN and MEENIE.) My ! I swore off fon drinkin so many, many times, and I never kep my word yet. ( Taking out bottled] I don d believe dere is more as one good drink in dat bottle, anyway. It s a pity to waste it ? You goin to drink dat ? Well, now, if you do, it is de last one, remember dat, old feller. Well, here is your goot held, und (Enter GRETCHEN, suddenly, who snatches the bottle from him.) GRETCHEN. Oh, you brute ! you paltry thief ? RIP. Hofd on dere, my dear, you will spill de liquor. GRETCHEN. Yes, I will spill it, you drunken scoundrel ! ( Throwing away the bottle. That s the last drop you ever drink under this roof.) 32 Rip Van Winkle. RIP (slowly, after a moment s silence, as if stunned by her severity]. Eh ! what ? GRETCHEN. Out, I say ! you drink no more here. RIP. What ? Gretchen, are you goin to drive me away ? GRETCHEN. Yes ! Acre by acre, foot by foot, you have sold everything that ever belonged to you for liquor. Thank Heaven this house is mine, and you can t sell it. RIP (rapidly sobering, as he begins to realize the gravity of the situation}. Yours ? yours ? Ya, you are right it is yours ; I have got no home. (In broken tones, almost sobbing.) But where will I go ? GRETCHEN. Anywhere ! out into the storm, to the mountains. There s the door never let your face darken it again. RIP. What, Gretchen ! are you goin to drive me away like a dog on a night like dis ? GRETCHEN. Yes ; out with you ! You have no longer a share in me or mine. (Breaking down with the intensity of her passion^} RIP (very slowly and quietly, but with great intensity). Well, den, I will go ; you have drive me away like a dog, Gretchen, and I will go. But remember, Gretchen, after what you have told me here to-night, I can never come back. You have open de door for me to go ; you will never open it for me to return. But, Gretchen, you tell me dat I have Rip Van Winkle. 33 no longer a share here. (Points at the child, who kneels cry ing at his feet.) Good-by (with much emotion}, my darlin . God bless you ! Don d you nefer forgit your fader. Gretchen (with a great sob\ I wipe de disgrace from your door. Good- by, good-by ! (Exit RIP into the storm. STATE CROWN OF ENGLAND. GEMS. ERMINNIE A. SMITH. JOLYGONAL as many of the gems of which it treats, it would seem impossible that from some one of its many sides, this subject should fail to interest the most indifferent person, who will but lend it the slight est attention. Those who are only interested in gems as adornments, or as aids to beauty, will often find it useful to be able to judge correctly of the value of their jewels, the man ner of cutting them, and the most artistic mode of adapting them to their beauty ; to such it might also be interesting to know that the belles of ancient Egypt, forty centuries ago, were as fond of gems as are the fashionable women of to-day. The jewels found in ancient sarcophagi testify that the Gems. 35 fair ones of those remote days adorned their brows with dia dems, and their throats with necklaces of pearl, while they wore bracelets, garters and anklets set with amber ; and even the fingers of the men were laden with rings. But these beautiful productions of nature are not only favorites with the luxurious children of wealth and fashion, they have been studied with passionate devotion by men whose valuable discoveries in the domain of science have made their names beacons in the paths of learning. The so-called "phenomenal gems," which act upon the light in a peculiar manner, producing such striking effects as are familiar to us in the cat s-eye, the star-sapphire, star- ruby, tourmaline, moon-stone, and in that very rare gem Alexandrite, are, in some respects, the most interesting, and, at the present time, the most costly and fashionable. The commercial aspect of this subject is startling. The ancient Phoenicians, almost the founders of commerce, were constantly in search of lands producing the coveted treasures of earth. Certain it is that the cold, bleak countries of northern Europe would have had but little charm for the southern peoples were it not for the quantities of amber which transformed them into a paradise. There are also distinct records of extensive commerce in precious stones during the times of David and Solomon. In David s charge to Solomon we find these words : " Now I have prepared 36 Gems. with all my might for the house of my God, the gold for things to be made of gold ; onyx stones and stones to be set, glistening stones and of divers colors, all manners of precious stones and marbles in abundance." Later, we find Caesar s first invasion of Great Britain, so fruitful in different results, to have been in search of rose-pearls, the fame of which had reached the shores of Italy. After the discovery of America, the Spaniards who landed on terra firma, found the savages decked with necklaces and bracelets of pearl, and lost no time in discovering where they were found ; cities soon rose in splendor and affluence where the pearl- oyster grew, entirely supported by the profits of those sea born gems. When, from the indiscriminate destruction of the shells, the banks became exhausted, those fair cities sunk into insignificance and not a vestige of them now remains. The same story might be told of many an ancient mart. Why does the word golconda seem to glitter and sparkle, if not that it is but a synonyme of the diamond ? This is but a glance at the commercial side of the subject, but later we may perceive its artistic, archaeological, historical, poetic and religious aspects. Pliny says that in gems we have all the majesty of na ture gathered into a small compass, and that in no other of her works has she produced anything so admirable. " The exhibition of a collection of precious stones," says Madame Gems. 37 Barrera, " always proves a great attraction, and those who bestow upon them the attention to which their rarity and beauty entitle them, will be gradually led to acquire some knowledge of their geography, physics, chemistry and crys tallography, and of the countries whence commerce brings these fair productions." In contrast with the homely maxim of Poor Richard, " Economy is wealth," we have the aphorism of the great French statesman Thiers, Le luxe est I un des signes de la civilisation; while admitting that the private individual, who lives in a style beyond his means, robs not only his family but society, he assumes, on the other hand, that those possessing the means, but who, through sordid economy, refuse to surround their homes with objects to ele vate the soul above the common-place level of life, not only rob their families of these refining influences, but are guilty of a crime toward the intelligent artisan whose success con stitutes the prosperity of the country. And may not this be true in a broader sense, when those of princely fortunes fail to contribute to our national museums ? It has been truly re marked that when leaders of society can purchase diamonds the poorer classes can buy bread, but when the former can only buy bread, then must the latter die of hunger. It has been written, " man cannot live by bread alone," and Babinet adds," he lives by all that the Creator has implanted in his soul. Looking backward, into the dim pre-historic past, we 38 Gems. find the amber bead, the roughly hewn jade war-club, the many colored jasper arrow-head, the bit of shining mica, all telling the unwritten story of the inborn, instinctive love for the beautiful of earth. Trace the history of the most ancient of all treasures, precious stones, down to the present day, and we follow also the history of civilization. Since Prome theus inserted into one of the links of his iron chain a gem from the Caucasian rock to which he was bound, thus form ing the first ring as a symbol of his freedom, poor humanity has continued, as priest or dignitary, sovereign or subject, striving to possess the rarest and most precious stones to in dicate rank, command homage, enhance personal charms or indicate a triumph. The great Haiiy terms crystals the " flowers of miner alogy ; " gems, then, are the rare exotics of the vast mineral- garden. Humboldt, from Chimborazo s height, uttered the sentiment so beautifully poetized by Mrs. Browning : " On the mountain is freedom, the breath of decay Never sullies the soft summer air ; Oh ! nature is perfect wherever we stray, Tis man that deforms it with care." However true this may be regarding the grand and picturesque in nature, and even in her more circumscribed realms, as manifest in the wonderful forces which direct Gems. 39 the crystallization of every mineral, causing each to as sume its own distinct form in whatever part of the world it may be found, still, among the aristocracy of minerals, the " rare exotics," the pruning knife of the lapidary must cut the facets before the serene, celestial soul can be revealed, or the haughty, regal gleam of their lustrous beauty can charm our eyes. Precious stones are not, as is generally believed, different in composition from common stones, but nature has her secret in the arrangement of the molecules. The dia mond is only a little coal, but crystallized coal. The basis of the ruby, topaz and sapphire is aluminum oxide, the prin cipal constituent of ordinary potter s clay, but in these minerals it is crystallized; so in all the varieties of quartz, they are all one with the ordinary cobble stone, only differing by their crystallization and coloring matter. Quartz, in its more common forms, composes nearly half of the rocks, and has been termed the " back bone " of the earth s crust ; but when crys tallized, pure and pellucid, it is the beautiful rock-crystal ; when colored by oxide of manganese, the amethyst; when im pregnated by the same, in floral-like forms, it is the moss-agate. Again, when colored by the oxide of iron, " the great colorist of nature," it is the jasper, sard or carnelian ; by the silicate of iron, green jasper; when colored by nickel it is thechrysoprase. When silica in solution is deposited in cavities of rocks, agates or onyx are formed, whose layers or stripes take their 40 Gems. color from the rocks through which the silica has passed, and, when the cavity is only partially filled, we have geodes. The emerald and aqua-marine, only differ in the amount of coloring matter. In all this it would seem that the mighty creative power had chosen to manifest its omnipotence by producing the most valuable substances from the most com mon elements. It has long been the feeling among cultured Americans, whose tastes have been educated and minds enriched by travel in foreign lands, that we, as a nation, are far behind other countries, both in the knowledge of, and apparent in terest in, the very comprehensive subject of gems. The explanation is not difficult. When the intelligent English man visits his metropolis, he naturally directs his steps toward that " eternity of wonders," the British Museum. There, gathered from the four corners of the earth, are the marvellous and beautiful of nature, antiquity and art. He finds the mineral kingdom represented in its varied, natural crystals, and exquisite gems engraved by masters unrivalled in the glyptic art. In the Kensington Museum is the beau tiful collection of the Duke of Devonshire, in that perfect- ness which only wealth, taste, opportunity and leisure could have given it ; he visits the Tower, endeared by its many historic associations, and, in the " Regalia," his heart swelling with national pride, he beholds diamonds which Gems. 41 appear to throb with a living radiance, rubies and emeralds which seem to dissolve in a liquid light. So with each European nation. Who that enters the green vault at Dres den can ever forget the treasures there displayed to the en chanted gaze ? The international celebration of our centennial year was not without great educational results in this direction, and the crowds ever surrounding the precious stones of the Rus sian department, the wonderful Austrian opals, Mexican onyx, and the engraved gems in the department of " Starr & Mar cus " evidenced the taste which only needs directing. While on the threshold of this our second century, may not the American heart beat with pride and hope when aware of the treasures our own metropolis is accumulating? The Metro politan Museum abounds in specimens of ancient art, which disclose to the reflective mind the tastes of forty centuries ago, and the late accession of the exquisite collection of antique gems, the life-garnerings of Mr. King, of London, to the same museum, have transformed it, educationally, into a rival of many a foreign museum. In our historical rooms also can be studied many inter esting gems of antiquity, while at the School of Mines of Co lumbia College, can be seen nearly all the known minerals in their perfect natural crystals, their arrangement so simplified that even the unscientific can understand and enjoy them. 42 Gems. The recent clos erelationship effected between the United States and China, by means of our great Pacific railroads, has brought into this country many beautifully carved speci mens of the heretofore almost unseen and unknown sub stance jade, which, although mostly confined to private collections, are often exposed at our loan exhibitions ; archae ological specimens, however, in the form of celts and tikis, can be seen at the American Museum of Natural History. Add to these facts the extreme politeness manifested in the palatial establishment of Tiffany & Co., whose " light of the sun " outweighs the Kohinoor by more than nineteen carats, and where can Americans of to-day find an excuse for ignorance ? Gems formed the chief item in the paraphernalia of Eastern imagery. Infinite and very beautiful are the meta phors in which the oriental poets have used them. In the Talmud it is said that Noah used no other light than that furnished by precious stones. A Rabbinical story tells us that on approaching Egypt, Abraham locked Sarah in a chest, that none might behold her dangerous beauty. But when he was come to the place of paying custom, the collectors said, " Pay us the custom," and he said, "I will pay the custom." They said to him, " Thou earnest clothes," and he said to them, " I will pay for clothes." Then they said to him, "Thou earnest gold," and he answered, " I will pay for gold ; " on this they Gems. 43 said to him, "Surely thou earnest the finest of silk;" he replied, " I will pay custom for silk." Then said they unto him, "Surely it must be pearls that thou takest with thee," and he answered, " I will pay for pearls." Seeing they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not will ing to pay custom, they said, " It cannot be but that thou open the box and let us see what is within." So they opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was illumined by the lustre of Sarah s beauty, far exceeding that of pearls. Modern poets have also revelled in the imagery of gems. Our immortal Shakspeare puts into the mouth of his charm ing Ariel, these almost prophetic words : " Full fathom five thy father lies ; Of his bones are coral made ; Those are pearls, that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change, Into something rich and strange." Thus anticipating science by three hundred years, for it is only lately that a learned chemist has advanced the theory that the coloring of the emerald is decayed organic matter. 44 Gems. Again, we hear Clarence relating his dream : " Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon ; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men s skulls ; and in those holes, Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by." Miss Proctor s sailor boy, describing his mother s visit, says : " Arrayed for some great feast she came, With stones that shone and burnt like flame Wound round her neck, like some fair snake, And set like stars within her hair, They sparkled so, they seemed to make A glory everywhere." But Moore s oft-quoted line, " Rich and rare were the gems she wore," never had a closer application than to the match less parure worn by the lady of the English ambassador at Gems. 45 the coronation of one of the late Russian Emperors, at Mos cow. King describes the parure as being composed of a choice selection from the antique collection of the Duke of Devonshire, and while others were vieing in the splendor of their jewels, in which the noble families of Russia are very rich, none attracted so much attention as the Countess of Granville, whose was the triumph of art over material wealth. Others displayed a blaze of diamonds, but it was for the English lady to assert a higher splendor, for if their jewels were costly hers were positively priceless. The taste for gems, as we have seen, dates back to the most remote ages. In ancient Egypt many jewels were cut into the form of scarabei, or sacred beetles, of which we have numerous specimens in our own museums, taken from mum my pits. The ancient monarchs, with their fondness for display, decorated their horses trappings, their persons and thrones with gems, even before they knew how to cut them, and attributed magical properties to them. A particular stone was thought to be sacred to each month, and the twelve were called the "zodiac stones;" certain ones were supposed to symbolize the Apostles, and various were the superstitions prevalent even among the learned of that ancient time. No doubt the properties which we prize at the present day, such as color, brilliancy and hardness, were equally prized in the remotest times, but above and beyond 46 Gems. these obvious characters, there was the higher value derived from their metaphysical virtues. Some of these virtues were of a purely spiritual character, such as the power attributed to so many gems of dispelling vicious propensities and of inspiring purity of life in the owner. Others were of less subtle nature, and were medicinal rather than metaphysical. In order to cure disease it was in most cases considered suf ficient to wear the stone, when its curative power would be brought into play. In other cases resource was had to administering the powdered gem. These superstitions natu rally led men to seek eagerly for stones so marvellously en dowed, for who would not diligently seek and fondly cherish an, object which was at the same time a specific against disease, a personal adornment and "a guardian ? Superstitions regarding stones of a green color are more wide-spread than any other. The reputed virtues of the emerald alone would fill a chapter, while nephrite, or jade, derives its name from its medicinal qualities. Sir Walter Raleigh, who first imported it into Europe, having given great encomiums regarding its virtues. So great were the supernatural powers attributed to jades, even in ancient Mex ico, that there is a legend which asserts that Quetzalcoatl, a most ancient law-giver and High Priest, was begotten by one of these sacred jades placed in the bosom of the goddess Chimalma. Gems. 47 The Romans carried the taste for gems to a high pitch. Lucan s description of the banqueting hall in which Cleo patra feasted Caesar, seems more like the coinage of a poet s brain than sober history ; " Columns of porphyry, ivory porticos, pavements of onxy, thresholds of tortoise-shell, in each spot of which was set an emerald, furniture inlaid with yellow jasper, couches studded with gems, met the bewildered eye of the laurel-crowned Roman, while his heart was en thralled and his judgement subdued by the beauty of the royal hostess, on whose brow glittered the treasured gems of a long line of Pharaohs." The oft-told story, however, of the same queen having dissolved in vinegar a pearl costing a hundred thousand aurios, and drinking it in the presence of Antony, is, unfortunately not so authentic, for it is well- known at the present day that no acid the human stomach can endure is capable of dissolving a pearl. King suggests that the wily Egyptian lady probably swallowed the pearl in some more agreeable potation than vinegar, feeling sure of its ultimate recovery. Paulina, the wife of Caligula, cov ered her dress with gems of untold worth, and that Emperor built ships entirely of cedar, having sterns inlaid with gems, while Incitatus, his horse, wore a collar of pearls and drank wine from a bowl of crystal. The shoes of Heliogobalus were studded with gems, and in the golden house of Nero the panels were of mother-of-pearl, enriched with gems. 48 Gems. Constantine entered Rome in a chariot of gold adorned with precious stones, which shot forth rays of light. But how insignificant is all this seeming magnificence when compared with the barbaric splendor of Hydar Ali, Tippo Saib, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Aurungzebe, and the last ruler of the Mohammedan dynasty, which, for seven hundred years, held the reins of power in India, the wonder ful Shah Jehan. Surely the descriptions of the power and glory of this great Mogul seem like the romance of the " Ara bian Nights," and when compared to the even more marvellous tale of Lallah Rookh, whose " Vale of Cashmere " was the scene of all his splendor, proves that fact is, indeed, stranger than fiction. An imperial hall, which was only an accessory to the great palace at Delhi, was constructed of white marble worked into the most delicate forms ; its whole surface, pil lars, walls, arches, roof and even pavements were inlaid with the richest and most exquisite designs in arabesque, the fruits and flowers being represented by gems so delicately entwined that they looked like embroidery on white satin, so exquisitely was the mosaic executed in precious stones. Thirty-five specimens of carnelian were employed in a single leaf of carnation, and some flowers contained no less than three hundred different stones, such as amethysts, carnelians, garnets, blood stones, lapis lazuli and colored crystals. The walls and columns were inlaid with inscriptions from the Gems. 49 Koran, the whole having the appearance of some rich work of the loom. In the centre of this hall stood the wonderful Peacock Throne, a chef-d auvre, representing $150,000,000 ! This wondrous work of art, on either side of which stood the ever-present, power-symbolizing umbrella, was ascended by steps of silver, at the summit of which rose a massive seat of pure gold, with a canopy of the same metal inlaid with jewels. The chief feature of the design was a peacock with his tail spread, the natural colors being represented by pure gems. A vine was introduced into the design, the leaves and fruits of which were of precious stones, whose rays were reflected from mirrors set in large pearls. Beneath all this glory sat the Grand Mogul, the crown on his head being worthy of the throne upon which he sat. It had twelve points, each surmounted by a diamond of the purest water, while the central point terminated in a single pearl of extra ordinary size, the whole including many valuable rubies, and having an estimated value of eleven millions of dollars ! To this add one thing more, the Kohinoor diamond on his brow, and you have the Grand Mogul in all his glory as he sat upon his Peacock Throne, surrounded by Mohammedan princes, by turbaned and jeweled Rajahs, amid splendor which only the gorgeous East could furnish. Truly could the " light of the harem, "the veiled Nourmahal, sing within such enchanting walls: "And if there be an Elysium on earth, it is this, it is this." 5 Gems. The student of gems finds much useful information on the subject disclosed in many parts of the Bible. The breast-plate of the High Priest is the first instance on record BREAST-PLATE OF THE HIGH PRIEST. of the art of engraving on gems. Although it may seem in credible, archaeologists hope this art may yet be discovered, and when we consider that this age has witnessed the resusci tation of the signet-ring of Sennacherib, and that we have in New York the necklace of Menes, the father of Pharaoh, who was the contemporary of Moses, the idea may not seem Gems. 5 1 chimerical. We find from the engraving of that breast-plate, thirty centuries ago, the glyptic art steadily advancing and keeping pace with her sister art, sculpture, often copying some colossal statue and minimizing it to the dimensions of a gem, thus preserving an exact representation of some chef- d oeuvre, perhaps long lost to the world. It is affirmed by King that the engravers of the Alexandrian and Augustine ages were rivals of the most famous workers in marble and bronze, and that they often contrived to enclose within the narrowness of a little agate stone all the complicated details of an event in history or a fable in mythology, and make them stand forth in beautiful relief as a cameo, or sink as beau tifully into depth as an intaglio, with all that truth of design and power of expression which characterized the excellence of the largest works of the most consummate masters. To the aesthetic mind of the many-sided Goethe, engraved gems were a never-failing source of enjoyment, and who knows of how many poems they were the inspiration ? Although there are many gems of exquisite design by modern artists, compared with the past the glyptic art may virtually be said to have closed its career of ages. In the institution of the Levitical Priesthood we find the first engraved precious stones always presented before the Great Jehovah. In the Christian Church the High Priest of our profession has ascended. Then, if we can 5 2 Gems. never, with our mortal vision, behold this most ancient of insignia, may we not hope to behold it in the light of an eternal day within the walls of that new Jerusalem, whose * * * " Each foundation glittereth fair * With heavenly stones, half dimmed with earthly names, As if to veil from mortal eyes their flames, Lest their unshaded brightness should excel All power of tongue to tell, Or lest, with eyes transpierced with pain, The holy seer had fallen blind, Whereby, beheld too plain, The vision, unrecorded to mankind, Had come and passed in vain. " And those illustrious stones the mystic twelve Each for a tribe of Israel s line, more fiercely shine Than any for which mortals delve In any earthly mine ! " For not Golconda nor Brazil, In cavern dark, or deep dug hill, Illumes the slave s dim lighted glance With that fair spark which happy chance * From Thou and I. Gems. 5 3 Unblinds his searching eyes to see, And, for his finding, sets him free ; Not this soul-ransoming gem, Nor Caesar s glittering diadem Hath power to burn, and blaze, And charm th enchanted gaze, Like those fair jewels in the rays Of that immortal light Of which the mortal eye bears not the sight, But whose white glory the Archangels praise. " Now lend thine ear and listen While, like the Patmian, I declare How those twelve jewels glisten, And what the names they bear. The first, a jasper, which in Ispahan, When brought by camel of the caravan, Is called a diamond in the speech of man ; The next, a sapphire, whose celestial blue Gives the Tyrrhenian waves their hue ; The third, that Chalcedonian stone Which men no longer find, Yet once on earth was known In that old city of the Blind 54 Gems. Which dust of deserts since has overblown The fourth, an emerald, glittering green As when, upon an olive s rind, A drop of dew is seen ; The fifth, a sard, that stone of flesh That ever bleeds afresh, And stands for Calvary s blood-red sign ; The sixth, a ruby, set to shine, Like th ensanguined wine That filled the Holy Grail ; The seventh, a chrysolite, So golden bright It makes Aurora dim and pale ; The eighth, a beryl, sparkling white, Like moonlit frost, As seen by hunters who, at night, Mount Caucasus have crossed ; The ninth, a topaz, hazel-eyed Like Lilith, Adam s earlier bride Whom first he loved and lost, Ere Eve was moulded from his side ; The tenth, a chrysoprase, Flashing, with yellow rays, Up, down, a thousand ways, Through all that region wide ; Gems. 5 5 Th eleventh, a jacinth, fairer than if dyed By sun and wind With colors of that blossom, lush and pied, With which its name is twinned ; The last, an amethyst, whose font of fire Casts forth a purple jet More orient than the east, As if the day should rise but not to set, And the red dawn, with all its gay adorning, Should linger on in one immortal morning ! " Oh, fair that city is to see That lureth thee and me ! " And each of all the twelve great portals Is one great pearl, Gold-banded, like a ring of fair device ; With adamantine hinges ever-during ; Each pearl, with lustre so alluring That though beyond the gaze of mortals, Above the earth s wide whirl, It sweetly doth entice The souls of men to wish them in that paradise Each pearl of greater price Than in the parable is told Of him who all his treasures sold, 5 6 Gems. His silver and his gold, And went and bought with these That jewel of the seas, That gem, all-precious, pure, and rare, With which none others could compare Except the pearls those portals hold, Ten thousand times more fair ! " And at each portal an Archangel waits To keep wide open, those eternal gates ; For he who saw was bid to say, The gates shall not be shut by day, And there is no night there. " THE LAST RIDE DAVID L. PROUDFIT.* UR turn at last. Now, Roland, go ! A triumph waits for us, you know. The clown looks on, with hard grimace Upon his leering, painted face ; The tyrant of the ring walks round And cracks his whip with pistol sound ; The crowd applauds now faster yet, With galop and with pirouette ! Our blood is up, we know no fear, A whirlwind in our mad career ! My horse and I, away we go ! What pain is this that chills me so ? A pain that always comes to me With bitter envy when I see A maiden fair, with shining hair, Like yonder girl that nestles there, And looks up to her lover s face With wistful eyes and tender grace. Pelig Arkwright. 5 8 The Last Ride. Alas ! for me no eyes are fond, I hold no heart in silken bond, I have no part with love or tears, No mother-cares, no tender fears ; I have no joy this trade above, I am a thing no man will love, A circus-rider bold and free Unsexed ! unloved ! unwomanly ! Ho ! bring the flags, balloons and rings ! I ll cut a dash for all the stings That lash me when I see the sight Of lovers eyes with love alight ! Yon maiden s innocent young heart Some day with bitter wounds shall smart ; She yet shall know that lovers vows The cause of shame and death espouse ; Or, if she live to be a wife, That love grown cold is death in life. Away ! My gallant steed. Away ! What care we for such trivial play ? Blow, trumpets, with your brazen throats ! One sky o er all the wide world floats ! One sky ? My world is in this tent. My sky is canvas, somewhat rent The Last Ride. 59 And soiled with handling so am I. What know I of the clear blue sky ? How would these gaping idiots stare To see me make a dash for air, And ride straight out of yonder door All heedless of what lies before ? Out in the moon s clear silver light, Away from all the senseless din, The garish lights, the painted sin, The crashing thunder of the band, Into the peace of some new land ? There is no such ! and nothing new Will come for aught that I can do. New, unknown lands are for the dead, And in this tent I win my bread ; And bread is life, and life is long, And must be lived by weak and strong. Look, lovers eyes, for what you prize, Into each other s love-lit eyes ! Be merry if you can, I know What fools you are, but even so, I envy you the happy lot Of being fooled as I am not. 6o The Last Ride. But if my chance in life had been To be a maiden fair, within A home made beautiful and bright With peace and plenty, then I might, Perhaps, have known what love can do, To sanctify the favored few ; My heart might then have known the bliss, Of leaning to a lover s kiss ; Of looking up with maiden grace, Into a lover s strong, bright face ; Of finding hope and joy and rest Upon a tender, manly breast. * * * Now for the hurdles. Roland, see, They ve laid out work for you and me ! You are the lover that I prize ! Fire flashes from your splendid eyes ! Once, twice around, once more, and then Well done, sir ; bravo ! once again ! With you I d ride at fate outright, And jump the gates of Death at sight ! Good horse, well sprung, now dash away ! I do not care, in this wild play, The Last Ride. 61 For all that my hard life has cost, For all the things that I have lost, For aught that grim mischance can bring, For life, or love, or anything ! Away, away ! my gallant steed, With clattering hoof and lightning speed ; And show to staring dunce and .dolt How flies a living thunderbolt ! So weak and faint ! What hurts me so ? What was that whispering sad and low ? What ghostly faces did I see ? What far off music came to me, Like wailing dirges for the dead ? What mountains rest upon my head ? What river rushes dark and drear ? W T hat dashing waves are those I hear ? Dreams ! But I am not dreaming now, Helpless and weak and crushed but how ? A thousand eyes were on me there, A thousand voices filled the air, And shouts that stirred the flags unfurled, And then a crash that shook the world ; 62 The Last Ride. That thrust me down from life and light Into a dim and dreadful night Of phantom shapes and sounds of fear Ah, yes, I know, I m dying here ! Dying ? And Roland, too, is dead ? I would have gladly died instead. My splendid horse ! And there was none For me to love but him not one. Dying ! And Roland dead ! Then I Have nothing left to do but die. Only a girl s face, fond and fair, But yet it drove me to despair And made me reckless, mad and wild. But it was not her fault, poor child. Why, that is she ! Kneel by me here And pray to God for me, my dear. I had no lover, child or friend, But rode my best unto the end, For that was all I had to do. Life came with sweeter gifts to you. Pray for me ! It is cold and dark Can that be Roland neighing ? Hark ! Yes, I am coming Roland, see, They re waiting there for you and me. TIS BETTER NOT TO KNOW. FREDERIC CLAY. ( Sung by Eugene Clarke. ) LOVE ! dost ask of yonder star, What future fate is thine and mine ? Nay ; not for thee his tidings are, And not for thee his radiant sign. Ah ! let the wandering light go by, And gem some other shore or sea ; For while thy gaze is turned on high, The stars I love are lost to me. The time is ours, with all its flowers, Thy hand in mine, wilt leave it so ? The hour is blest, and all the rest, Tis better, darling, not to know. Oh, love, thy pensive quest forbear, Oh let yon wandering light go by. If stars could tell thee thou art fair And fondly worshipped, so can I ! 6 4 Tis Better not to Know. If storms could tell thee, storms may sweep Across our way, my love, my own, And those sweet eyes may close to weep, No star shall see thee weep alone ! The time is ours, with all its flowers, Thy hand in mine, dost leave it so ? The hour is blest, and all the rest, Tis better, darling, not to know. LOVE S BELIEF* AS READ BY MRS. E. L. DAVENPORT. BELIEVE if I were dead, And you should kiss my eyelids where I lie Cold, dead and dumb to all the world contains, The folded orbs would open at thy breath, And, from its exile in the Isles of Death, Life would come gladly back along, my veins. I believe if I were dead, And you upon my lifeless heart should tread- Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be lt would find sudden pulse beneath the touch Of him it ever loved in life so much, And throb again, warm, tender, true to thee. I believe if in my grave, Hidden in woody depths by all the waves, Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret, From every salty seed of your dear grief Some fair, sweet blossom would leap into leaf, To prove death could not make my love forget. * Anonymous. 66 Loves Belief. I believe if I should fade Into the mystic realms where light is made, And you should long once more my face to see, I would come forth upon the hills of night, And gather stars like faggots, till thy sight, Led by the beacon blaze, fell full on me. I believe my love for thee (Strong as my life) so nobly placed to be, It could as soon expect to see the sun Fall like a dead king from his heights sublime, His glory stricken from the throne of Time, As thee unworth the worship thou hast won. I believe love, pure and true, Is to the soul a sweet, immortal dew, That gems life s petals in the hour of dusk. The waiting angels see and recognize The rich crown-jewel love of Paradise, When life falls from us like a withered husk. M/SS PRECIOSA S PRINCIPLES. MARY KYLE DALLAS. (Read by the A ^^thor .) N the most precise of country villages, in the prim- mist mansion ever built, dwelt the most precise maiden ever born, Miss Preciosa Lockwood. Even in that serious town where laughter was reckoned one of the smaller sins, and the family in whose dwelling lights were seen burning after ten o clock was considered dissipated, there was a current joke regarding Lockwood Cottage, which giddy girls had dubbed " The Nunnery," and some even went so far as to call Miss Preciosa the "Lady Superior." Certainly convent walls never closed themselves more grimly against mankind, gentle and simple, old and young. What in many an excellent spinster has been an affectation, was genuine with Miss Preciosa. Long ago a pretty little cousin, who had been her con fidante and companion, had become acquainted with a rascal with a handsome face and a serpent s soul, and had eloped with him. They heard of her wearing velvet and diamonds, but no wedding-ring, and driving about New Orleans in a handsome carriage, wondered at and admired for her beauty and shunned for her sin. But at last, after a 68 Miss Preciosa s Principles. long silence about her doings, a faded thing in rags came creeping at night to Miss Preciosa s cottage, begging for God s sake that she would let her in to die. Miss Preciosa did the reverse of what most women do. She gave a sister s hand to the poor victim nursed her until she died, and buried her decently, and thenceforth shut her spinster home to man. She was barely twenty-seven, and far from plain, but she argued thus : Something in a stove-pipe hat and boots has wrought this ill all who wear those habiliments must be tabooed. She kept her resolution. From the poor-house she selected a small servant-maid, not yet old enough to think of " followers." As cook she kept a hideous old female, too far advanced in years to remember them. The milk was brought by a German woman. The butcher s wife, by request, brought in the joints. Even a woman cut the grass in the garden when it was too long, and if man approached the gates ancient Deborah, the cook, was sent forth to par ley with and obstruct his approach. Having thus made things safe, Miss Preciosa went to New-York and brought home a dead sister s daughter, who had hitherto been immured in a boarding-school, and the arrangements were complete. Miss Lockwood took her niece to church, also to weekly meetings. They spent afternoons out, with widow ladies Miss Preciosa s Principles. 69 with no grown-up sons, or with spinsters who resided in soli tary state. The elder lady kept an Argus eye upon her blooming niece, and bold indeed would have been the man who dared address her. For her part, Miss Bella Bloom was an arch-hypocrite. She had learned that at boarding-school, where ingenuity is exhausted in deceiving the authorities, and doing always exactly what is most forbidden. Bella Bloom came to Lock- wood Cottage perfectly competent to hoodwink her aunt She did it. Preciosa blessed her stars that her niece was well principled. She hated men. She wondered how any young lady could walk and talk and be sociable with and marry them. And when she thought that she lived in a home where they could not intrude, how thankful she was Aunt Preciosa could never guess. And all the while Bella was chafing inwardly at her restraint, envying girls who had pleasant little flirtations at will, and keeping up a private correspondence with a certain " Dear George," who sent his letters under cover to the butcher s wife, who brought them in with the beef and mut ton, and said, " Bless ye, natur will be natur for all old maids ; and I was a gal myself onst afore Cleaver courted me." Dear George was desperate. He could not live without seeing his Bella. He wrote bitter things about spinster yo Miss Preciosa s Principles. aunts. He alluded feelingly to those rendezvous in the back garden of the seminary, with Miss Clover standing sentry at the gate on the look-out for a governess and enemy. The first opportunity he was coming to Plainacres, and in tended to see his Bella or die. Was he not twenty-three and she seventeen ? Were they to waste their lives at a spinster s bidding ? No. Miss Preciosa, with her Argus-eyed watchfulness, sat calmly hour by hour two inches from the locked drawer of a cabinet which contained the gentleman s letters, and dined from meats which had been the means of conveying them across the threshold, inculcating her principles into the minds of her niece and handmaiden, the latter of whom grinned be hind her lady s chair without reserve. Charity Pratt, having grown to be sixteen, also had her secret. It was the apothe cary s boy, who, in his own peculiar fashion, had expressed admiration at church by staring. A few days after, Dr. Green, the batchelor minister, called at the cottage. Deborah went out to huff and snap, and was subdued by the big eyes. She came in. " Miss," said she, "the clergyman is out there." "Where?" gasped Preciosa. "In the garding, Miss, wantin you." " Me ! You said, of course, I was out ? " "No, Miss. Everybody receives their pastor." Miss Preciosa s Principles. 71 So the pastor was ushered in. He conversed of church affairs. Miss Preciosa answered by polite monosyllables. Bella smiled and stitched. Deborah sat on a hall chair, on guard. Finally the best specimen of that bad creature, man, was got out of the house safely, and the ladies looked at each other as those might who had been closeted with a polar bear and escaped unharmed. "He s gone, aunty," said the hypocrite. "Thank goodness ! " said sincere Preciosa. "I thought I should have fainted. Never let it happen again, Deborah. Remember I m always engaged." " But he seems a nice, well-spoken, good-behaved kind of a gentleman," said Deborah. "And a clergyman." "So he does," said Preciosa. "But appearances are deceitful. I once knew a clergyman "Yes, Miss." " A Doctor of Divinity, Bella " Yes, Aunt." "Ah ! who who " "Well?" " Who kissed a young lady of his congregation in her father s garden." " Oh, Aunt : " " He afterward married her. But I never could visit her or like him." 72 Miss Preciosa s Principles. "Bless you no," said Deborah. " Now the best thing you can do is to have a cup of strong green tea and some thing nourishing to keep your sperits up. Cleaver s wife has just fetched oysters in." (Private signal to Bella.) " Has she? Oh, I so love oysters!" cried Bella, and ran to get dear George s last. It was a brief one, and in it George vowed to appear at the cottage when they least expected him and demand his betrothed. That evening, at dusk, Miss Preciosa walked in the garden alone. She was thinking of a pair of romantic big eyes, of a soft voice and a softer hand which she had been surprised into allowing to shake hers. " It s a pity men are so wicked ! " said she, and sighed. Although she was near thirty she looked very pretty as she walked in the moonlight, forgetting to put on prim airs and graces and to stiffen herself. Her figure was much like her niece Bella s, so much so that some one on the other side of the convent-like wall, with eyes upon a level with its upper stones, fancied it was that young lady. Under this belief he clambered up, stood at the top, and whispered. " My dearest look up, your best beloved is here ; be hold your George ! " And Preciosa, lifting her eyes, beheld a man on her wall, Miss Preciosa s Principles. 73 flung her hands in the air, and uttered a shriek like that of an enraged peacock. The gentleman discovered his mistake, endeavored to retreat, stumbled and fell headlong among flower-pots and boxes, and lay their quite motionless. The shriek and the clatter aroused the house. Deborah > Bella, and Charity Pratt rushed to the scene, and found a gentleman in a sad plight, bloody and senseless, and Miss Rreciosa half dead with terror. Bella, recognizing dear George, fainted in good earnest. Preciosa, encouraged by numbers, addressed the prostrate youth. " Get up, young man, and go ; your wickedness has been perhaps sufficiently punished. Please go." " He can t ; he s dead," said Deborah. " Oh, what a sudden judgment ! You re sure he s dead ?" "Yes, Miss." " Then take him into the house and call the doctor." They laid him on the bed and medical aid came ; the poor fellow had broken a leg. " He d get well. Oh yes, but he couldn t be moved." Miss Preciosa could not murder a fellow-creature, and she acquiesced. " He can t run off with the spoons until liis leg is bet ter," said Deborah. 74 Miss Preciosa s Principles. " He isn t able to elope with any one," said Miss Pre- ciosa ; " and we should be gentle with the erring. Who shall we find to nurse him ? " " Old Todds is competent, Miss," said Deborah. "Yes. Do send for that old person," said the lady. And old Todds came. He of course dwelt in the house. The doctor came every day. The apothecary s boy invaded the hall with medicines ; and finally, when the young man came to his senses, he desired earnestly to see his friend, Dr. Green. " Our clergyman his friend," said Preciosa. " He must have been misled then ; surely his general conduct must be proper. Perhaps this is the first time he ever looked over a wall to make love to a lady. By all means send for Dr. Green." Thus the nunnery was a nunnery no more. Two men under the roof. Three visiting it daily ! What was the world coming to ? Miss Preciosa dared not think. Bella was locked in her own room in the most decorous manner, while her aunt was in the house, but when she was absent Deborah and Charity sympathized and abetted, and she read and talked deliciously to dear George, lying on his back with his handsome face so pale and his spirits so low, poor fellow ! Troubles always come together. That evening Miss Miss Preciosa s Principles. 75 Preciosa received information that legal affairs connected with her property, which was considerable, demanded her presence in New-York, and left the establishment, which never before so much needed its Lady Superior. She returned after three days toward evening, no one expecting her. "I shall give them a pleasant surprise," she thought, and slipped in the kitchen-way. There a candle burned, and on one chair sat two people Charity Pratt and the druggist s boy. He had his arm around her waist. Miss Preciosa grasped the door-frame and shook from head to foot. " 111 go to Deborah," she said. " She can speak to that misguided girl better than I." She faltered for ward. Deborah was in the back area scouring tea-knives. Beside her stood old Todds, the nurse. They were talking. " Since my old woman died," said Todds, I hain t seen nobody scour like you and the pies you does make." "They ain t better than other folks," said Deborah, grimly coquettish. "They air" said Todds; and, to Miss Preciosa s horror, he followed up the compliment by asking for a kiss. Miss Preciosa struggled with hysterics and fled parlor- ward. Alas ! a murmur of sweet voices. She peeped in. Through the window swept the fragrance of honey-suckle. Moonlight mingled with that of the shaded lamp. Bella 7 6 Miss Preciosa s Principles. leaned over an easy-chair in which reclined George Love- boy. This time Preciosa was petrified. "Dearest Bella," said George. " My own," said Bella. " How happy we are ? " "Oh, so happy! " " And when shall we be together again ? You knovr I must go. Your aunt won t have me here, Bella. I must tell her. Why are you afraid of her?" " She s so prim and good, dear soul," said Bella. " Ah ! you don t love me as I do you." "George?" " You don t. Would I let an aunt stand between us ?" "Oh, George, you know I ve told you that nothing could change me. Why, if you had staid lame, and had had to walk on crutches all your life, it would have made no difference, though I fell in love with you for your walk. I don t deny it." " And I," said George, " would have almost been con tent had fate willed that I should be a cripple to have been so cherished, to have reposed on so faithful a bosom." " Oh, oh, oh ! " from the doorway checked the speech Those last words had well-nigh killed Miss Preciosa Lock- wood. Hysterics supervened, and in their midst a gentle man was announced. The Rev. Peter Green. Miss Prcciosas Principles, 77 "Show him in," said Preciosa. "I need counsel. Perhaps he may give it." And for the first time in her life she hailed the entrance of " a man." Mr. Loveboy left the room as stealthily and speedily as possible. Miss Bella followed him. Charity was in the pan try hiding her head, and Deborah returned to the cellar. Alone the Lady Superior received the Rev. Peter Green. She faltered and blushed. " You are, I presume, already aware of the fact that I am much disturbed in mind," she said. "Yes, Madam. That is perceptible." " You are my spiritual adviser, sir. To you, though a man, I turn for advice," and she shed a tear or two. " My own household has turned against me." And she told him all. The Rev. Peter made big eyes at her, and broke the truth gently. " My dear madam, you do not know that old Jonathan Todds and your faithful Deborah intend to unite their for tunes in the bands of holy wedlock next Sabbath ? " " Know it ? Oh the old, old sinners ! Are they in their dotage ? " " Or that Charity Pratt, who seems a likely sort of girl, has promised to give her hand to Zeddock Saltz on Thursday ? " 7 8 Miss Preciosa s Principles. " Oh, Doctor Green ! What do I hear ? " " The truth, Madam. Can you hear more ? " " I hope so." " Then it is time that you should be informed that Miss Bella Bloom and Mr. George Loveboy have been engaged a year. They have corresponded regular. It was to see her he climbed the garden wall and met with his accident. Don t give way, Madam don t." " You re very kind," said Miss Preciosa ; "but it is awful ! What would you advise ? " " I should say, allow Todds and Deborah to marry next Sunday." "Yes, sir." " And Charity and Zeddock on the day they have fixed. And I should say, sanction the betrothal of your niece and Mr. Loveboy, and allow me to unite them at some appointed day before the altar." " My own niece ! " said Miss Preciosa. " Oh, my own niece ! " " Do you so seriously object to weddings ? " asked the pastor. " N no," said Preciosa. " It s this awful courting I dislike." " I agree with you," said the pastor. I have resolved, when I marry, to come to the point at once. Miss Preciosa, Miss Preciosa s Principles. 79 the Parsonage needs a mistress. I know of no lady I admire and esteem as I do you. Will you make me happy ? will you be my wife ? " Preciosa said nothing. Her cheeks burned ; her lids drooped. He came a little closer. He made bigger eyes at her than ever. At last his lips approached and touched her cheek, and still she said nothing. In such a case, " Speech is silver, but silence is of gold." Deborah was married on Sunday, her sixtieth birthday. Charity on Tuesday. Bella gave her hand to George Love- boy in a month, and on the same day a brother clergyman united Preciosa and the Rev. Peter Green. And the nun nery was broken up forever. BUDGE S STORY OF THE FLOOD.* READ BY MISS EMILIE W. GROESBECK. |NCE the Lord felt so uncomfortable, cos folks was bad, that he was sorry he ever made anybody, or any world or anything. Noah wasn t bad the Lord liked him first-rate, so he told Noah to build a big ark and then the Lord would make it rain so everybody would be drownded but Noah an his little boys an girls, an doggies, an pussies, an mama-cows, an little-girl-cows, an hosses, an everything they d go in the ark an wouldn t get wetted a bit when it rained. An Noah took lots of things to eat in the ark cookies, an milk, an oatmeal, an strawberries, an porgies, an oh, yes, an plum-puddin s an pumpkin-pies. But Noah didn t want everybody to get drownded, so he talked to folks an said, " It s goin to rain awful pretty soon ; you d better be good, an then the Lord ll let you come into my ark." An they jus said, " Oh, if it rains we ll go in the house until it stops ; " an other folks said, " We aint afraid of rain, we ve got an umbrella." An some more said they wasn t goin to be afraid of just a rain. But it tfV^/rain though an folks went in their houses, an the water came in, an they * From Helen s Babies. Budge s Story of the Flood. 81 went upstairs, an the water came up there, an they got on the tops of the houses, an up in big trees, an up in moun tains, an the water went after em everywhere, an drownded everybody, only just except Noah and the people in the ark. An it rained forty days an nights, an then it stopped, an Noah got out of the ark an he an his little boys an girls went wherever they wanted to, an everything in the world was all theirs ; there wasn t anybody to tell em to go home, nor no kindergarten schools to go to, nor no bad boys to fight em , nor nothin . ~> u Das GriineCjewolbe zu Dresden \ ^ c^ PORTFOLIO OF ENGRAVINGS, PRESENTED TO MRS. SMITH BY THE LADIES OF THE SOCIETY. NEW-YEAR GREETING. REV. PHEBE A. HANAFORD. I HE morning broke bright as an angel s pinion, The winter diamonds sparkled on the boughs, We, who had feared the storm-king s dark domin- Smiled at our dread, and lifted heavenward, brows [ion, Serene as starlight, hopeful on that morning For all events that to our lot should come When the new year that thus so bright was dawning Should be with us for twelve long months at home. We hoped, nor hoped amiss, that eighteen-eighty Would far outstrip the joys of seventy-nine ; And did we not reach this conclusion weighty, That we would patient be, nor once repine ? Though storms should come, we d look for sunny weather When from our paths the mists should roll away, And trust th unfailing love of that All-Father Who sees in shadow more than we by day. New -Year Greeting. 3 Then as we gave to those frost-jewels fleeting Our admiration, and our welcome too, So let me give to these ^Esthetics greeting, Who blaze with genius, beam in friendship true. Here, where we read a truth that needs no proving, We ve sought to learn of Nature s works and ways, Our knowledge leading to a deeper loving Of Him whose thought expression finds in these Strange forms of rock from distant vale and mountain, Symmetric crystals from the quarry s heart : A chalice each, with draughts from wisdom s fountain, We quaff with eagerness ; for they impart The life-elixir that the spirit needeth, The panacea for many an earthly woe, The knowledge that, once gained, the spirit speedeth Still more and more of God s great works to know. Surely the new year opens with a gladness The spiritually wise alone can know, When, as a balm for all the old year s sadness We upward look, and see the morning glow Which faith affords, as we, His works beholding, God s wondrous power and equal goodness see, Which tell, while His grand purpose is unfolding, How firm in His great love our trust may be. New - Year Greeting. Then blessings on the kind and wise provider Of feasts so welcome for both heart and mind, Who bids us sit in wondering trust beside her, And listening here, a pure enjoyment find. " A thousandth part we know not of the wonders," The Infinite alone can know them all ! But louder than the cataract s echoing thunders, We hear, through her, the wonder-worker s call ; And we will study through the coming seasons, Of rock and shell, of gem and fern and flower, With hope that as we question Nature s reasons, Her why and wherefore shall be beauty s dower, To make us fair in spirit, e er reflecting The mind of Him who mirrored love divine, Till the great glory which we were expecting In Life s grand new-year round our path shall shine. Then will those object-lessons still be given To students who are veiled in flesh no more, While music sounds amid the bliss of heaven, Whose echoes sweet oft reach this earthly shore ; * Referring to an inscription over one of the mineral-cabinets. New - Year Greeting. 85 And there, we trust, this band will yet assemble, Teacher and taught, within that city s wall Whose flashing gems she told us but resemble The glorious attributes of Him we call Both God and Father, in His Son revealing The Sovereign and the Sire ! till we obey ; His love our summons, till we, reverent kneeling, Gladly resign ourselves to His dear sway. Then shall we hail Eternity s glad morning, The new-year that shall break beyond the tomb, The untold, unknown gladness of that dawning That knows no more bereavement s night of gloom. Then shall we range the universe of glory, Turn the great pages of creation o er, Soar mid the stars and list their wondrous story, The Elder Scriptures not unread before : And ever as we rise new wisdom gaining, The gospel-spirit we shall make our own, The loftiest truth behold, our crown attaining Love amid law the Lamb amidst the throne. 1880. TO A LIZARD IN AMBER. * W. A. CROFFUT. BRIGHT-EYED swimmer from the unknown seas, Thou little cousin of the Ichthyosaurus What mocking sylph, beneath the cypress trees, Discarding flies and fleas and bugs and bees, Embalmed thee for us ? Dwelt thou with man primeval in his lair On hills Carpathian or desert Lybian ? Or didst thou with the gods Olympus share, Mid such high state living unnoticed there, Thou small amphibian ? Say ! Didst thou rest on Agamemnon s grave, When Troy s renowned unpleasantness was over Or did glad Neptune fling thee from his cave When sweet Calypso kissed beside the wave Her Spartan lover ? * In the cabinet of Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith. To a Lizard in Amber. 87 How different from the death thou livest here Amid the gay and social, wise and witty, With dulcet music melting on the ear, And Poesy s sweet voice discoursing clear, In Jersey City ! Thy lucent coffin hath a splendid nook : Above, with saucer eyes and claws retractile, An owl sits gazing with an anxious look ; Around are gems ; beneath, that limestone spook, The pterodactyl. Who pinioned thy grotesque and uncouth frame Within the sunshine of this golden chamber ? Is this the fountain whence the nectar came ? Or is it star-born this undying flame Which men call amber ? Or is this jewel formed of sweet tears, shed By fair Heliades Apollo s daughters When their rash brother down the welkin sped, Lashing his father s sun-team, and fell dead In Euxine waters ? 88 To a Lizard in Amber. Splay-footed sprawler from the unknown seas- O, tawny cousin of the Ichthyosaurus What sportive sister of Hesperides, In the ambrosia of celestial trees Embalmed thee for us ? THE LIZARD IN AMBER. REST AND LEISURE. MRS. JENNIE CUNNINGHAM OROLY.* (Read by the A uthor. ) |HAT rests you the most ? I asked a literary friend one day. " First, getting out of doors ; second, seeing and talking with people ; third, going to the theatre or opera." " What do you find the most restful ? " was asked of another literary friend, a woman who spends her days in hard, delving, literary work, which requires a vast amount of reading and searching for authorities. "Oh ! going out and seeing people," was the ready answer, " nothing rests me like that. My friends often say to me, when I am very tired after a hard day s work, * Why do you not stay at home and rest, instead of dressing and fatiguing your self by going to a reception ? But I assure them that stay ing at home and sitting still, after sitting still at work all day, is not rest to me ; on the contrary, if I am obliged to do that, or continue my work through the evening, as not un- frequently happens, I am depressed and unfit for work the next day ; while, if I conquer my unwillingness to move, go * Jennie June. 90 Rest and Leisure. out into freshness and activity, meet pleasant people, ex change ideas or get the benefit of theirs, I come home strengthened, brightened, and ready to take up my work again with accustomed energy." This is the testimony of nine out of every ten of those persons, men or women, who perform literary labor for daily bread, or pursue it as a regular occupation. Of course circumstances alter cases, and much depends on the possi bility of meeting the right kind of people in the right way, and without the sacrifice of too much time, health and strength. If very full or very elaborate evening-dress was required, the trouble would more than counterbalance the good to be derived by a worker. If the gathering was a mere jam of empty-headed persons, assembled to stare at each other s clothes and eat a gorgeous but unhealthful sup per, then it is easy to be seen that the result must be detri mental rather than otherwise, and certainly not restful to mind or body. But the question is simply the abstract one, of what rest is to different people and under different cir cumstances not one of ethics at all. Mr. Bancroft, the historian, found the greatest rest and pleasure of his life in music, especially in the Italian opera, upon which he was a regular attendant for many years. Rain or shine, he always occupied his seat, and from the moment the curtain rose, seemed to divest his mind of everything Rest and Leisure. 9 1 else, and to give his undivided attention to the harmony of sweet sounds. A gentleman engaged upon a very abstruse literary work, remarked recently that he went every night, sometimes for weeks together, during its progress, to a minstrel entertain ment, simply to laugh and get rid of thinking. The literary receptions which were initiated by Miss Alice Gary, twenty- five or thirty years ago, and which were the beginning of the delightful social life of literary people in New-York, and more or less all over the country, were doubtless the out growth of a necessity for that restful companionship and in terchange of ideas, which persons who lead secluded, intel lectual lives seem, above all others, to need. Women, particularly single women, are, and were much more at that time, shut out from all possibility of association with other lives. The darkness, the very time when social life begins, shut them in as with an impenetrable wall ; they could not leave home without an escort ; they could not have an escort without subjecting themselves and him to unpleasant remarks and suspicions ; they could not attend theatre, opera, or con cert, except by invitation of a gentleman, and yet if they ventured to accept such an invitation, the consequences were not always pleasant, so that for many reasons such chances could not be relied upon to afford any regular alter native to the monotony of daily life. Receiving friends in- 9 2 Rest and Leisure. formally, without preparation, without restriction, did not take the Gary sisters away from their home ; but it brought new interest, new life, new thought, and fresh activity into their home ; while from the sweetness and integrity of their lives went out an influence which has been known and felt all over the land, and has done even more to rid the social atmosphere of false ideas than their work has accomplished for literature. Perhaps it would have been better, and more restful, in the sense of reviving and restoring, for them to have gone out of their home, and out of themselves more, instead of bringing the outer world into their own lives ; but they did the only thing they could do, and they did it so well that it made a new departure in social life, and created any number of half-way houses, where weary pilgrims of both sexes have found and are finding the kind of rest they need. Ministers, pastors of churches, are at a great disadvan tage in finding rest, that is, change from the serious and wearisome monotone of existence. Nature abhors mono tony as much as it does a vacuum, and always contrives to show displeasure, and take revenge on those who walk too long in the same beaten track. The deterioration of char acter in minister s children, especially observable, which has passed into a proverb, is accounted for on this principle it is the revolt of the human in the parents, and particularly Rest and Leisure. 93 in the father, against the system of repression ; the public opinion which forbids the most innocent and necessary recreations, which insists that ministers, as a class, are not, and shall not be as other men, and that rest, that is, associa tion and interchange, or activities outside of a fixed routine, are not either necessary or even permitted. This code has been greatly modified during the past few years, and the general morality, the character of ministers and their fami lies will be benefitted by it. When ministers are permitted to be more human, they and theirs will be more divine. No man or woman ought to be restricted to gravity, to the use of only one set of the muscles of his face, and those the ones that exercise a detrimental influence upon his nerves ; thought in one direction, if intense enough, and protracted long enough, creates insanity. Farmers know that soil planted year after year with the same kind of seed, refuses, after a while, to produce a crop ; it must have a change, that change is rest, although it is planted and yields as much as ever of something else, some different kind of crop. It is always the old story of the goose that laid the golden egg, and there is wisdom in all those old stories ; but the truth is, we will kill the goose to get the egg to-day just as fast, and just as foolishly, as the worthies we considered so absurd centuries ago. Women, probably more than men, cling to the idea that rest means 94 Rest and Leisure. quietude, keeping still, and nothing more ; and this idea they carry out, sometimes to their own detriment. A woman who lives indoors, needs for a change to get out-of-doors ; this is the great want in the lives of ninety-nine women out of every hundred. In cities there are attractions, they can make errands, "excuses " for getting into the street ; in the country there is no such motive, and after a time indoor work drags so that the responsible housekeeper cannot spare a moment, except for an interval upon the lounge, or a small tussle with the stocking-basket. If her leisure was spent out-of-doors, or in congenial society in a ladies reading or debating club, or even in making a call, she would find her self equal to conduct her routine work, to take up the inter minable round of small duties, of which none, except those who have to perform them, can ever understand the drudgery, the wear and tear upon the mind. A great many women so resent this failure on the part of those about to realize the necessities of their position, that they will not take advantage of the opportunities they might make for themselves. They assert that they " have no time " for improvement, for neighborly converse, for walk ing or for riding, for anything but going through the round of petty duties, which, performed without any break upon their dreariness, in time produce a species of melancholia or insanity. A determined effort, on the contrary ; a dose of Rest and Leisure, 95 out-of-door air, of intelligent interchange of thought even if taken as medicine, with a wry face will act as a charm, and soon be anticipated as a blessing, a sweetener of life. Women who vary their work, and add to it a little play, can do twice as much. Languor, inertia, is the revenge which the body takes upon us for wearing out one set of faculties, leaving the others unemployed. Using the brain to save work is much better than compelling the hands to perform a ceaseless round of labor, of which the sanitary result is very doubtful ; there is a great deal in putting time and faculty to the best use. There are women who consider themselves " slaves " to their families, and who do toil early and late to keep them in doughnuts, and cookies, and pie, and sauce, and pickles, and pot-cheese, and what not who yet do not make home pleasant for either husband or children. Such a woman is always cooking or cleaning, or she is always tired, and generally cross, and when she hears what other women are doing in the way of public, or social, or home-decorative work, she feels as if it was an indirect reflection upon her efficiency, and blames husband and children, her hard lot everything and everybody but herself. Doubtless her husband, her children, and her whole life have grown hard and exacting, and the former somewhat indifferent to her moods ; but is not this her own fault ? They are as she has made them. She has accustomed them Rest and Leisure. to certain things, and very naturally they look for them, per haps after a while they demand them. A little more exact knowledge will teach women that something is due to them selves, that their own bodies require perpetual care and recreating, and that future health depends upon the mate rials which are daily and hourly put into the work. It does not live by bread alone, though good and healthful food is necessary to its sustenance, but it takes something from whatever it is brought in contact with the atmosphere- people, and the inspiration of a new thought. A sensible man will assist his wife to put variety, and above all, quick ening intellectual influence into her life, because it reacts so beneficially upon the home, the children, and their actual surroundings. But women can do much themselves toward enlarging their own outlook, broadening their own ideas, and changing their own conditions, by taking advantage of the opportunities within their reach, and making new ones instead of waiting for the new ones to be thrust upon them, or refusing them when they are presented. It is a common practice in the country among people who retire early, and sleep, or have the opportunity of doing so with the utmost regularity, to spend their leisure in the middle of the day in taking a nap. This is absurd, it is not what is needed. Take a book out of doors under a tree, or practice on some musical instrument, if you are so fortunate Rest and Leisure. 97 as to be able to play on one, or take a study and pursue it in these brief moments. Whatever you do, let it be something quite opposite and different to the usual course and tenor of your life ; let the change be the employment of an entirely different set of faculties ; the night furnishes enough of ab solute rest, if you are able to employ it for that purpose. One of the most fastidious young men of a fashionable set, astonished his friends and his family, not very long since, by starting on a cruise in a whaling vessel. The outcry on all sides was great. He had been accustomed to have every wish consulted ; a spot on a table-cloth or napkin took aw r ay his appetite. Whoever was sacrificed for the comfort of visitors, or unforeseen accidents, Fred s whims, Fred s tastes, and Fred s prejudices were always respected. His appetite was peculiarly delicate, and he could not eat at all in any near proximity to persons less refined in their habits than himself. His mother, always watchful and tender of his comfort, trembled at the hardships he would have to experi ence, and could not understand his voluntary choice of such a mode of spending a summer holiday. His father under stood it better. Said he, " The boy is tired to death by your kid-glove performances. He wants a change from the rou tine of a life which, he begins to realize, makes no drafts on his manhood." This was the condition of affairs precisely, and his mother began to realize it when letters came back to 98 Rest and Leisure. her filled with glowing descriptions of a life of daily struggle, contest, and muscular activity of nights spent in a cloak, blanket or strip of canvas, upon decks with the planks for a pillow of food made up of " hard tack " and bacon, with bread and molasses for a treat. The desire for and enjoyment of a rest and holiday of this description was the natural revolt of strength against the weakness and effeminacy forced upon it by the conventions and refinements of modern life. Extremes are said to meet, and they do. Over-indulgence in luxury produces weakness and disease, as does poverty. We need the possession and use of all our faculties, bodily and mental, for health, and the effects of disuse are very much like those of abuse : both re sult in incapacity at last. Much of the ill health, and many of the diseased conditions in the world, are due to our nar rowness, to our prejudices, to the determination of individu als to cut every other individual according to their cloth, and by a pattern of their choosing. Public opinion has been created which has made it next to impossible, in some com munities wholly so, for certain persons or classes of persons to go outside of certain fixed rules, unwritten but inflexible, in the conduct of their daily life. Possibly it never occurred to the makers of this public opinion, that to say a man or woman shall not run, or dance, or work, or wear such cloth ing as suits them, or seek such relief and companionship as -Rest and Leisure. 99 different states of mind and body require, is to destroy health and crush out manhood and womanhood ; but it does do this, nevertheless, and then comes the revenge, which gives us suppression and repression, in the form of wicked children of seemingly good parents, of shocking scandal or dreadful crime which makes the whole community, with hair standing on end, wonder where we are to look for goodness, and "pooh-pooh !" the talk of scientists about hereditary influence ! Great advances have been made of late years, and it is now admitted that even ministers need rest from the paro chial white cravat, the long face, the studied walk, the monoto nous, unbroken round of prayer-meetings for every occasion of joyous festivity must be turned into a conventicle if the minister be present. Human nature could not but become depraved under such circumstances and restrictions, whether it was so in the first place or not ; and if the depravity did not break out in one way, it would in another ; if not in father, in son ; if not in crime, in loss of reason or mental power. It has been remarked frequently that clergymen flock in a body to Saratoga as soon as the summer recess begins, and it is probably not altogether the efficacy of the "waters which induces so many of them to choose this fashionable centre as a summer resort. It is its brightness, its gayety, its entire change from the enforced stiffness and 1 i oo Rest and Leisure starch of their daily lives at home, which must be hard to endure by a man of large and liberal, not necessarily bad, nature. It is a pity that school-teachers and quiet drudges of every description could not take a summer rest at Saratoga, or somewhere, in the midst of plenty of people and a joyous activity. Fashionable belles, on the contrary, would be bet ter off for a rest in the farm-house, or in doing the cooking and the incidental housework of a " cottage in some vast wilderness," or a camping-out expedition. It will be seen, therefore, that rest is many-sided, and of many kinds ; that sometimes it means activity, sometimes hard work, but always a total change from what we have been doing, from the usual habits, the actual circumstances which have preceded it. To obtain the rest, we must be careful not to fill our lives with the spirit of unrest, or im agine that we must eternally jump from one thing to another in order to preserve an equilibrium. All our faculties need exercise, but not in the same degree. We do not need to divide our days between laughing and crying ; the most of us prefer the even tenor which excites neither smiles nor tears ; yet we may be the better in more ways than one for a good laugh, or a good cry. Does not George Eliot say, somewhere, that one way of getting at the misfortunes of our kind is to look upon their pleasures? and it is only another Rest and Leisure. TOI way of saying that the varied experiences of life are all necessary to teach us human sympathy, and from the infinite forms of work alone can we draw any correct conclusions as to the rest which each one needs, and is hoping for in the future. JESTER OF PERLES BAROQl ES IN THE GRf NE GEWOLBE, DRESDEN. KITTY OF COLERAINE. CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY. {Recited by Miss Margaret Chase.) JS beautiful Kitty, one morning, was tripping With a pitcher of milk, from the fair of Coleraine, When she saw me she stumbled, her pitcher it tumbled, And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. " Oh, what shall I do now ? twas looking at you now ; Sure, sure, such a pitcher I ll ne er meet again ! Twas the pride of my dairy, Oh, Barney McClerey ! You re sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine." I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her, That such a misfortune should give her such pain, A kiss then I gave her ; and ere 1 did leave her, She vowed for such pleasure she d break it again. Twas hay-making season I can t tell the reason- Misfortunes will never come single tis plain ; For very soon after poor Kitty s disaster There never a pitcher was whole in Coleraine. COMO, JOAQUIN MILLER. (Recited by Charles Roberts, Jr.) JHE red-clad fishers row and creep Below the crags, as half asleep, Nor even make a single sound. The walls are steep, The waves are deep ; And if the dead man should be found By these same fishers in their round, Why, who shall say but he was drowned ? The lake lay bright, as bits of broken moon Just newly set within the cloven earth ; The ripened fields drew round a golden girth Far up the steppes, and glittered in the noon. And when the sun fell down, from leafy shore Fond lovers stole in pairs to ply the oar. The stars, as large as lillies, flecked the blue ; From out the Alps the moon came wheeling through The rocky pass the Great Napoleon knew. 1 04 Como. A gala night it was the season s prime ; We rode from castled lake to festal town, To fair Milan my friend and I ; rode down By night, where grasses waved in rippled rhyme : And so what theme but love in such a time ? His proud lip curved the while in silent scorn At thought of love ; and then, as one forlorn, He sighed, then bared his temples, dashed with gray, Then mocked, as one outworn and well blase. A gorgeous tiger-lily, flaming red, So full of battle, of the trumpet s blare, Of old-time passion, upreared its head. I galloped past, I leaned, I clutched it there. From out the long strong grass I held it high ; And cried, " Lo ! this to-night shall deck her hair Through all the dance. And mark ! the man shall die Who dares assault, for good or ill design, The citadel where I shall set this sign." He spoke no spare word all the after while. That scornful, cold, contemptuous smile of his ! Why, better men have died for less than this. Then in the hall the same old hateful smile ! Como. 105 Then marvel not that when she graced the floor, With all the beauties gathered from the four Far quarters of the world, and she, my fair, The fairest, wore within her midnight hair My tiger-lily marvel not, I say, That he glared like some wild beast well at bay ! Oh, she shone fairer than the summer star, Or curled sweet moon in middle destiny. More fair than sunrise climbing up the sea, Where all the loves of Ariadne are. Who loves, who truly loves, will stand aloof, The noisy tongue makes most unholy proof Of shallow waters all the while afar From out the dance I stood, and watched my star, My tiger-lily, borne an oriflamme of war. A thousand beauties flashed at love s advance, Like bright white mice at moonlight in their play, Or sunfish shooting in the shining bay, The swift feet shot and glittered in the dance. Oh, have you loved, and truly loved, and seen Aught else the while than your own stately queen ? 106 Como. Her presence it was majesty so tall ; Her proud development encompassed all. She filled all space. I sought, I saw but her. I followed as some fervid worshipper. Adown the dance she moved with matchless pace. The world my world moved with her. Suddenly I questioned who her cavalier might be. Twas he ! His face was leaning to her face ! I clutched my blade ; I sprang ; I caught my breath, And so stood leaning still as death. And they stood still. She blushed, then reached and tore The lily as she passed, and down the floor She strewed its heart like bits of gushing gore. Twas he said, heads not hearts were made to break. He taught me this that night in splendid scorn. I learned too well. The dance was done. Ere morn We mounted he and I but no more spake. And this for woman s love ! My lily worn In her dark hair in pride to be thus torn And trampled on for this bold stranger s sake ! Two men rode silent back toward the lake. Two men rode silent down, but only one Rode up at morn to greet the rising sun. Coma. 107 The walls are steep, The waves are deep ; And if the dead man should be found By red-clad fishers in their round, ^ Why, who shall say but he was drowned ? FROM DUSK TO DAWN. JOHN SAVAGE. {Read by the Author?) have waited through the gloaming, And have heard the evening chime, While the songful river roaming, To my beating heart kept time, I have watched the stars appearing, Lighting up their heav nly home, But no star to me came cheering, For my darling did not come. Ah ! how gloomy seemed the bower, Wanting Love s melodious tune ; O er the ivy-shrouded tower Rose the love-befriending moon ; But no beam my fond hopes lightened Though I watched till mornings hum, And the dawn no pathway brightened For my darling did not come. MRS. LOFTY AND I. MRS. GILDER SLEEVE LONGSTREET. (Sung by Mrs. Florence Rice Knojc.) RS. LOFTY keeps a carriage ; So do I. She has dapple grays to draw it ; None have I. She s no prouder with her coachman, Than am I With my blue-eyed laughing baby, Trundling by. I hide his face lest she should see The cherub-boy and envy me. Her fine husband has white fingers ; Mine has not. He can give his bride a palace ; Mine a cot. Hers comes home beneath the starlight, Ne er cares she. Mine comes in the purple twilight, Kisses me, no Mrs. Loftv and I. And prays that He who holds life s sands Will keep His loved ones in His hands. Mrs. Lofty has her jewels ; So have I. She wears hers upon her bosom ; Inside I. She will leave hers at death s portals Bye-and-Bye ; I shall bear the treasure with me When I die. For I have love and she has gold, She counts her wealth, mine can t be told, She has those who love her station ; None have I. But I ve one true heart beside me, Glad am I ; I d not change it for a kingdom, No ! not I ; God will weigh it in His balance, Bye-and-bye ; And then the difference will define Twixt Mrs. Lofty s wealth and mine. CHILDREN. (BY A SUFFERING AND IRATE BACHELOR.) MRS. BARROW.* (Read by the A ut/ior.) GETS and painters in all ages have combined to laud and magnify the matchless virtues of children. They represent them as little cherubs who have left their wings in heaven, angels of milk and cream, whom contact with the world can never turn sour. They have deluded many unoffending innocents into assuming the duties of paternity, and horresco referens ! it is a crime not provided for by law. For, unfortunately, the real child does not in the least resemble these flights of fancy. He is simply a two-legged animal, with a big head, who is forever in mischief, and hor rifies the company with astounding questions : " Mr. Smith, who will set the North River on fire ? My mamma says you never will. Mr. Brown, look at my legs ; they are not like knitting needles, are they ? Sister Helen says yours are." * Aunt Fannv. 112 Children. A certain great man being asked whether he liked chil dren, replied : " Yes, madam, at eight o clock, for then they are sent to bed ; and when they are naughty, for then they are taken out of the room." Even sweet and genial Charles Lamb, when asked how he liked babies, answered : " Boiled, madam." What unspeakable trouble, what unparalleled disorder is occasioned by these baptized little demons ? One can neither think, work, nor converse, when they are present. They choose the moment when you are battering your brains for a rhyme to " uncle," to sound a deafening blast on their tin trumpets ; they beat their drums and hurrah when you are solving a problem ; they scratch the furniture with pins and nails ; and take as much pleasure in upsetting your fine china and listening to the crash as monkeys, to which family, in fact, they belong. If the portrait of your affianced rests upon the easel, they will watch their oppor tunity and paint a mustache upon her face with the French blacking. To make a paper boat they will help themselves to your railroad bonds, your family deeds, your most private and valuable papers. In spite of your watchfulness, they will run off with your false hair, to show to the minister in the parlor who has come to visit you ; and loudly clamor for a set of teeth set in gold, " which can be taken out and Children. 113 put in at pleasure, like auntie s," for a Christmas present. They will tie a tin pan to the tail of your favorite dog, and carry the cat round by her caudal appendage, or, as they call it, " by her handle." They will pull a hair out of your horse s mane to fasten to their fish-hooks, and escape being kicked to death by a miracle. If you take a small boy to a place of amusement and say that he is six years old, my ambitious young gentleman will shout out, " No, no ; I am seven ; I am not a child," and you have to pay full price for him. But this is not the worst. Children are our spies, our enemies, our denunciators. They observe everything with watchful eyes. Nothing escapes them. The monsters ! One learns to tremble at their vicinity ! With their pre tended innocence and candor they betray the secrets of the kitchen, the parlor, the boudoir, the toilet. Bridget in the kitchen hides away eggs, flour, and sugar, to take to her family, and gives a bottle of her master s ale to the police man at the door. Does she think that no one sees her ? futile idea ! Little Johnny tells all about it that same eve ning at the dinner-table. Afterward, in the drawing-room, he discovers to the disenchanted, discouraged lover the little box from whence is derived the lovely bloom on his sweetheart s cheek, and chuckles as he betrays the cotton lies of her corsage. He pulls out of the lover s pocket the ii4 Children. whisker dye, which makes the admired whiskers and curling mustache so glossy and black ; and he takes infinite care to tell every visitor all the depreciating things which have been said of him on previous occasions. What indignation, what separations, what direful catas trophes, have not these bandits in jackets and petticoats caused by their unexpected tattlings ! And how much do they care,? Children are naturally ferocious they delight in cruelty ; they pluck out flies wings ; they bury rabbits alive ; they play at hanging ; they stab their dolls, and dance around with glee to see the saw-dust blood flowing ; and thus, naturally, it is never of an unimportant subject that they babble ; it is always of something dangerous, as they sit on the lap or dance on the knees of their victims. Everybody has read the anecdote of the fond mamma, who called her little girl in to play on the piano for the en tertainment of the great Dr. Johnson : ; That piece was very difficult of execution," she sim pered, as the child finished. " And would to God it had been impossible " roared the irate Dr. Johnson. Make a note of this, ye exhibiting mammas. Call your drawing-rooms " Tommy Tiddler s Ground ; " inva sion upon which will be followed by consequences too dire to specify. Padlock the nursery door when you have com- Children. pany to dinner, talk in unknown tongues when the children are present, if you wish to communicate anything confiden tial. These rules, with frequent washings, occasional whip pings, and keeping entirely out of sight, are all that is need ed to make your darlings as charming to others as they are to you. IN SCHOOL-DAYS. JOHN G. WHITTIER. (Recited by Miss Florence Newton.} TILL sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning ; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry vines are running. Within, the master s desk is seen, Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife s carved initial ; The charcoal frescos on its wall ; The door s worn sill, betraying the feet That, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing ! Long years ago, a winter s sun Shone over it at setting ; Lit up its western window-panes And low eaves icy fretting. In School-days. 117 It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled ; His cap pulled low upon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. Pushing with restless feet the snow To right and left, he lingered ; As restlessly her tiny hands A blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand s light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing. "I m sorry that I spelt the word : I hate to go above you, Because," the brown eyes lower fell, " Because, you see, I love you !" n8 In School-days. Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing ! He lives to learn, in life s hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, because they love him. THE FADING ROSEBUD. MRS. MARY DANA SHINDLER. (Read by the A utkor.) HAD a lovely rosebud Just opening full and free, I placed it on my bosom And fair it was to see ; My heart was proudly swelling, When every passer by Admired my beauteous flower That blosom d but to die. Awhile it gaily flourish d Nursed by affection s dew, And every passing hour More beautiful it grew ; Each tender leaf, unfolding, A brilliant hue display d, I thought a lov lier flower Was surely never made. 120 The Fading Rosebud. One day I saw it drooping, It leaned upon my breast ; With paleness, and with trembling, I saw it sink to rest ; I knew not it was dying, Though paler still it grew, And I vainly strove to save it By all that love could do. " Oh, must I lose my Rosebud, The only one I have ? Is there no skilful gardner My precious flower to save ? " Vain, vain, was all my praying, A worm was at the core, And, drooping on my bosom, It wither d more and more. At length I heard a whisper " Oh, suffer it to come To me, the Heavenly Gardner, And I will take it home. In my fair garden growing, Are many buds like thine ; In bright, celestial beauty, Sweet flowers, how they shine ! " The Fading Rosebud. 121 I raised my tearful eyelids, And lo ! a form of light, Just like the risen Jesus, Then met my wond ring sight ; And while I strove to tell Him That He might take it home, Again I heard Him saying, " Oh, suffer it to come ! " The glory round Him shining Spread heavenly light afar, And, in each hand extended, I saw the fatal scar ; Then, too, I saw, with anguish, The wound upon His side ; By those sad marks I knew him, Twas he the Crucified ! Then, with heart-breaking sorrow, I kiss d my faded flower, A long farewell I gave it, That well-remember d hour ; One dark and painful struggle Now rack d my tortur d mind, And then, with sighs and weeping, My rosebud I resign d. 122 The Fading Rosebud. Twas folded to His bosom, And, as He placed it there, I saw new life returning Beneath his fostering care ; And, though I felt so lonely And throb d my heart with pain, I dared not, and I wished not, To call it back again. And then the loving Jesus Cast such a look on me, And said to me so sweetly, " Fear not, I ll comfort thee," That I all calmly waited To see them take their flight, Till, in a flood of glory, They vanished from my sight. A ROYAL PRINCESS. CHRISTINA G. ROSETTI. (Recited by Anna Randall Diehl.) A PRINCESS, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest, Would rather be a peasent with her baby at her breast, For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the West. Two and two my guard behind, two and two before, Two and two on either hand, they guard me evermore ; Me, poor dove, that must not coo, eagle that must not soar. All my fountains cast up perfumes, all my gardens grow Scented woods and foreign spices, with all flowers in blow That are costly, out of season, as the seasons go. All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace Self to right-hand, self to left-hand, self in every place ; Self-same solitary figure, self-same seeking face. Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon, Almost like my father s chair, which is an ivory throne ; There I sit uplifted and upright, there I sit alone. 124 A Royal Princess. Alone by day, alone by night, alone days without end ; My father and my mother give me treasures, search and spend O my father ! O my mother ! have you ne er a friend ? As I am a lofty princess, so my father is A lofty king, accomplished in all kingly subtilties, Holding in his strong right-hand world-kingdoms balances. He has quarreled with his neighbors, he has scourged his foes ; Vassal counts and princes follow where his pennon goes, Long-descended valiant lords whom the vulture knows, On whose track the vulture swoops, when they ride in state To break the strength of armies and topple down the great : Each of these my courteous servant, none of these my mate. My father, counting up his strength, sets down with equal pen So many head of cattle, head of horses, head of men ; These for slaughter, these for labor, with the how and when. Some to work on roads, canals ; some to man his ships ; Some to smart in mines beneath sharp overseers whips ; Some to trap fur-beasts in lands where utmost winter nips. Once it came into my heart and whelmed me like a flood, That these too are men and women, human flesh and blood ; Men with hearts and men with souls, though trodden down like mud. A Royal Princess. 125 Our feasting was not glad that night, our music was not gay ; On my mother s graceful head I marked a thread of gray, My father, frowning at the fare, seemed every dish to weigh. I sat beside them, sole princess in my exalted place, My ladies and my gentlemen stood by me on the dais : A mirror showed me I look old and haggard in the face ; It showed me that my ladies all are fair to gaze upon, Plump, plenteous-haired, to every one love s secret lore is known. They laugh by day, they sleep by night ; ah me, what is a throne ? The singing men and women sang that night as usual, The dancers danced in pairs and sets, but music had a fall, A melancholy windy fall, as at a funeral. Amid the toss of torches to my chamber back we swept ; My ladies loosed my golden chain ; meantime I could have wept To think of some in galling chains whether they walked or slept. I took my bath of scented milk, delicately waited on, They burned sweet things for my delight, ceder and cinnamon, They lit my shaded silver lamp and left me there alone. A day went by, a week went by. One day I heard it said : " Men are clamoring, women, children, clamoring to be fed ; Men, like famished dogs, are howling in the streets for bread." 126 A Royal Princess, So two whispered by my door, not thinking I could hear, Vulgar, naked truth, ungarnished for a royal ear ; Fit for cooping in the background, not to stalk so near. But I strained my utmost sense to catch this truth, and mark : There are families out grazing like cattle in the park." " A pair of peasants must be saved, even if we build an ark." A merry jest, a merry laugh, each strolled upon his way ; One was my page, a lad I reared and bore with day by day ; One was my youngest maid, as sweet and white as cream in May. Other footsteps followed softly with a weightier tramp ; Voices said : " Picked soldiers have been summoned from the camp To quell these base-born ruffians who make free to howl and stamp." " Howl and stamp ?" one answered : " they made free to hurl a stone At the minister s state coach, well aimed and stoutly thrown." ; There s work, then, for the soldiers, for this rank crop must be mown." " One I saw, a poor old fool with ashes on his head, Whimpering because a girl had snatched his crust of bread ; Then he dropped ; when some one raised him, it turned out he was dead." " After us the deluge," was retorted with a laugh : " If bread s the staff of life, they must walk without a staff." " While I ve a loaf they re welcome to my blessing and the chaff." A Royal Princess. 127 These passed the king. " Stand up," said my father with a smile : " Daughter mine, your mother comes to sit with you awhile, She s sad to-day, and who but you her sadness can beguile ?" He too left me. Shall I touch my harp now while I wait (I hear them doubling guard below before our palace gate), Or shall I work the last gold stitch into my veil of state ; Or shall my woman stand angl read some unimpassioned scene ? There s music of a lulling sort in words that pause between ; Or shall she merely fan me while I wait here for the Queen ? Again I caught my father s voice in sharp words of command : " Charge !" a clash of steel : " Charge again : the rebels stand. Smite and spare not, hand to hand ; smite and spare not, hand to hand." There swelled a tumult at the gate, high voices waxing higher ; A flash of red reflected light lit the cathedral spire ; I heard a cry for faggots, then I heard a yell for fire. " Sit and roast there with your meat, sit and bake there with your bread, You who sat to see us starve," one shrieking woman said : " Sit on your throne and roast with your crown upon your head." 128 A Royal Princess. Nay, this thing will I do while my mother tarrieth, I will take my fine spun gold, but not to sew therewith, I will take my gold and gems and rainbow fan and wreath ; With a ransom in my lap, a king s ransom in my head, I will go down to this people, will stand face to face, will stand Where they curse king, queen, and princess of this cursed land. They shall take all to buy them bread, take all I have to give ; I, if I perish, perish : they to-day shall eat and live ; I, if I perish, perish ; that s the goal I half conceive : Once to speak before the world, rend bare my heart and show The lesson I ha.ve learned, which is death, is life, to know I, if I perish, perish ; in the name of God I go. THE COWS ARE IN THE CORN. SUNG BY MRS. BELLE COLE. ]H father s gone to market-town, He was up before the day, And Jamie s hunting robin s nests, And the man is making hay, And whistling up the hollow goes The boy that minds the mill, While mother from the kitchen door Is calling with a will, "Polly ! Polly ! The cows are in the corn." From off the misty morning air There comes a sudden sound, A murmur as of water comes From ship and tree and ground, The birds are singing on the wing, The pigeons bill and coo, And o er hill and valley rings Again the loud halloo, " Polly ! Polly ! The cows are in the corn." The Cows are in the Corn. Tis strange at such a time of day The mill should stop its clatter, The farmer s wife is listening now And wonders what s the matter, And wild the birds are singing In the woodland on the hill, While whistling, up the hollow goes The boy that minds the mill, " Polly ! Poly ! The cows are in the corn, THE FISH-BALL. ROBERT K. MUNKITTRICK. (Read by the Author.) JET poets sing The chicken s wing, And buckwheat cakes and griddle fishes, And side by side Place lobster fried, Pork chops and other comic dishes ; But yet unto my dying day, While o er my reason I am lord, I ll stand before the world and say : " The fish-ball is its own reward ! " I m fond of ham, And crimson jam, And macaroni crowned with bacon ; Yet while I sigh For cake and pie, My faith in clams remains unshaken ; The Fish-ball. But when my fancy s running wild, And I m by no gay lark out-soared, I preach to woman, man, and child, " The fish-ball is its own reward !" O gay marine You re often seen Nailed up against a door or shutter ; The little boy Just jumps with joy To see you served with milk and butter. Oh ! dwelt I far beyond the sea, By fifty thousand girls adored, The motto of my soul would be : " The fish-ball is its own reward !" O noble cod ! To you I nod ; You make me sad and meditative ; When toned with wine You re quite divine Unto the Massachusetts native. Oh ! when I m old, and bent, and gray, With wholesome morals richly stored, I ll boldly face the world and say : " The fish-ball is its own reward ! " POE S HOUSE AT FORDHAM. MRS. MARTHA J. LAMB. (Read by the Author.} [HERE is Fordham ? The very question I asked of Sophomoros. " Is it possible that you do not know ? " he re plied, deferentially at first, but growing insufferably pom pous as he proceeded ; " how singular that any one who has studied the geography of the different countries of the world through actual travel should be obliged to come down to first principles, and institute home researches ! Fordham is an inconspicuous portion of New- York City, a few miles north of Harlem River." "Thank you," I said meekly: "I was aware of that fact in a general way, but it being a place, like some faces, which never made special impression upon my memory, I am not able to locate it with precision. How may it be reached ? " " Variously ; chiefly by steam and horse-cars. Boats do not run up there yet. It is not so much their fault as 134 Poes House at Fordham. their inability to navigate dry land. Have you any violent call in that direction ? " " I wish to visit the home of Edgar Allan Poe, and if the steam-cars are available I will go this morning." Sophomoros made investigations, and announced that there was a train at a quarter-past nine. As I was hurrying to catch it, he overtook me, panting, and exclaimed : " It is the Harlem Railroad cars you want. I will show you to them." " And why not the New-Haven ? " I asked, as we threaded our weary way through the labyrinth of appar ently endless uncertainties inside the Grand Central Depot. " Because they won t let you off at Fordham. They would never dare go tooting through New-England again if they lowered their intense respectability by stopping at so insignificant a station." "Where arejiw going ! " the train was moving, and I spoke excitedly instead of interrogatively, for I had an in tuition that Sophomoros, after the reckless manner of col lege boys, contemplated a jump in front of old Columbia. " To the home of the poet. I may as well. I have no recitations of importance to-day, and I would really like to see where my personal benefactor resided," he replied. " Personal benefactor ? " I repeated. Poes House at Fordham. 135 " But there was no time for explanations. An old lady pushed into the seat beside me, and Sophomoros, who was standing, walked to the end of the car and looked through the door at the prospect. Into the tunnel, out again, through dark passages, over bridges, past groves and cot tages, and in less than thirty-five minutes the ride was accomplished. Then came a walk of nearly half a mile. We crossed the railroad track, and a wide, dusty street, paused at the door of a little twelve-foot cube real-estate office, for specific directions, and then ascended a pictu resque hill, upon the very backbone of which stands the house where Poe wrote "The Raven." I approached it with a feeling of reverence. I hardly knew which struck me the more forcibly, its diminutive size or its quaint antiquity. The gable-end is partially sheltered from the street by an aged cherry-tree, with wide-spreading branches, and pear and apple trees of a former generation hover about on its other sides, like sentinels on duty. The fence which incloses both house and grounds is lined with lilac and currant bushes. Pushing open a little gate, we stepped gently over the walk and upon a low veranda which decorates the south front. " Grandma ! grandma !" cried a voice from an invisible source, "somebody s come." Presently a feeble-looking woman, wearin the inevita- 136 Poes House at Fordham. ble cap and spectacles of eighty, hobbled around the cor ner from the kitchen, and in answer to my modest inquiries, said : " Oh, I don t know. She can tell you all about it when s/ie comes. She won t be long away. There she is, now," directing my glance to a young woman, who was coming up the street with her arms full of parcels. " She was undoubtedly the mistress of the mansion. As soon as she learned the object of my visit she went round and opened the little narrow door from the inside, and admitted us to a low, square parlor. " This is the room where Mr. Poe did his writing," she said, with an air of justifiable pride in the felicitous posses sion. " We have not been here long enough to fix up the place much. It s dreadfully out of repair. The chimney smokes so that we can hardly stay in the kitchen. There are two rooms on this floor and two rooms above, but the house is full of little closets and nooks, and more roomy than it seems." She was picking up and putting away various articles that were lying on the chairs, and certainly did open doors in most unexpected places. But a mist circled about me, and I lost sight of her altogether. Another presence seem ed to prevade the apartment. A tall, lithe, graceful, manly figure, with a classic head well poised, a handsome pale face, Poes House at Fordham. 137 over which a smile seldom played, and large, dark, variably- expressive eyes, looking grave and tender melancholy, or shooting fiery tumult, according to his mood. A brilliant but erratic star. A genius, perhaps not of the highest order, but none the less a genius. A poet who thrilled the world with many wondrous harmonies. An author of honorable position among leading creative minds. An artist in the use of words, with rare gifts of invention and expression. A critic who regarded an ambiguous sentence, a false rhyme, or a dull book, in the light of a high crime, and who brought down his lash with such a stinging cut that it always left a scar. A man excessively and essentially human, whose in firmities of character and disposition were the bane of his career, and the occasion of all manner of inglorious experi ences. There was a fitness, something even poetical, in the framework of his surroundings. Two windows to the north opened upon an exceptionally beautiful landscape in sum mer, and a wide expanse of immaculate snow in winter ; and two windows to the south swept the pretty garden and fields beyond. Thus there was no lack of sunlight to reveal the contradictory hauteur and sweetness in his ever-changeful countenance, as, sitting at the round table in the centre, he plied his ready pen ; and, in their season, the perfume of many flowers, and the music of birds and bees, filled the air which fanned his brow. 138 Pocs House at Fordham. " If you will walk up stairs I will show you the cham ber where Mr. Poe slept, and where they say his mother-in- law used to lock him up for days together," broke in upon my reverie. I followed my guide in resentful silence. Her reminder was inopportune, to say the least. Truth is less welcome than fiction when it turns the canvas so as to show that a monarch of marvellous intellectual powers and possibilities can be an abject slave to the miserable vice of drunkenness. Poe did not, as many suppose, do his fine work under the influence of stimulants, but he drank to excess periodically. One glass of wine, and his whole nature was reversed. All that was angelic within him became demoniac. His will was obviously, and for the time, irresponsibly insane. The chamber had a roofed ceiling, with a sharp point in the centre. At the east end was a high wooden mantle, with a small, square window on each side of it, and there was a little, one-paned window under the eaves to the south. For an instant Poe s " Philosophy of Furniture " flashed across my mind, and his words, " The soul of the room is the carpet ; a judge of common law may be an ordinary man ; a good judge of a carpet must be a genius," stood out in living colors upon the floor. Then my eye fell upon the door, with its queer, little, old-fashioned panels, and last century s latch two-thirds of the way to the top. Little Poe s House at Fordham. 139 weird lights danced about me, and a chord vibrated which filled my soul with pleasant mournfulness, as I saw before me the picture of the sad, haunted scholar, struggling with fate and memory, personated in the raven on the bust of Pallas above his chamber-door. The vision clung to me long after I had turned back to commonplaces and the head of the steep, winding staircase. I paused once more in the little study-parlor where Poe spent so many checkered hours. And again it seemed full of him the shrewd, arrogant, thoughtful, irreverent, cold, cynical, melancholy, versatile scholar him who, in his most eccentric vagaries, never committed an offense against rhe torical propriety ; him who, day after day, and month after month, with studious patience, analyzed the theory and re sources of versification ; him who, although not given to gushing spontaneity, was skilled in bringing the life and grace of his rhythm into dependence upon the spirit beneath. I found Sophomoros sitting upon a plateau of rock in the southeastern part of the grounds. It was large enough to accommodate a picnic-party, and was ornamented with moss, primroses, and blackberry-briers. It commanded a charming and imposing view of country scenery, from the Hudson River to Long-Island Sound. " What are you doing? " I inquired abstractedly. " Speculating in Fordham lots ; figuring in my mind 140 Poes House at Fordha?n. how New- York is going to look when it is finished with churches, colosseums, and hippodromes, as far as the eye can reach from this point. Bye-the-bye, Mr. Poe had rather a cheerful home here," he continued, regarding the cottage and its strip of land with marked attention. " I wonder if, in any of his most extravagant flights of fancy, he ever sus pected the city of designs upon his poetical quiet ? For my part, I cherish Foe s memory with gratitude because of the little twist it gave my future. You see I had about made up my mind to be a genius do a little of the fine frenzy myself. Then I blundered upon his Philosophy of Composition, and one glimpse of his picture of the vacil lating crudities of thought the true purpose seized at the last moment, the innumerable glimpses of ideas that never arrived at the maturity of a full view, the fully matur ed fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable, the cau tious selections and rejections, the painful erasures and interpolations, the wheels, the tackle, and scene-shifting, and step-ladders, and demon-traps was sufficient to con vince me that I should rather be a private citizen." " Do you know or remember all the points in Poe s his tory," I exclaimed with sudden energy. " He was born under the sunny skies of Virginia, and his inheritance was the strange waywardness which has made his life a puzzle and a mystery to the world. He was left an orphan in child- Poes House at Fordham. 141 hood ; was adopted by a man of wealth ; was petted ; educated ; furnished with unusual facilities for study and travel ; supplied freely with money, and, unrestrained either by sound principle or discipline, acquired luxurious, disso lute, and reckless, instead of business habits ; and, when his large expectations vanished through his not having been named in the will of his so-called benefactor, he found himself illy able to cope with the necessities of exist ence. He turned to literature without profound literary motives, and he had no tact in converting mental fruits into bank-accounts. His whole course was up-hill, and there was a drag attached to him." We left the rock at length and went back to the house, but it was only to ask for water from the well with its old- fashioned curb and windlass and very cranky crank. " That was Mr. Poe s cow-house over there," said the young woman, as she drew up the bucket, pointing with one hand toward a little stone inclosure some six feet square in the side of the lodge. Some chickens were playing about it, and a few clambering vines hung over the half-tumbling wall in a disappointed kind of way, as if regretting the roof which time had demolished. The mid-day sunbeams were dancing riotously among the trees and shrubs and newly-made flower beds as we took a long, lingering, and mute farewell of the poetical dwell- 142 Poes House at Fordham. ing-place, so fruitful in associations. He of the holy min strelsy has slept his last sleep for a quarter of a century, but his world-wide reputation will only brighten and deepen as the years roll on. " Hark ! " interrupted Sophomoros, " do you not hear the bells?" "The past lies buried, but the poet s bells How they ring ! " " Silver bells, What a world of merriment their melody foretells, How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, On the icy air of night ! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight Keeping time, time, time, . In a sort of Runic rhyme To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells/bells, bells, From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells." Sophmoros had risen to his feet and was looking above and around him as he recited. " Hark ! " he said, " the air is full of bells ! " " The mellow wedding bells Golden bells, Poes House at Fordham. 143 What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ; What a gush of sentiment voluminously wells On the moon, All in tune ; How it wells How it swells How it dwells On the future ! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the ringing and the swinging Of the bells, bells, bells. " Hear the loud alarum bells ! Brazen bells ! What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells ! In the startled hour of night How they scream out their affright ! Too much horrified to speak They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune " No ! the world is not on fire to-day : it is neither the alarum nor the " " Tolling bells, That a world of pleasant thought their Melody compels, 144 Poes House at Fordham. And yet the people, oh the people They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Take delight in so rolling On* the human heart a stone They are beating time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells To the sobbing of the bells ; Oh the people In that steeple, Keeping time, time, time, In a pretty Runic rhyme To the rolling of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells To the tolling of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells." Was it the voice of the laughing boy, or actual bells which died away in the musical cadency upon the soft sum mer breeze ? A RHYME OF THE RAIN. ROSSITER JOHNSON. (Read by the A uthor.} |IKE a blotch upon a beauty, Comes a cloud across the sky ; Like an unrelenting duty, Fall the rain-drops from on high ; Like death upon a holiday, Like sleigh-ride upon wheels, Like jilting on a jolly day, Like medicine at meals, Sets in a storm preposterous, Of every plan the bane ; Now sullen, and now boisterous, Malicious, mean, or roisterous, But always moist and moisture-ous, Forever on the gain, And never on the wane, Bringing sudden consternation, And a long-drawn botheration. To the men upon the house-top, and the cattle in the plain. 146 A Rhyme of the Rain. How it pours, pours, pours, In a never-ending sheet ! How it drives beneath the doors ! How it soaks the passer s feet ! How it rattles on the shutter ! How it rumples up the lawn ! How twill sigh, and moan, and mutter, From darkness until dawn ! - Making human life a burden, Making joy a flimsy wile, Making bondage seem a guerdon In the rainless fields of Egypt, by the clever river Nile. Yet how pleasantly the rain, With its delicate refrain, May sing away the sultriness of summer day or night ! Set the drooping grass a-springing, And the robin s throat a-ringing, Fill the meadow-lands with verdure, and the hills with glistening light ! Or in April, fickle-hearted, Ere the chill has quite departed, A Rhyme of the Rain. 747 That the frosts, and the snows, and the howling winds have brought, When all the signs of gladness Take a sombre tinge of sadness, For days and deeds that come no more, and dreams that fell to naught ! Then, in half-unwelcome leisure, Tis a sort of solemn pleasure To sit beside the ingle, Or to lie beneath the shingle, And listen to the patter of the rain, rain, rain, To the drip, drip, drip, And the patter, patter, patter, On the roof, and the shutter, and the pane, pane, pane. But whether night or daytime, In harvest-time or play-time, And whether pour or patter, The early rain or latter Reigns over human purpose, and plays with human fears Sets mighty armies shouting, Sends little Cupid pouting, Turns trusting into doubting, And triumph into tears. I4 8 A Rhyme of the Rain. Oh ! sadly I remember One treacherous September, When the autumn equinoctial came a week or so too soon. I had started, with a cousin, For the church, among a dozen Maids and matrons who were airing The fall styles, and gayly wearing The very newest, sweetest thing in bonnets neath the moon. And midway of the journey, Like a thousand knights in tourney, The levelled lances of the rain drove furious at our breast ; And the fall styles fell and wilted, On the dames so proudly kilted, And by sudden transformation worse than worst became the best. Though I now am sere and yellow, I was then a valiant fellow, And esteemed it more a joy to serve the ladies than to live. Imagine, then, my feelings, Mid the shrinkings and the squealings, A Rhyme of the Rain. 149 When my water-proof umbrella proved a sieve, sieve, sieve ! When my shiny new umbrella proved a sieve ! What a sorry lot of mortals Sat within the sacred portals, In their mermaid millinery looking sad, sad, sad ! Nothing dry except the sermon, Which discoursed on dews of Hermon And the streams which, saith the Scripture, do make glad, glad, glad ! So the preacher praised the waters To those mothers, wives, and daughters, Every dripping, draggled one of whom was mad, mad, mad ! And my bright and handsome cousin, Sweetest girl among the dozen, Or among a dozen dozen you might meet along the way, Then a hopeful, sprightly lassie, Now, I fear, a little passee, Dates the ruin of her chances from that rainy Sabbath-day. She had spent her last round dollar For the bonnet, gloves, and collar A Rhyme of the Rain. That should have proved effective on the smart young pulpiteer ; But he rode home in the carriage Of her rival, and their marriage Was solemnized (my cousin s word) in less than half a year. But gladly I remember One crimson-hued September, When we strayed along the hedges and within the gorgeous wold ; A merry autumn party Of men and maidens hearty, Rejoicing in the foliage of scarlet and of gold ; And ere we thought of turning, Or saw a sign of warning, We heard upon the fallen leaves the footsteps of the rain. Away went rules conventional ! And I, with haste intentional, Just clapped my good old broad-brim on the head of Annie Blaine. That extemporized umbrella Threw cold water on a fellow Who was courting, in a lazy sort of way, Miss Annie Blaine ; A Rhyme of the Rain. 151 While it made me quite a gallant, And a fine young man of talent, In the eyes and estimation of the beauteous Annie Elaine. In the dreamy summer haze Of my far-off boyish days, I had chased the luring butterfly across the grassy plain ; But I never threw my hat O er a prize so fair as that When it sheltered, caught, and gave me, the lovely Annie Elaine. And I ve blessed that gentle rain Again and yet again, For the flowers it set blooming in my life ; For the crimson and the gold That adorn the little fold Where I find an autumn shelter with my wife. OLD HULDAH. E. NORMAN GUNNISON. (Recited by Julia Thomas. ) HE fisherman stood all day by the beach Stood where the breakers thundered in And heard the sound of the sea-bird s screech, And dash of waves on the rocks of Lynn. " The storm is fierce," said the fisher old ; " And the wind is wild," the fisher said, " The rocks are sharp, and the shore is bold, Where the p int makes out from Marblehead. " And ev ry ship that is now at sea, Bound in to Lynn or to Marblehead, Must keep the light three p ints on the lee, Or be wrecked." So the fisher said. But not a pilot ventured out The storm was fierce and the wind was wild, And the daring pilot, swart and stout Still thought of home and his wife and child Old Huldah. 153 Thought of them both as the wind made moan, The wind made moan to the breaker s shock ; For the world is hard to the left alone- Harder than any New-England rock. So the fisher waited by the shore, Hearing the waves and the breaker s din, And just at dusk, mid the tempests roar, The good ship Etna came sailing in. Staysails set and her courses furled, Close-reefed topsail upon her main To and fro was the good ship hurled Over the ocean s watery plain, Plain no longer, for mountain waves Broke the sea into furrows vast ; The white-caps rose over countless graves As the tempest thundered past. Up spoke Huldah, the fisher s wife ; Brown old dame of the fishing-coast, " Where s the pilot ! Every life Is saved if he keeps his post." ! S4 Old Huldah. " There is no pilot at sea to-night," Said Abner Jackson, the skipper s son, While over the water came the light And booming crash of a signal-gun. " Heavens ! They are fetching past the land- Past the p int ; they will strike the rock ! " Said Jothan Davis. Close at hand Came a crash and a rending shock. " Man the life-boat ! " No man stirred : - Over the din of wind and wave, Over the tempest s strife, was heard Save ! but no human hand could save. Clinging to the wave-washed deck, Men and women in wild despair Sent their pleading from off the wreck, Shuddering on the startled air. Then spoke Huldah, the fisher s wife " Does not a man to save them dare ! Will ye stand for a worthless life While they cry in their wild despair ? Old Huldah. 155 " Shame on ye men ! A woman s hand Shall do the deed ye dare not try ! Who ll go with me from off the land ?" " I will ! and I ! and I ! and I ! There they stood in the dying light, Down by the boat with oars in hand, Five brave women a braver sight Never before was seen on land. Up spoke gruffly Old Fisher Ben, Scarred old Triton of the sea ; " Man that boat ! Such a sight, my men, Never on earth was seen by me. "All we can do at worst is die, Better die," the old Triton said, "Than to live as cowards neath the eye Of the women of Marblehead." Abner Jackson then stepped out, Jothan Davis, and Skipper Ben, Bijah Norcross and Ireson Stout That, they felt was the place for men. 156 Old Huldah. Out past the point, where, mountain-high, Crested billows in foam were tost, Sometimes plain on the stormy sky, Sometimes hidden, and sometimes lost, Round the point on the stormy wave They reach the rock and gain the wreck Every life they seek to save Safe is taken from off the deck. And now strain hard, the goal is near, Each hand presses a bending oar, Shout, O fishermen ! cheer on cheer Shout, for they have reached the shore, Shout for the women of Marblehead ! MAID OF ATHENS. LORD BYRON. (Sung by Mr. William Courtney.} AID of Athens ere we part Give, oh, give me back my heart ; Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest : By those tresses unconfmed, Wooed by each y-Egean wind, By those lids whose jetty fringe Kiss thy soft cheek s blooming tinge By those wild eyes like the roe, Hear rny vow before I go. Maid of Athens ! I am gone ; Think of me, sweet, when alone, Tho I fly to Istamboul, Athens holds my heart and soul. MARY STUART AND MARIE ANTOINETTE* MISS MINNIE SWAYZE. (Read by the Author. ) |HE execution of the Queen of the Scots has been so many times described, painter and poet and historian have so often delineated it, that it is as familiar to most readers as a nursery tale. The cold, gray morning breaks over the castle where, after sixteen years of prison pining, the wayward Queen has come at last to the end of her perturbed life. All then, or almost all, is finished she is telling her last beads, she is murmuring her last prayers, she is writing the last pages which the weary hand shall ever trace. All her plots and plans, all the allurements of her beauty, all the sweet fascinations of a tongue which had misled to ruin so many gallant gentlemen, are over now. Shrewsbury and Kent have come down with the war rant of execution. She has " thanked God that her suffer ings are now so near an end." As a last effort of a grace which never failed her, she has drained one cup of wine to her weeping servants. With a woman s fastidiousness, she * Extract from a lecture on " Woman in the Purple." Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. 159 has made her last toilette ; not now to lure princes, not now to beguile embassadors, not now to please the gallant who for the time has arrested her fleeting fancy. Earthly courts and kings are nothing to her now she stands upon the threshold of the final and greatest tribunal she is soon to come into the presence of an omnipotent and omniscient Judge. She whose girlhood was spent in the joyous levity of French palaces, has, after only forty-four years of life and of such a life ! come to her last hour and such an hour ! to the grim and ghastly end of all. She died as she had lived beautiful but inflexible, with something of the scenic brilliancy which she loved grave but still grace ful queen and lady to the last ! Through all the strange drama of the French Revolu tion, almost from its cold philosophical morning to its im perial close, there glides a sweet and fascinating figure pale Austria s purple flower the ill-destined daughter of the Caesars There is an affecting story, when obsequious courtiers brought to the Dauphin and his girlish v/ife intelli gence of the demise of Louis the Fifteenth, that both fell upon their knees and besought the guidance of God " We are so young," they said, " to reign." It was as if there had come to them, through some mysterious influence, a foreboding of the fate awaiting them. It is hard to judge the conduct of any unhappy queen with cool and judicial 160 Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. accuracy it is especially hard when the penalty has been out of all proportion to her offenses. It was a feeling of the substantial and coarse injustice with which Marie Antoi nette had been treated by a nation making unusual preten- tions to chivalry and refinement, which inspired the magnifi cent rhetoric of Burke, and drew from him a tribute to her beauty and her sufferings which the pride and pomp of an unchallenged and cloudless reign could hardly have inspir ed. He had seen her at Versailles, " glittering like the morning star, full of life, splendor and joy," and in her fall his poetic nature read "the glory of Europe .extinguished forever." There is something startling in the contrast sug gested by the poetical Lamartine when he described her as "a real daughter of the Tyrol " the contrast between the noisome squalor of her prison, surrounded by the ruins of the monarchy, and the fresh, free air of the everlasting hills. There is hardly any biography so full as hers of incon gruous vicissitudes ; and perhaps no woman since the crea tion of the world ever suffered so much in the same way. When she was but a babe the storms of the Austrian mon archy raged about her cradle, and she was one of the chil dren exhibited by Maria Theresa in her sore and desperate strait to her loyal Hungarians. The neck which was severed by the cruel axe had been renowned throughout Europe for its elegance ; she who bent sadly in the ignominious cart Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. 161 on her way to the guillotine, had been remarkable for the grace of her movements ; the light brown hair which she cut off on that last dark morning, had grown gray with un speakable sorrow ; and the sovereign who had once been first of all her bright court in the taste and freshness of her toilette, made the journey from her dungeon to her doom in a tattered dress which her poor, thin fingers had striven in vain to darn into decency. It is hardly possible to read without indignant tears the narrative of the torture and the ignominy to which this lady was subjected. Her death might have been necessary for the Republic, but not this studied and ingenious insult, this purposeless and savage cruelty, this gratuitous and ghastly degradation. She had been at one period of her reign frivolous and perhaps undignified ; she had been a good wife but not a wise one ; her mistakes, many and im portant, cost her husband his throne and his life ; but her s had not been the vices which should provoke popular indig nation, nor hers the crimes which can be pleaded in ex tenuation of popular cruelty. On the contrary, there was much ip her conduct and character which would have ap pealed in her behalf to a mob only a little less frenzied and ferocious. Suddenly emancipated from the rigorous eti quette of the Austrian court, she relished the comparative freedom of Versailles, and perhaps thought too lightly, at a 162 Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. time when royalty was falling into disrepute, of the forms and modes and shows of state. For the rest, she was a good mother, a kind mistress and a constant friend. Yet with all the merits which these titles suggest, and with others which it is unnecessary to mention, it is impossible to deny that Marie Antoinette meddled with public affairs only to mar them, and made almost every mistake which circum stances rendered possible. She does not appear to have had the least genius for the business of reigning. Her in fluence over the King was unlimited, yet she brought him neither wisdom, policy nor success. She could never for get that at one time she had been popular. If she favored a reform to-day, she bitterly opposed it on the morrow. The nobility about her were naturally imprudent and head long she made them doubly so by her countenance and persuasions. At an hour when safety, peace, reconciliation and the perpetuity of the throne depended upon her doing nothing, she was specially busy ; and she persisted in obtrud ing herself, when her cooperation made failure a necessity. To invoke Austrian intervention \vas madness and she invoked it. To attempt flight was folly and *he at tempted it. To oppose the roaring tide of democratic innovation was death and she opposed it. While she sought to save the throne by conspiracies no better than back-stairs and bed-chamber intrigues, the gigantic destinies Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. 16 of the hour overwhelmed her and hers, and swept all away in a torrent of blood. We pity and we sympathize, but we cannot approve, and sometimes we cannot respect. We feel that the timidity and indecision of the king might have been profitably shared by this courageous woman. Destruction at last was in the false courage with which she inspired him, and her very efforts to preserve his dignity resulted in the most terrible of historical humiliations. The trial of the Queen, marked as it was by atrocious indignities, was probably harder for her to endure than the execution which opened to the weary prisoner the gates of Heaven and restored to her a murdered husband. Of these two scenes, each tragic in the extreme, the last is the least painful to consider. Both, however, melt and merge into each other for scant shrift was allowed the victim of hatred and popular insanity. She passed from the judgment-hall back to her prison, at four in the morning, just as day began to dawn, and sitting down, the most utterly lonely and forsaken of women, she wrote her last letter to her sister, asking nothing except that her orphans might be tenderly cared for. Then she prayed ; then for some hours she slept ; then awaking, she dressed herself for her death. Never had queen an humbler attendance, and never was tire-woman less needed by a queen. The daughter of her jailer helped her a little to adjust her hair. Then she 164 Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. threw off the black robe which she had worn since the death of Louis, and put on a poor, patched, threadbare gown of white. In her white cap she left a single black ribbon as the token of her widowhood. Thus arrayed for the guil lotine, she waited the summons, while the scum of Parisian women thronged about the gratings, thirsting for the blood of the Austrian. Her journey in the ignominious cart to the place of execution has been a hundred times described, and the least vivid description it is hardly possible to read without tears. The air was full of insulting cries " Live the Republic ! " " Place for the Austrian ! " " Room for the Widow Capet ! " The jolting of the cart for her poor hands were bound rendered it difficult for her to keep her seat. " These are not your cushions of Trianon," screamed the mob. No tears moistened her swollen eyes, until the cart stopped, for a moment, before the garden gate of the Tuilleries the scene of her royal greatness and then the scalding drops fell upon the knees above which her head was bending. Standing upon the platform awaiting her exe cutioner who trembled more than she did, she looked to wards the tower of the Temple where her children were ; " Adieu," she said, " I go to rejoin your father ! " Though she knelt and uttered a half audible prayer, something of the great soul of her mother animated her in that dread hour she seemed to despise her murderers and to be eager Mary Stuart and Marie Antoinette. 165 for her last moment. The axe falls ; France is forever dis honored ; put to shame forever in history, not by the crime of this needless outrage, but by the thousand hateful cir cumstances which attended it disgraced not by the deed itself, but by the savage mania which prohibited a natural remorse and a human grief at such a torture and at such a death. In the presence of so dark a fate, criticism pauses and censure is dumb, faults are forgotten and we think only of the wife, the widow and the mother. Hers was indeed the broadest and the bitterest revenge in history for no wild democrat of either sex raised hand or voice against her who will not be detested by the race to the end who will not be hated of women and abhorred of men, until time shall be no more. THE IRISHMAN S PANORAMA JAMES S. BURDETT. ADIES and gintlemen : In the foreground over thare yer ll observe Vinegar Hill, and should yer be goin by that way some day, yer moight be fatigued, an if yer ar yer ll foind at the fut o the hill a nate little cot kept by a man name McCarty, who, be the way, is as foine a lad as yor ll mate in a day s march. I see by the hasp on the door that McCarty s out, or I d take yes in an introduce yer. A foine, noble, ginerous fellar this McCarty, shure, an if he had but the wan peratie he d give yer half it, an phot s more, he d thank yer for takin it. (Move the crank, James. Music be the bagpipes, Larry.) Ladies an gintlemen : We ve now arrived at a beautiful shpot, situated about twinty moiles this side o Limerick. To the left over thare yer ll see a hut be the side of which is sated a lady an gintleman ; well, as I was goin that way wan day, the following conversation I heard twixt him an her. Says she to him : " James, it s a shame for yer to be ratin me so yer moind the time yer came to me father s castle a-beggin !" " Yer father s castle, me woife ? shure The Irishman s Panorama. 167 yer could shtand on the outside, stick yer arm down the chimney, pick peraties out o the pot, and divil a partition betwixt you and the hogs but shtraw ! (Move the crank, James, etc.) Ladies and gintlemen : We are now arrived at the beautiful and classical Lakes of Killarney. Thare s a curious legend connected wid dese lakes that I mus relate to yer. It is that every avenin , at foor o clock in the after noon, a beautiful swan is seen to make its appearance, and while movin along transcendently and glidelessly, ducks its limbs, skips under the water, and yer ll not see him again till the next afternoon. (Turn the crank, James, etc.) Ladies and gintleman : We have no arrived at another beautiful shpot, situated about thirteen an a half miles this side of Coruk. This is a grate place, noted for shportsmen, an phile shtopping over thare at the Hotel de Finney, the following tilt of a conversation occurred betwixt Mr. Mul- dooney, the waiter, and meself. I says to him, says I, " Mully, ould boy, will you have the kindness to fetch me in the mustard ?" an he was a long time bringin it, an I opportuned him for kapin me, and says he to me, says he, " Mr. McCune (that s me), I notice that you take a great dale of mustard wid your mate." " I do," says I. Says he. " I notice that you take a blame sight of mate wid your mustard." (Move the crank, James, etc.) 1 68 T/ie Irishmen? s Panorama. Ladies and gintlemen : Before I close my Panarammat I ll show you one more picture. While travelling in the States, some years ago, for the benefit of my health, I took the cars for Chin-chin-nat-ti, State of Oh ho-ho, on me way to Mont-real and Quebec- que, in Can-a-da down the river Saint Larry o mae, till a place called Buff-lo, after which 1 struck a party going about eighteen an a half miles north, till a place celebrated for its great waterfall, an called Ni-a-ga-ra. While passin , by the Falls wan evenin I overheard the followin remarks pass between a lady an gintleman. Says he to her, " Mary Ann," says he, " cast your eyes up on that ledge of rocks, and see that vast body of water a-rushin down over the precipice. Isn t that a great curiosity ?" " I know that," says she, " but fou dent it be a greater curiosity if they d all turn round and pass back again ?" (James, turn the crank. Larry, give us " Home, Swate Home.") FOR CUPID DEAD. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. (Read by the Author.} HEN love is dead, what more but funeral rites, To lay his sweet corse lovingly to rest, To cover him with rose and eglantine, And all fair posies that he loved the best ? What more, but kisses for his close-shut eyes, His cold, still lips that never more will speak, His hair, too bright for dust of death to dim, The flush scarce faded from his frozen cheek ? What more, but tears that will not warm his brow, Although they burn the eyes from whence they start ? No bitter weeping or more bitter words Can rouse to one more throb that pulseless heart. So dead he is, who once was so alive ! In summer, when the ardent days were long, He was as warm as June, as gay and glad As any bird that swelled its throat with song. So dead ! yet all things were his ministers, All birds and blossoms, and the joyous June : Would they had died, and kept sweet Love alive ! Since he is gone, the world is out of tune. FRONTISPIECE OF NEW-YEAR PROGRAMME, IOOI. NEW-YEAR GREETING. ISABELLA GRANT MEREDITH. (Read by the A nthor.} TEN-night since, I had a wondrous vision, A strange experience exceeding queer ! On me was laid a most peculiar mission, As I ll relate, an it please you to hear. Hush d was the solemn swell of the great organ, Fled the last echo of its symphony. Spell-bound by music s merlin Mr. Morgan, Who on the silent keys had turned the key. A sense of scents balsamic hover d round me ; Fir, hemlock, hollies, mystic mistletoes, With subtle magic wove a web around me ; You ll say that I was dreaming I suppose ! Tho Homer nod, not I, yet whiles I do muse, Ere night, mid Heaven s star-cressets sets her torch ; I would not you should think, like Goody Two-Shoes I fell asleep and dreaming in the church ! 1 7 2 New - Year Greeting. The Christmas-tide was spent : its pleasant phases Yet lingered, like a charm of tricksy sprites, Its wreathed smiles, and greens, its games, and graces, Its gifts, gauds, wassail, waits, and dear delights. Its joy that to the world was given a Master, A realmless King, a Prince without a crown, To whom, with gifts, gold, spice and alabaster, The orient kings in homage bowed them down. But twas a ten-night later, as aforesaid, When that unwonted sight my vision bless d ; What time, thro twilight skies, bright Venus coursed To cast herself upon the young moon s breast. A pretty babe was in his cradle lying ; Twelve stately dames the tender infant nurst ; Born was he, e en as the old year lay dying, At stroke of midnight, January first. His horoscope, cast by some old magician, Foretold him turbulent of stormy mood, Nathless, methought that baby, in my vision, All that there is of pleasant, sweet and good. New - Year Greeting, 173 Around him, lavish strown, lay many a blossom, The edelweis, and mystic roses blue, Twined close, and crush d against that tender bosom With -darksome sprays of melancholy yew. Methought his hands held largess of successes, Of orange garlands, laurel wreaths, and bays ; Meanwhile the dames amidst their fond caresses, Gossiped of this, and that all in his praise. His ancient lineage ; how, ere rocks Laurentian Were formed, it flourished, and in brilliance play d O er eozoic days, I scarce need mention Long ere the man of river-drift was made, Or that cave-denizen the first ascetic, Who cared for naught but fire, and flint, and bone ; Things comprehended well, by the ^Esthetic, But Greek and Hebrew unto me, I own. Up spake the child ; his sentiments invested In dialect all vowels, precious sweeting ! Which meant, interpreted, His Grace requested That I, to you, would bear his loving greeting. 174 New -Year Greeting. Sure, never was so wise a child, or witty ! He promised belles, boquets, balls, billets-doux, Wealth, wit, ^Esthetics, fame, to Jersey City, And wedding-wreaths, and rings to you know who ! He grieves the best gift gone she smiles before us ! The choicest bloom pluckt from his natal bower, In this pale princess of the Tuscaroras, Ka-tci-tci-sta-kwast, meaning "beauteous flower." This princess who has words more clear and clever Than my poor muse can either think or sing ; And, while I live, I never shall know never, Why she has also asked of me this thing. To give you greeting the new-year s kind greeting, For all the crowding hours that come anon, To wish you steadfast joys, your sorrows fleeting, And bid you God-speed, as your days go on. May the blue roses blossom for you, twining Bright bowers in fancy s realm that moon-loved maze ! The fair ideal of the soul enshrining, With glad to-morrows, and dear yesterdays. New - Year Greeting. 175 When wave the yew s funereal branches slender, O er some dark hour most full of grief and ill, May hope s star pierce the gloom, its ray of splendor With comfort fraught, and bringing blessing still. Time is my tedious rhyme should here have ending ; May all good things and pleasant with you dwell, Gifts, graces, blessedness, your days attending ; Thus, O my friends, I greet you. Fare-you-well ! 1881. BIRCH BARK BOWL. GOURD KETTLE. CORN HUSK BOTTLE. WEDDING CAKE IN CORN HUSK ENVELOPE. MYTHS OF THE IROQUOIS MRS. ERMINNIE A. SMITH. " Let us revere them These wildwood legends, Born of the camp-fire, Let them be handed Down to our children Richest of heirlooms. No land may claim them : They are ours only, Like our grand rivers Like our vast prairies, Like our dead heroes." ALDRICH. |HE instinctive desire in man to fathom the great mystery of human life ; to solve the enigma of " whence he came and whither he goeth ; " to com prehend the beginning and history of the dim, prehistoric past, and the more undefined future ; and to account for the marvels ever presented to his senses, has in all times excited the imagination and originated speculation. To account for all the phenomena of life and nature, the human mind has seized upon every analogy suggesting the slightest clue to their solution. In the statement of these analogies they have gradually become formulated into tales, or accounts of Myths of the Iroquois. 177 supposed events these only varying with the temperament of the narrator or the exigencies of the locality, where, oft repeated, they have in time been recorded on the hearts and minds of the people either as myths or folk-lore embodying the fossilized knowledge and ideas of a previous age, misin terpreted, perhaps, by those who have inherited them. For the ethnologist who would trace in mythology the growth of the human mind, nowhere in this direction is the harvest so rich and over-ripe as among the aborigines of our own country who have hardly passed the boundaries of the charmed mytheopic age ; and among these, none are as rich in this love of " faded metaphors " as their highest type, the Iroquois, with whom even the language containing this wealth of folk-lore will soon disappear lost through its contact with American civilization. To what dignity this folk-lore might have attained had these people been left to reach a lettered civilization for themselves, we cannot know ; but judging from the history of other peoples, their first chroniclers would have accepted as facts many of these oral traditions which none could have disproved and much tended to corroborate. For our grandfather Hih-nunh, the Thunderer, say they, was gifted with powers which he used solely for the benefit of mortals ; hand-in-hand with his brother, the West- Wind, he brought from the black clouds the vivifying rain 178 Myths of the Iroquois. and from his abode under the great Niagarian cataract (at that time a mighty cave reaching from shore to shore), he issued forth and with his crushing bolt destroyed the great sea monster which, poisoning the waters, sent abroad a deadly pestilence ; in proof of all this were not the bones of his victims, the giant lizards, often discovered ? When this earthly mission of Hih-nunh was accomplished, a power ful current of water destroyed his terrestrial home, the spacious watery cave, and he took up his abode in the sky. Then came the race of pygmies, small in stature but mighty in skill and deeds, who carved out the beauties of rock, cliff, and cave, and were endowed with the mightier power of destroying monster land-animals which infested the forest, endangering the life of man. And did not cliff, rock, and grotto attest the skill of that departed race, and did not the exhumed bones of giant animals bear as perfect witness to their former existence and power and the truth of this lore, as did the " Homo diluviae testis " of a century ago confirm the story of the deluge. The historian who treats of Rome does not disdain to tell us that its founder Romulus and his twin-brother were in their infancy thrown into the Tiber by order of Aumulius, but that the gods who had ordained his destiny stopped the river in its course and, sending the she-wolf to nourish the Myths of the Iroquois. 179 rescued infant, he was preserved to become the founder of Rome and of the Roman people. Josephus tells us that Japhet had seven sons, and from Ivan, the fairest, the Grecians were derived. The Hebrew race, reaching further into the past, claim Adam and Eve as their ancestors. So also the Iroquois has his ideas of an origin of the human race which includes also the creation of the Spirits of Good and Evil. It was in the great past when deep waters covered all the earth. The air was filled with birds and great monsters were in possession of the waters, when a beautiful woman was seen falling from the sky. Then huge ducks gathered in council and resolved to meet this wonderful creature and break the force of her fall. So they arose and, with pinion overlapping pinion, unitedly received the dusky burden. Then the monsters of the deep also gathered in council to decide which should receive this celes tial being and protect her from the terrors of the water, but none was able except a giant tortoise who volunteered to endure this lasting weight upon his back ; there she was gently placed, while he, constantly increasing in size, soon became a large island. Twin boys were at length given to the world s great mother one being, the Spirit of Good, who made all things good and caused the maize, fruit, and to bacco to grow ; the other was the Spirit of Evil, who created i8o Myths of the Iroqiiois. the thistle and all vermin. Ever the world was increasing in size, although occasional quakings were felt, caused by the efforts of the monster tortoise to stretch out his extensors, or by the contraction of his muscles. After the lapse of ages from the time of this general crea tion, Ta-rhun-hia-wah-hun, the Sky-Holder, resolved upon a special creation of a race which should surpass all others in beauty, bravery, and strength ; so from the bosom of the great island Ta-rhun-hia-wah-hun brought out the six pairs which were destined to become the greatest of all people. The Tuscaroras tell us that the first pair was left near a great river now called the Mohawk. The second family was directed to make its home by the side of a big stone ; their descendants have been termed the Oneidas. Another pair was left on a high hill and have ever been called the Onondagas, and thus each pair was left with care ful instructions in different parts of what is now known as the State of New-York, except the Tuscaroras who were taken up the Roanoke River into North Carolina where Ta- rhun-hia-wah-hun also took up his abode, teaching them many useful arts before his departure. This, say they, ac counts for the superiority of the Tuscaroras. But each of the six tribes will tell you that his own was the favored one with whom Sky-Holder made his terrestrial home, while the Myths of the Iroquois. 181 Onondagas claim that their possession of the council-fire prove them to have been the chosen people. Later, as the numerous families became scattered over the State, some lived in localities where the bear was the principal game, and were called from that circumstance the Clan of the Bear ; others where the beaver were trapped, and they were called the Beaver Clan ; and for similar reasons the Snipe, Deer, Wolf, Tortoise, and Eel clans received their appellations. One of the Bear Clan relates that once on a time a sickly old man, covered with sores, entered an Indian village where, over each wigwam, was placed the sign of the clan of its possessor, the beaver skin denoting the Beaver, the deer skin the Deer Clan, and so forth. At each of these wig wams had the old man applied in vain for food and a night s lodging, but his repulsive appearance rendered him an object of scorn, and the Wolf, the Tortoise, and the Heron had bidden the old man to " pass on." At length, tired and weary, he arrived at a wigwam where a bear-skin betokened the clanship of its owner. This he found inhabited by a kind-hearted woman who immediately refreshed him with food and spread out skins for his bed. Then she was in structed by the old man to go in search of certain herbs, which she prepared according to his directions, and through their efficacy he was soon healed. Then he commanded 1 82 Myths of the Iroquois. that she should treasure up this secret. A few days after he sickened with a fever, and again commanded a search for other herbs, and was again healed. This being many times repeated, he at last told his benefactress that his mission was accomplished, and that she was now endowed with all the secrets for curing disease in all its forms, and that before her wigwam should grow a hemlock tree whose branches should above all others reach high into the air, to signify that the bear should take precedence of all other clans and that she and her clan should increase and multiply. Iroquois tradition tells us that the sun and moon ex isted before the creation of the earth, but the stars had all been mortals or favored animals and birds. Curious indeed are the myths regarding these transformations. Seven little Indian boys were once accustomed to bring at eve their corn and beans to a little mound, upon the top of which, after their feast, the sweetest of their singers would sit and sing for his mates who danced around the mound. On one occasion they resolved on a more sumptuous feast, and each was to contribute toward a savory soup. But the parents refused them the needed supplies and they met for a feastless dance. Their heads and hearts grew lighter as they flew around the mound until, suddenly, the whole com pany whirled off into the air. The inconsolable parents called in vain for them to return, it was too late ; higher Myths of the Iroquois, 183 and higher they arose, whirling around their singer, until, transformed into bright stars, they took their places in the firmament where, as the Pleiades, they are dancing still, the brightness of the singer, however, having been dimmed on account of his desire to return to earth. A party of hunters were once in pursuit of a bear when they were attacked by a monstrous stone giant, and all but three were destroyed. The three, together with the bear, were carried by invisible spirits up into the sky, where the bear can still be seen pursued by the first hunter with his bow, the second with the kettle, and the third, who, further behind, is gathering sticks. Only in the fall do the arrows of the hunter pierce the bear, when his dripping blood tinges the autumn foliage. Then for a time he is invisible, but afterwards reappears. An old man, despised and rejected by his people, took his bundle and staff and went up into a high mountain, where he began singing the death-chant. Those below who were watching him saw him slowly rising into the air, his chant ever growing fainter and fainter, until it finally ceased as he took his place in the heavens, where his stooping figure, staff and bundle have ever since been visible, and are pointed out as Na-ge-tci (the old man). An old woman, gifted with the power of divination, was unhappy because she could not also foretell when the world 184 Myths of the Iroquois would come to an end. For this she was transported to the moon, where to this day she is clearly to be seen weaving a forehead strap. Once a month she stirs the boiling kettle of hominy before her, during which occupa tion the cat, ever by her side, unravels her net, and so she must continue until the end of time for never until then will her work be finished. As the pole-star was ever the Indian s guide, so the northern lights were ever to him the indication of coming events. Were they white, frosty weather would follow ; if yellow, disease and pestilence, while red predicted war and bloodshed, and a mottled sky in the spring-time was ever the harbinger of a good corn season. When engaged in wars with different nations the voice of the Echo-God served for signals, as it would only respond to the calls of the Iroquois. At the edge of evening it was used by them to call in those who were out on the war-path. W T hen the warrior would whoop the Echo-God would take it up and carry it on through the air, the opponents not being able to hear it, as this was the special god of the six nations. Therefore, when they had gained a great victory, a dance was held to give praise to this god. When enemies were killed their victors called out as many times as there were persons killed, the cry being " Goh-weh ! Goh-weh ! " (I m telling you). These words the Echo-God took up and Mvths of tJie Iroquois, 185 repeated. But if one of their own tribe was killed, they called " Oh-weh ! Oh-weh ! " meaning our own. After any of these signals were given, all assembled to gether to hold council and make arrangements for an attack or pursuit. Then were sent out runners who also pro claimed ; if no response was made by the Echo-God it was an omen that they should not start, but they continued calling, and if the god still remained silent a service was held to ask the cause of his anger. When a warfare was ended victoriously a dance was held to the Echo-God, and the nations assembled to rejoice, but first to mourn for the dead and decide on the fate of the captives. As the Echo-God was never called upon except in cases of emergencies during warfare, now, since wars are over, the feast and dance to the Echo-God have ceased to be a part of the Iroquois ceremonies. A hunter in the woods was once caught in a thunder shower, when he heard a voice calling upon him to follow. This he did until he found himself in the clouds, the height of many trees from the ground, and surrounded by human beings in appearance, with one among them who seemed to be their chief. He was told to look below and tell whether he could discern a huge sea-serpent. Replying in the nega tive, the old man annointed his eyes, after which he could see the monster in the depths below him. They then 1 86 Myths of the Iroquois. ordered one of their number to try and kill this enemy to the human race ; upon his failing the hunter was told to accomplish the feat ; he accordingly drew his bow and killed the foe. He was then conducted to the place where he was protecting himself from the storm which had now- ceased. This was man s first acquaintance with the Thunder- God and his assistants, and by it he learned that they were friendly towards the human race and protected it from dragons, sea-serpents and other enemies. It was the custom at that season for the medicine-men to go about demanding gifts of the people, but an icy figure had also appeared demanding a man as a sacrifice ; where upon the Thunder-God was appealed to, and he came to the rescue with his assistants, and chased the figure far into the north, where they doomed the icy demon to remain ; and to this day his howling and blustering are still heard, and when any venturesome mortal dares to venture too far toward his abode his frosty children soon punish the offender. He is termed Ka-tash-huaht, or North Wind, and ranks as an evil spirit. A man, while walking in a forest, saw an unusually large bird covered with a heavily clustered coating of wam pum. He immediately informed his people and chiefs, whereupon the head chief offered as a prize his beautiful Myths of the Iroquois. 187 daughter to the one who would capture the bird, dead or alive, which apparently had come from another world. Whereupon the warriors, with bows and arrows, went to the " tree of promise," and as each lucky one barely hit the bird it would throw off a large quantity of the coveted coat ing, which, like the Lernean hydra s heads, multiplied by being cropped. At last, when the warriors were despairing of success, a little boy from a neighboring tribe came to satisfy his curiosity by seeing the wonderful bird of which he had heard ; but, as his people were ever at war with this tribe, he was not permitted by the warriors to try his skill at archery, and was even threatened with death. But the head- chief said, " He is a mere boy, let him shoot on equal terms with you who are brave and fearless warriors." His decision being final, the boy, with unequalled skill, brought the coveted bird to the ground. Having received the daughter of the head-chief in mar riage, he divided the oh-ko-ah between his own and the tribe into which he had married, and peace was declared between them. Then the boy-husband decreed that wampum should be the price of peace and blood, which decree was adopted by all nations. Hence arose the custom of giving belts of wampum to satisfy violated honor, hospitality or any national privilege. A boat filled with medicine-men passed near a river 1 88 Myths of the Iroquois. bank where a loud voice had proclaimed to all the inhabitants to remain indoors, but some, disobeying, died immediately. The next day the boat being sought after was found contain ing a strange being at each end, both creatures being fast asleep. A loud voice was then heard saying that destroying these creatures would result in a great blessing to the In dian. So they were decoyed into a neighboring council-house, where they were put to death and burned, and from their ashes arose the tobacco plant, that inestimable boon not only to the Indian but to his pale-faced brother. In the beginning, the birds having been created naked, remained hidden, being ashamed of their nakedness. But at last they assembled in a great council of all winged crea tures, at which they petitioned the gods to give them some kind of covering. They were told that their coverings were all ready, but were a long way off, and they must either go or send for them. Accordingly, another council was held to induce some bird to go in search of the plumage, but each bird had some excuse for not going. At last a turkey buzzard volunteered to go and bring the feathery uniforms. It being a long journey to the place whence he must bring them, he (who had been a clean bird heretofore) was obliged to eat carrion and filth of all kinds hence his present nature. At length, directed by the gods, he found the coverings, and selfishly appropriated to himself the most Myths of the Iroquois. 189 beautifully colored one ; but, finding that he could not fly in this, he continued trying them on until he selected his present uniform, in which, although it is the least beautiful of any, he can so gracefully ride through the air. The good turkey buzzard then returned, bearing the feathery garments from which each bird chose his present colored suit. Three sisters are supposed to preside over the favorite vegetables corn, beans and squashes. They have the forms of beautiful females, and are represented as loving each other dearly and dwelling in peace and happiness. The vines of the vegetables grow upon the same soil and cling lovingly around each other. She who is the spirit of corn, is supposed to be draped with its long leaves and silken tassels. She who guards the bean, has a crown of its velvety pods with garments woven of the delicate tendrils, while the spirit of squashes is clothed with the brilliant blossoms under her care, and in bright nights they can be seen flitting about or heard rustling among the tall corn. At the yearly festivals held in their honor they are appealed to as our life, our supporters." These are but a few of the very many similar myths gathered among the Iroquois during the past season. To some they may seem as idle tales, but to many of those, from whom I received them, they were realities, for many of those forest children of " larger growth " still cling to their 190 Myths of the Iroquois. myths as the only link which binds them to a happier past. And shall the pale-face who has not yet rid himself of the shackles of superstition in a thousand forms, and who sees daily his household gods torn down before him by compara tive mythology and its allied sciences shall he turn with contempt from these strivings of the infant human mind in its search after the unknowable ? The reply of Tecumseh to General Harrison during the treaty of Tippecanoe was no figure of speech. The Gen eral presiding requested the distinguished chief to take a seat ; Tecumseh shook his head and refused. Harrison repeated his request, saying, " Your father commands you to sit there." That instant Tecumseh, stretching forth his hand, said, " The sun is my father, the earth my mother ; upon her bosom will I rest ; " and he dropped upon the ground. From the ground had the Indian been brought forth. The earth had ever sustained him and when his life was over she received him back again. ^ It has been with design that I have omitted giving in full that interesting myth of the Onondagas, the story of Hiawatha, beautiful as it is even in its crudeness. But the gold has been extracted from the ore by America s most gifted poet, and with its beauties enhanced a thousand-fold, it is not meet that the unskilled should encroach within its boundaries to mar its perfection. But there could be no Myths of the Iroquois. 191 more fitting conclusion to these myths of the Iroquois than to give the farewell words of the legendary founder of that confederacy which ever rendered them invincible. Before the great council which had adopted his advice dispersed, he arose and with a dignified air thus addressed them : " Friends and Brothers : I have now fulfilled my mis- " sion in this world. I have taught you to make and use " wampum, I have taught you arts which you will find use- " fill. I have furnished you seed and grains for your gar- " dens. I have removed obstructions from your waters, and " made the forest habitable by teaching you to destroy its " monsters. I have given you fishing and hunting grounds. " I have instructed you in making and using implements of " war. I have taught you how to cultivate corn. Lastly, I " have taught you to form a confederacy of friendship and " union. If you preserve this and admit no foreign element " of power by receiving other nations you will always " be free, numerous, and happy. If other tribes and nations " are admitted to your councils, they will sow the seed of "jealousy and discord, and you will become few, feeble, " and enslaved. " Friends and brothers, remember these words. They are " the last you will hear from the lips of Hiawatha ! farewell ! " As the voice of the wise man ceased, sweet sounds from the air burst on the ears of the multitude. The whole Myths of the Iroquois. sky seemed to be filled with melody, and while all eyes were directed to catch a glimpses of the sight and enjoy strains of the celestial music that filled the sky, Hiawatha was seen seated in his snow-white canoe in mid-air, rising with every choral chant that burst forth. As he arose, the sounds be came more soft and faint, till he vanished in the summer clouds and the melody ceased : " Thus departed Hi-awa-tha, Hi-awa-tha, the beloved, In the glory of the sunset, In the purple mists of evening ; To the regions of the Home-Wind, Of the North-west-Wind, Kee-way-din, To the Islands of the blessed, To the kingdom of Po-ne-mah, To the Land of the hereafter." INDIAN BROOCH. A J AWFUL STORY. W. A. CROFFUT. [At the autumnal gathering, Mr. Croffut, just returning from his summer jaunt, brought and presented to Mrs. Smith the jaws of a shark which he found on the Nantucket Beach. It was understood among the fishermen of the island that the shark was caught by the Rev. Robert Collyer, and hauled up by the tail instead of in the orthodox manner. The following is the story as told to Mr. Croffut by the shark, as it lay on the beach in its dying agonies.] ^ FF the beach at old Nantucket That is where I kicked the bucket ; That is where I left the briny Surf above the pebbles shiny ; That is where my sweetheart sported That is where we erst cavorted From Newfoundland to Virginny ; But now take me to Erminnie A. Smith. I94 A Jawful Story. I was gay. No shark was jollier Till I met with Robert Collyer. He he did not fish as you fish, With a hook and bait of blue-fish, But he held a noose above me And he took advantage of me. Spectre of the elder Pliny ! Fly with me to meet Erminnie A. Smith. I was ready for an angler ; Well I knew the hempen dangler. But this caudal outrage oh, me ! That a preacher should lasso me ! To his small and fragile shallop Draw me by my haughty tail up- Let me hide my head in Guinea ! Take, oh, take me to Erminnie A. Smith. Seems to me I ve seen her somewhere. Seems to me she must have come where I was. Ah ! twas on the ocean In a steamer wild with motion. f awful Story. O er the guards, as it went lurching, Gazed she, as for pins was searching. There I saw her ! She was in a Meditative mood. Erminnie A. Smith. Scientific pedants hail us Of the Linnaean genus Squalus, But I found my proper locus In the tribe Carcharius glaucus. One bone only so imagine us Almost wholly cartilaginous ; Surface like a rasp not skinny ; Dentate take me to Erminnie A. Smith. Let me slumber in her cabinet. I would like a special slab in it. Hang me by the owlet dreamy ; Let the pterodactyl see me ; By the whale-bone lay me down. Then Sprinkle chlorine on us now n then. I can hear the sea-horse whinny If you take me to Erminnie A. Smith. 196 A J awful Story. Let me, in her choice museum, Soundly sleep and sweetly dream ; Where the lizard bathes in amber, Where the stony lilies clamber, Where the polyp rouses never, Let me yawn and yawn forever ; Leave me there, and all my finny Family shall bless Erminnie A. Smith. LORRAINE. CHARLES KINGSLEY (Recited by Mrs. May Croly Roper.} |RE you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lor raine, Lorrie ? You re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee, You re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see, To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the race for me. She clasped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrie. 1 can not ride Vindictive, as any man might see, And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee ; He s killed a boy, he s killed a man, and why must he kill me ?" " Unless you ride Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrie, Unless you ride Vindictive to-day at Coulterlee, And land him safe across the brook, and win the black for me, It s you may keep your baby, for you ll get no help from me." 198 Lorraine. " That husbands would be cruel," said Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrie, " That husbands would be cruel, I have known for seasons three ; But oh ! to ride Vindictive while my baby cries for me, And be killed across a fence at last, for all the world to see." She mastered young Vindictive oh ! the gallant lass was she ! And she kept him straight, and won the race, as near as near could be, But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow tree, Oh ! he killed her at the brook the brute, for all the world to see And no one but this baby cried for poor Lorraine, Lorrie. CALUMET OF PEACE. LINES TO MRS. SMITH ROBERT K. MUNKITTRICK. TUSCARORA Flower, may I ask you in a jingling way, To send me, in a day or two- Or when the spirit moveth you A copy of the programme that Delighted all of us last Sat- Urday. I d like that programme, honored dame- I like its tender, sneezing name ; I like the Indian who, in fact, Shoots head first down the cataract, Without his swallow-tail or hat, I havn t seen him since last Sat- Urday. 2OO Lines to Mrs. Smith. I want to nail it on the wall Where unto my mind twill oft recall Miss Parker and her violin, And Croffut s tribute to Ermin- Nie S so very funny that It made the people scream last Sat- Urday. Tuscarora, tomahawk My wishes not ; O gaily walk Around your valued cabinet And then I m pretty sure you ll get A copy of the programme that Upset us all with joy last Sat- Urday. 1 fancy when a view I take Of it again, I ll taste your cake, Your chicken salad and ice-cream, And of some dozen maidens dream, Until my heart goes pit-a-pat With rapture, as it did last Sat- Urday. Again with perfect joy I ll mark, The awful jawbone of the shark, Lines to Mrs. Smith. 201 Which left the sea to revel in The wondrous parlors of Ermin- Nie S upon a panel flat, Where its debut it made last Sat- Urday. In truth that little programme fills My mind with dreams of foss-ils And corn-husk babies, and forsooth, Although I seldom tell the truth, I ll say my only wish is that We ll oft know such another Sat- Urday. CORN-HUSK HOI.I.S. LINES ON THE PRESENTATION OF AN INDIAN BROOCH. MISS M. C. BEARDSLEY. COME, O beautiful flower of the Tuscaroras, I, who am only a breast-plate borne before thee, and present myself, an ornament with which to deck thy bosom. I come not from the home of thy brothers, but from the far away shore of Gitchee Gumee, the Big Sea Water, that great lake whose shores are formed with ore. Both copper and silver have their homes by its rugged coast. To the latter I belong. A dusky hand and a stalwart arm have fashioned me fashioned me for a mighty chieftain. On his breast he safely carried me, Carried me into war and conflict, Into forest, moor and fen-land, Into councils of the warriors, Into wigwams of the maidens, Into quarries of the red stone From which the pipes called " peace " are moulded. Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch. 203 When the evening dews were falling, And the sun to sleep had gone, On the hill-side by the camp-fires Which the warriors sat around There the smoke has curled about me And I ve listened rapt and long, To -the legends of the Red-men Of the beasts, the birds and reptiles, Of the trees, the winds and stars, Listened with delight and patience, To the tales by each one told, Of the truth and of the valor, Of the justice and the judgment, Of the strength and of the sweetness Of the brave whom all adored. So my days they travelled onward, Till a pale-face came among us, Came with others of his kind, To the village where my master Was the chief one of his tribe. For some kindness of the white man s I was given, to prove the fact, That the Indian, though revengeful, Ne er forgets a kindly act. 204 Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch. Then I journey d to the eastward, Journey d on for days and days, To the home of my new owner, Mid the gay world s busy maze. Five and thirty years I dwelt there, Dwelt there till the time seemed long Since I d seen or heard an Indian, Or a remnant of his song. None have won me but the chieftain, But to thee, to thee I come Knowing that I now will cover All the graces and the learning, All the strength and sweetness blended, Of a woman and a brave man, Of a daughter and a princess Of the haughty Indian tribe. Thou, to whom the task is given, From oblivion s waters deep To preserve and keep the legends, When the Red-man s gone to sleep Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch. 205 Keep me as a relic, dear one, Relic of a race gone by Relic of a mighty chieftain, Relic of a tribe most high. THE PRESENTATION BROOCH. SCIENCE AND RELIGION * CHARLES T. CONGDON. ]ALF the differences of the world are the result of a confusion of ideas, and an inadequate compre hension of the relative value of indisputable conclusions. In the controversies also, which belief and dissent occasion, the most noise is usually made about that which is of the least consequence. If we begin our consid eration of divine things by a resort to philological research, to matters of letter or text, to that rcductio ad absurdum, of which small free-thinkers and skeptics are fond, it may be assumed that the man of faith will always be out-talked by the man of facts. Such were the trifling methods of the last century, even in the hands of remarkable men of Paine, and others of his school and they have been occasionally adopted by several of those who call themselves rationalists and liberalists at the present time. We had best begin by dismissing these and their uncritical notions. Because I cannot see that it is of the least importance whether the * Abstract of a paper read before the Society by the author. Science and Religion. 207 creation of the world occupied the Creator six days, or sixty, or six thousand the main fact being the creation, and not the processes by which the divine worker saw fit to accom plish his self-imposed task. Again, there is nothing about which scientific and philosophical writers have so carped and quibbled and split hairs, as the miracles. But neither their assailers nor their defenders seem to have had the least idea of their comparative unimportance. I should not have a very high opinion of that Christian belief which depended upon their evidence, however valuable I might regard them to be, considered in other connections. Once more, I do not see of what consequence it is whether the four canonical gospels were written by those apostles after whose names they are called whether they were produced soon after the crucifixion, or not until the second century was lapsing into the third. Certainly that which is in them, which informs and inspires them, which makes them seem to the majority of enlightened mankind, the divinest and most precious things ever written and printed, does not in the least depend upon their authorship, still less upon their date. So again, the real Christ is he who has kept his fast hold upon the human heart, the utterer of words of ineffable love and wisdom, and not the Christ who turned water into wine, and who rose again upon the third day. If the mira cle was necessary for the convincement of the Jews, surely 208 Science and Religion. it is not necessary for us. The Sermon on the Mount would have remained the perfect essence of religion and morality, even though he who preached it had never risen on the third day, for it is in itself greater than any miracle. Faith in a future happiness does not rest upon the ascension fear of a future of retribution does not depend upon the descent into hell. I make these allusions to show that all that is best of Christianity, and most precious in its teach ings, has no material or scientific dependence. So far as historical Christianity is concerned, and so far as it is linked to the Jewish dispensation, I suppose that there will always be honest differences about details and dates. So there will always be exegetical criticism of the Scriptures. So, too, you will easily see that the truth or error of any doc trine is not in the least affected by its acceptance or rejec tion. The eternal veracities remain, though all the world should hoot at them. I think it necessary to make this observation, because men are prone to think less of this or that truth if it happens to be rejected by some accepted authority, and to take their opinions complacently at second hand from the idol of the hour. The perpetual mistake is that something must be false, because somebody thinks it to be so. Small thinkers, or those who are thoughtless alto gether, though they do not in the least comprehend the processes, chuckle at the results, and the most venerable Science and Religion. 209 belief is, in their shallow minds, made ridiculous, though nothing heavier has been launched against it than a clever epigram. It would be silly if it concerned any ordinary matter as to those of inexpressible moment, it is repulsive small talk about a great matter. Cicero s estimate of such fault-finders has passed into a proverb ; these are the captatores verborum the word-snatchers. I have before me at this moment a great book, full of the most various learn ing seven hundred pages in all the whole purpose of which is to prove that the Apostles did not write the gos pels which are called by their names. What do I care ? Are they any the less gospels ? I cannot comprehend any theology without a god. Nor can I comprehend any mythology without a supreme god, much less any religion or satisfactory scheme with gods whose power is balanced and generally kept in work ing order by negotiation and treaties. The Greek and Roman mythologies, and I suppose the Indian, of which I do not know much, with their many almost pathetic reach- ings after the infinite, lose themselves in a maze of objective experiences, and are little better, with all their beauties, than the projections of human and mortal activities. Their pan theon goes up from earth to heaven we want a deity which shall come down from heaven to earth, which shall be an inspiration, or, at any rate, our best human resource, when 210 Science and Religion. revelation fails or is thought to fail. For revelation is, after all, but a concession to human infirmity. Of course, there is in it help, strength, confirmation ; but I am surprised that so much stress should be laid upon it as evidence. For revelation puts us to a double task, when faith should be single and uninterrupted ; it first makes its claim upon us through intuitive reception, and then compels us to hold fast to it throu5h historical examination. Yes, I think that revelation is secondary, and likely to prove wanting when it is alone relied on. It is the cause of much circuitous reason ing. Necessarily it is a matter of chronology, of. tradi tion, of guesses and glosses, hampered by the inevitable accidents of transmission, and by the chances of merely mechanical phrases. I do not understand why any religion should be dependent for its grateful reception by mankind upon the labors of philologists, upon the loss of this manu script or the discovery of the other. I do not see why it should be accepted by one who knows nothing of the micro scope, or rejected by another because he has been peeping at a hundred plants or fossils through the lenses. All- this seems to me to belittle the controversy. Even with my views of special revelation, I should be quite willing to set the Bible against the thickest of herbariums. I do not pro pose to give up anything because a few bones have been dug up in Oregon or Asia Minor, or because a microscopist Science and Religion. 211 has discovered that some else not invisible little creature with a long name, has five claws instead of fifty, and wrig gles oftener to the right than to the left. The human instinct is a potency which beggars human demonstration. It has not, of course, without His divine assistance, evolved a God. We need not mind the processes while the fact remains. As I write I seem to be in an awful presence. I hear the thunders of Sinai as I am en shrouded by the darkness which " was over all the land until the ninth hour." I bow my head in reverence because He is so great I whisper words of gratitude because He is so good. I do not find Him in any printed book ; I do not care for His recognition by any pulpit ; I do not ask for His acceptance by scientific schools. From the very fact of His existence which I do not question, I deduce His attri butes. From the certainty that He is, He must be as He is. I am so sure that there can be neither be religious certainty nor religious satisfaction without a logical comprehension of His attributes, that I begin by establishing them me thodically in my own mind. I deduce from my first idea, omnipotence and omniscience, a being without beginning or end, and that love which must always accompany a perfect freedom from self-seeking motives. The first idea of a God is a being from whom mere human passions must be elimi nated of one working with absolute independence of human 212 Science and Religion. laws. The modern philosopher approaches His dread pres ence with a geological hammer in one hand and a micro scope in the other, and demonstrates that he must have done so or thus, because He could not have done otherwise, or He is no God. Moreover, I cast far from me that other notion the mere spawn of Arch Deacon Paley s round about speculations that God must exist because I can see and hear and feel that celebrated demonstration from the watch which is about the most absurd thing which ever mas queraded in the garb of philosophy. I do not know that there is a God, because I have two eyes, two ears and a digestive apparatus. If He had pleased to make me with one eye, no ears and no stomach, His would have been still a complete and perfect work. It is because I believe this, that I believe in Him at all. I must accept Him altogether or I must reject Him altogether. If He is no more than a mere mechanic or Justice of the Peace, He might just as well not be, for all He is to me in my mortal emergency. It is necessary to remember this, because so many of our theosophic speculations are really anthropomorphic. Sometimes, in the old galleries of Europe, you see a picture of God. He is represented as a bearded old man, brooding over chaos He who knows no time and is utterly inconsistent with any finite idea of space. We might as well go back to the Grecian notions of Jupiter Science and Religion. 213 Olympus, as thus shape our faith by the idea of such a deity. All the gods of all the mythologies agree superficially upon creative points ; but the difference between a true God and these shadows, which line the walls of pan theons, is in their absurd division of one universal potency into numberless specific potencies, so that we have a god of wine, of love, of this human activity or that mortal desire. You think that you have reached in the Jews the highest attribute of theism, but you find an infinity of creative power above him he is only an accident or one article in the divine genealogy. The Grecian and Roman mytholo gies make theism cheap and fabulous, by squandering power and frittering away after a human fashion, their supernatu- ralism, instead of consistently concentrating it upon one absolute infinite being existing by the sole necessity of His own nature a Free Cause of all things, without whom noth ing could be, or, as Spinoza says, " could conceived to be " from whom all things have followed out of the necessity of the supreme perfect nature. The reasonable deduction from these conditions, is unity, with the attributes of Omni potence and Omniscience. The secondary attributes of God, His love and His justice, are derived from these, since the supreme character can desire only supreme things, such as harmony, order, happiness and right. 214 Science and Religion. What we must specially bear in mind is personality absolutely limited by unity not an idea, not a vague and undefined influence, not an abstract existence, not the soul of the world diffused through all things, which was the doc trine of the stoics but a living incorruptible being, of per fect felicity, and susceptible of no evil. Now if such a be ing exists as this, he must have existed always and so before the creation of the world. If he be omnipotent and the moment you limit his potency you abolish him altogether then no matter by what processes this world was created, or in what way we who inhabit it were made ! I do not see what we have to do with his processes. He must still have been a great moving cause though there had been no terres trial creation. If science can prove, as I dare say it can, that the business of creation must have occupied a much greater period of time than six days, it does not appear to me to have proved anything of importance. The strength of the story of Genesis remains, whether it be myth or literal history. The fact of human existence is not affected by the question of one original pair or many. So, too, of the Fall, assuming that there is really sin, there must have been a moment when man had not sinned, and was so far a being of absolute purity. Now, the whole tendency of modern thought, of the kind called liberal, and of critical discussions of that kind called scientific, it is to limit om- Science and Religion. 215 nipotence, leaving us to the fortuitous working of natural causes, and setting up a god, if any god be thought neces sary, as unsubstantial and evanescent as the exhalations of the morning ; this to one mind and that to another not a being but a dream, and I may almost say a miscellaneous vagary. The moment this career of self sufficient specula tion is entered upon, theology becomes of private and per sonal arrangement, and every man has a god for himself, or no god at all, if he does not particularly desire one. Of his personal and private deity, the possessor may say, " I know that he would not do this ; I am sure that he would not do that." Most people write now of the Deity as if He were all compact of benevolence, but without the corres ponding idea of justice, as if these could be logically sepa rated as if all-goodness must not be all-just, or all-justice all- good. It is strange that this should have come partly through a better knowledge of His wonderful works, as if, because we see how the great hand moved, we should the less rever ence and adore it. We compare the illimitable with the limited. We make shipwreck upon the rocks of literal in terpretation. We juo\ge by finite sense the infinite. We set up a critical notion of our own, found in our laboratories or geological cabinets, and use these very materials which ought to assist us to a higher idea of Him, to demonstrate Him out of existence altogether. 216 Science and Religion. It is to the blind and wayward error of arguing of the infinite from the finite, of the eternal from the ma terial, of the spiritual from the material, that much of the loose thinking and writing of the present day is to be attributed. There is a passion for saying smart things on serious topics. This teacher is remarkable for sarcasm, the other for a shallow but taking criticism of the letter, a third for glittering generalities about love and duty and progress. The result is great confusion, no little uncer tainty, and an immense show of announcing our non-beliefs. The great labor of to-day is to reject. It is thought to be honorable not to be able definitely to make up one s mind. But the all-knowing must be wiser than finite thinker or student or investigator of the laws of nature. The all-potent must be stronger than any human power ; and if in Him we live and move and have our being, we may be sure that He too lives and moves and has his being also. LINES ON A BOQUET. MRS. MARY DANA SHINDLER. (Read by the Author.} DO thank thee, lovely lady, For these bright and fragrant flowers ; Oh, how sweetly such mementoes Lend their charm to lonely hours ! Here are lovely pinks and roses, Free from blight, and free from stain ; Time will mar their brilliant beauty, But their fragrance will remain. So, when time shall part us, lady, Though I view thy charms no more, Think not mem ry will forsake me, Nor thy smiles to me restore. Now, my youth s bright flowers have faded, All their petals pale and dead Now, my spring has changed to winter, Its hoar-frosts upon my head. 2l8 Lines on a Bouquet. But like evergreens shall flourish All my memories of thee ; And like roses, freshly blooming, Shall these hours return to me. Love me, lady, gentle lady, Southern stranger though I be ; Twill be sweet to think hereafter, I was once beloved by thee. INDIAN BROOCH. BLOWN AWAY.* CHARLES BARNARD. |HERE were three of them, Kitty, Mary and little Tommy, the children of the station-master at Black River Junction, on the Great South-western Railroad. The station stood alone on the open prairie, miles and miles from anywhere in particular. Black River flowed through the mountains, a hundred miles away to the north ; and on clear days, the snowy mountains could be seen glim mering on the grassy horizon. The line leading to the Black River met the South-western here, and thus it was the place was called Black River Junction. The station-master and his wife and three children lived in the little depot quite happily, but there was not another family within ten miles, in any direction. At times the children thought it rather lonely. There was nothing in particular to be done, except to watch the trains that stopped at the junction several times a day. Once in a while, a freight-car would be left on the side track, and * This story was related by the author at a meeting of the Society, and afterwards published in Saint Nicholas. 220 Blown Away, the children soon found that an empty freight-car makes a capital playhouse. They could keep house in the corners and make visits, or sit by the open door and make believe they were having a ride. One morning, they were wakened by a curious humming sound out-of-doors, and they all scrambled up and looked out of the window. How the wind did blow ! It whistled and roared round the house and played on the telegraph wires upon the roof as upon a huge harp. As the wires were fastened to the roof, the house became a great music-box, with the children inside. After breakfast the morning trains arrived, but the wind was so high that the passengers were glad to hurry from one train to another as quickly as possi ble. Then the trains went away, and the great wind-harp on the roof sang louder than ever. The station-master said it blew a gale, and that the children must stay in the house, lest they be blown away into the prairie and be lost. The station-master s wife said it was a pity the children must stay in the house all day. There was an empty freight-car on the side track ; perhaps they might play in that. The station-master thought this a good idea, and took Kitty by the hand and Tommy in his arms, while Mary took hold of his coat, and they all went out to the empty car. Whew ! How it did blow ! They cer tainly thought they would be lifted up by the wind and blown Blown Awav. 221 quite into the sky. The empty car was warm and snug, and, once inside, they were quite out of the way of the wind. Mary thought the rear end would be a good place to keep house, but Tommy preferred the other end, so they agreed to keep house at both ends of the empty car. This was a nice plan, for it gave them a chance to visit each other, and the open part by the door made a grand prome nade to walk on. Louder and louder roared the gale. Safe and snug in the car, they went on with their play and thought nothing of the weather outside. Suddenly the car seemed to shake, and they stopped in their housekeeping and ran to the door to see what had happened. " Why, it s moving ! Somebody s pushing it," said Mary. " They are taking us away on the freight train. Come, we must get out." " I didn t hear the whistle," said Tommy. " I guess something is pushing the car." The girls leaned out of the door to see what had hap pened. Why, where was the platform ? What was the mat ter with the station ? It was moving away. No, it was the car. It had left the siding and rolled out upon the main line and was moving faster and faster along the road. " Oh, we must get out ! They are taking us away." 222 Blown Away. "No, no," said Kitty. "We must stay here till the brakeman comes round. I didn t hear them when they took us on the train." " There isn t any train," said Tommy, looking up and down the line. " Oh, it s the wind ! It s blowing the car away. We must put on the brakes and stop it." This was a good plan, but how were they to carry it out ? The brake-wheel was on top of the car, and they were inside. Faster and faster rolled the car. It began to rattle and roar as if dragged along by a swift engine. In a moment Tommy began to cry. Mary tried to look brave, and Kitty stared hard at the level prairie flying past. It was of no use. They all broke down together and had a hearty cry alone in the empty car as it rolled on before the gale. The station-master s wife rolled up her sleeves to put the house in order while the children were safely out of the way. The station-master, feeling sure the children were safe in the freight-car, sat in his office nearly all the morning. At last, the beds were made, the dinner put on the fire, and the mother wondered how the girls were getting on in their playhouse on the track. She threw a shawl over her head and went out upon the platform. At once the wind blew the shawl over her face, and she could not see exactly where she stood. Turning her back to the wind she began to call Blown Away. 223 the children. How loudly the wind roared through the telegraph wires ! Perhaps, they could not hear in all this din. May be, they were inside the car, out of hearing. She walked on toward the siding. Not a thing to be seen ! She wondered if there had not been a mistake ? Perhaps, the car was on the other side track ? No, the rails were unoccupied as far as she could see in every direction. What did it mean ? What had happened ? She staggered back into the station and startled her husband with a cry of despair. " The car ! The children ! " The station-master ran out upon the platform and looked up and down the line. Not a car in sight ! It had been blown away before the terrible wind, and was perhaps, at this instant rolling swiftly onward with its precious load to destruction. What would happen to it ? Would it meet a train or run into a station ? Would the children try to get out, or would they stay in the car till it was wrecked ? He sprang to the door of the depot to telegraph the terrible news down the line, but just as he opened the door he saw a faint white cloud on the western horizon. It was a train. Help was coming. At the same instant, his wife appeared with new grief and terror in her eyes, "I cannot get a call in either direction. The wires are blown down." 224 Blown Away. This only added to the danger, for there was now no means of sending word in advance of the runaway car. It must go on to its fate without help or warning. " Help is coming, mother. Here s a train bound east." Nearer and nearer came the train, and the father and mother stood watching it as it crept along the rails. It seemed as if it would never come. At last, it reached the platform and proved to be a passenger train bound up the Black River Road and not intended to go in the direction in which the car had been blown away. The instant it stopped, the station-master ran to the engineer and told his terrible story. The mother, with quicker wit, found the conductor and demanded that the engine be taken off and sent after the children. The conductor was a man of regular habits and such a bold request struck him as something extraordinary. Take the engine off and leave the train and passengers waiting at this lonely station ? The idea was preposterous ! Some of the passengers gathered near and asked what was the matter. "Three children lost, blown away in an empty car." Some one said, " Yes, go at once. We can wait here till the engine returns." The conductor said he must telegraph for instructions ; but some one said, u The wires are down," and the people only cried out the more, " Let the engine Blown Away. 225 go ! " so the mother ran to the tender and began to pull out the pin, that the engine might start. " Hold on, marm," said a brakeman. " I ll cast her off. You jump aboard, if you want to go too. Fire up, Jack, and make her hum." It was all done in a moment, and away flew the engine, leaving the conductor and the station-master staring in sur prise at this singular proceeding. The station-master did not feel very happy. He had half intended to go with the engine, but it would never do to leave his post. " Fire steady, Jack, said the engineer to the fireman. " It s no use to get excited, for we re in for a long race." " It s enough to make a fellow excited to see that woman," said the fireman. The engineer turned round, and there, by his side, stood the mother, her eyes straining ahead down the line in search of the missing ones. " Oh, sir ! open the throttle wide. Don t try to save coal at such a time as this." " We must keep cool, marm, and go steady, or we shall run out of coal and water and come to a stand-still on the line. The woman said not a word, but nodded mournfully and leaned against the side of the cab for support, and then the fireman gave her his seat, where she could look out ahead 226 Blown Away. over the line. How the engine shook and roared ! The little finger of the steam-gauge trembled and rose higher and higher as the steam pressure increased over the raging fire. The engine seemed to be eating up the track in front, and be hind, the rails spun out like shining ribbons in the sun. The station and train had already sunk down out of sight, and the grassy horizon on either side seemed to fly away in a kind of gigantic waltz. The wind died away to a dead calm, and in a few moments a little breeze sprang up and blew in at the front windows. " We are beating the wind," said the engineer. " If we can keep up this pace we shall soon overtake them." " How long have they been gone ? " shouted the fire man above the roar of the engine. " I don t know," screamed the woman, without taking her eyes from the horizon, where the rails met the sky. "It may have been two hours or more. They were playing in the empty car." " How did she get out of the siding?" (He meant the the car.) " It s one of the switches," said the engineer. " Cars can easily jump out upon the main line." Ah ! something ahead. Was it the runaway car ? No, the next station. What a terrible pace ! Twenty miles already ! Blown Away. 227 " Oh, don t stop ! " cried the woman, as she saw the engineer put his hand on the throttle-valve. " I must, marm. We are getting out of water, and per haps we can learn something of the runaway." The sudden arrival of a solitary engine, containing two men and one woman, startled the station-master, and he came out to see what it meant. He seemed to guess at the truth, for he said : " After the runaway car ? " " Yes, yes. There were three children inside." " Oh, marm, I m sorry for ye. It went past here, going twenty miles an hour. It came down-grade all the way, but the up-grade begins about two miles out. I was inside when it passed, and didn t see it till it had gone past the door." How long it took to fill the tender ! The engine stood hot and smoking by the water-tank, and the water came out in a slender stream, while the poor mother stoQd looking on, tearful and impatient. " Good-bye ! I ll put up the pipe. Heaven help ye ! the up-grade " The rest was lost, for the engine shot ahead on and on out over the open prairie. The water-tank seemed to sink down into the earth, and the shining rails stretched longer and longer out behind. Ah ! What was that ? A cloud of steam on the horizon, 228 Blown Away. far ahead. The engineer took out his time-book and studied it carefully. " Freight No. 6, bound west, stopping on the two-mile siding." How swiftly Freight No. 6 rose above the grass and grew big along the way ! Listen ! A whistle. The engi neer whistled in reply and shut off steam. Their engine quickly slowed down, and they could see men leaning out from the other engine, as if to speak to them. " It s ten minutes back. Running slow on main-line, road clear " " Thank Heaven ! " said the woman. The engineer said nothing ; but at that instant the engine gave a leap and shot ahead, at the rate of fifty miles an hour, up the easy grade. How long the minutes seemed, and yet each meant almost a mile ! Ah ! A speck, a black dot on the horizon ! The car ? Yes. It was the car. It grew bigger and bigger. Now they could see it plainly. But the children ! Where were they ? The fireman sprang out through the forward window and ran along the engine and down upon the cow catcher. The monster began to slacken its terrible pace, and in a moment it struck the car with a gentle jar and stopped. The fireman thought himself a lively man, but the woman was before him and sprang up into the car. Blown Away. 229 There they lay, safe and sound, in the corner of the car, Mary and Tommy fast asleep, and Kitty watching over them. " O ! mother ! I knew you would come. Mary and Tommy cried themselves to sleep, and I I." Nobody could say a word. The fireman tried to rub his eyes, and only marked his face with black streaks. The mother laughed and cried all at once. The engineer picked up the little ones and quietly took them into the cab of the engine. " There, now, my hearties, you have had a risky ride ; but it s all right. Come ! We re more than thirty miles from home, and it won t do to be late to dinner. Fire up, Jack." " Aye, aye, sir," said Jack. PUNCHINELLO, V. E. WETHERBY. (Sung by Miss Agnes Lazar.) E was a punchinello, Sweet Columbine was she, He loved the ground she danc d on, She laugh d his love to see ; Till he laugh d himself as gaily, Dancing, joking ev ry night : " He s the maddest, merriest fellow ! " Cried the people with delight. " Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Punchinello ! " Bright was the day she married, And there, among the rest, Came poor old Punchinello, He was the blithest guest. Had they seen his tears at midnight In his garret near the sky, "He s the maddest, quaintest fellow ! " That still would have been the cry. " Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Punchinello ! " Punchinello. 231 One winter morn they told him Sweet Columbine was dead. He never jok d so gaily As that night, the people said, Never sang and laugh d so madly. Ah ! for his heart that night ! " He s the wildest, brightest fellow," Cried the people with delight. " Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Punchinello ! " But, when the play was over, Forth to her grave he crept, Laid one white rose upon it, . Then sat him down and wept. But the people, had they seen him Gaze to the moonlit sky, " He s the merriest, maddest fellow," Still you would have heard them cry " Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! Punchinello ! " A FRAGMENT FROM "LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS." T. B. ALDRICH. (Recited by Orlena A . Emerson.) | HE great green curtain fell on all, On laugh, and wine, and woe, Just as death some day will fall Twixt us and life I know ! The play was done the bitter play And the people turned to go. And did they see the tragedy ? They saw the painted scene ; They saw Armand, the jealous fool, And the sick Parisian Queen ; But they did not see the tragedy The one I saw, I mean ! They did not see that cold-cut face That furtive look of care : Or, seeing her jewels, only said, " The lady s rich and fair." But I tell you, twas the play of life, And that woman played despair ! BEDOUIN LOVE-SONG. BAYARD TAYLOR. (Sung by Mr. T. Bullock.") |ROM the desert I come to thee On my Arab, shod with fire, And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry " I love thee ! I love but thee ! " With a love that shall not die, Till the sun grows cold, and the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! From thy window look and see My passion and my pain ! I lie on the sand below, And I faint in thy disdain. Let the night-winds touch thy brow With the breath of my burning sigh, And melt thee to hear the vow Of a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, and the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! THE PETRIFIED FERN. MERY L. BOLLES BRANCH. (Read by the A uthor.) JN a valley, centuries ago, Grew a little fern-leaf green and slender, Veining delicate and fibres tender, Waving when the wind crept down so low. Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it ; Playful sunbeams darted in and found it ; Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it ; But no foot of man e er came that way ; Earth was young and keeping holiday. Monster fishes swam the silent main ; Stately forests waved their giant branches ; Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches ; Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain. Nature revelled in grand mysteries ; But the little fern was not like these, Did not number with the hills and trees, Only grew and waved its sweet, wild way ; No one came to note it day by day. Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood, Heaved the rocks, and changed the mighty motion Of the strong, dread currents of the ocean ; Moved the hills, and shook the haughty wood ; The Petrified Fern. 235 Crushed the little fern in soft, moist clay, Covered it, and hid it safe away. O, the long, long centuries since the day ! O, the changes ! O, life s bitter cost, Since the little useless fern was lost ! Useless ? Lost ? There came a thoughtful man, Searching Nature s secrets far and deep ; From a fissure in a rocky steep He withdrew a stone, o er which there ran . Fairy pencillings, a quaint design, Leafage, veining, fibres, clear and fine And the fern s life lay in every line. So, I think, God hides some souls away, Sweetly to surprise us the last day. SHE IS DEAD. ANONYMOUS. (Read by Col. Charles Fulltr.) HE is dead ! " they said to him. " Come away ; Kiss her and leave her thy love is clay ! " They smoothed her tresses of dark-brown hair, On her forehead of stone they laid it fair ; Over the eyes which gazed too much They drew the lids with a gentle touch ; With a tender touch they closed up well The sweet, thin lips that had secrets to tell ; About her brown and beautiful face They tied her veil and her marriage-lace, And drew on her white feet the white, silk shoes Which were the whitest, no eye could chose ! And over her bosom they crossed her hands " Come away," they said, " God understands ! " And there was silence, and nothing there But silence, and scents of eglantere, And jasmine and roses and rosemary, And they said, " As a lady should lie, lies she." She is Dead. 237 And they held their breath as they left the room With a shudder, to glance at its stillness and gloom. But he who loved her too well to dread The sweet, the stately and beautiful dead He lit his lamp and took his key And turned it. Alone again he and she. He and she ; yet she would not smile, Though he called her the name she loved erewhile. He and she ; still she did not move To any passionate whisper of love. Then he said, "Cold lips, and breast without breath, Is there no voice ? no language of death ? Dumb to the ear and still to the sense, But to heart and soul distinct, intense ? See now ; I will listen with soul, not ear ; What was the secret of dying, dear ? Was it the infinite wonder of all That you ever could let life s flower fall ? Or was it the greater marvel to feel The perfect calm o er the agony steal ? Was the miracle greater to find how deep Beyond all dreams sank downward that sleep ? Did life roll back its record, dear ? And show, as they say it does, past things clear ? 238 She is Dead. And was it the innermost heart of the bliss To find out so what a wisdom love is ? perfect dead ! O dead most dear ! 1 hold the breath of my soul to hear ! I listen as deep as to horrible hell, As high as to heaven, and you do not tell ! There must be pleasure in dying, sweet, To make you so placid from head to feet. I would tell you, darling, if I were dead, And twere your hot tears on my brow shed I would say, though the angel of death had laid His sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. You should not ask vainly, with streaming eyes, Which of all deaths was the chiefest surprise ; The very strangest and suddenest thing Of all surprises dying must bring." Ah, foolish world ! O most kind dead ! Though he told me, who will believe it was said ? Who will believe what he heard her say, With the sweet, soft voice, in the dear old way ? " The utmost wonder is this : I hear And see you and love you and kiss you, dear ; And am your angel, who was your bride, And know that, though dead, I have never died." ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP. EMMA WILLARD. (Sung by Miss Clara Stutsman. ) in the cradle of the deep, I lay me down in peace to sleep ; Secure I rest upon the wave, For tl^ou, O Lord ! hast power to save. I know thou wilt not slight my call, For thou dost mark the sparrow s fall ! And calm and peaceful is my sleeep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep. And such the trust that still were mine, Though stormy waves swept o er the brine, Or though the tempest s fiery breath Roused me from sleep to wreck and death ! In ocean cave still safe with thee, The germ of immortality ; And calm and peaceful is my sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep. A STORY IN VERSE. ALMA CALDER JOHNSTON. (Read by the A uthor.) STORY, my darlings ? I ll tell you two : " There was an old woman who lived in a shoe," Ah ! that is too stale ? you want something new ? Well, here is another I know to be true. One stormy morning, some years ago, When the city was covered with ice and snow, And the rich and poor, the high and low Went slipping and stumbling to and fro, I was looking out on the crowded street From my easy-chair by the fireside s heat ; The wind s sad wail and the pelting sleet But made my coziness more complete. Canary s warble, a flower s perfume, Brought happy dreams of days in June, And, all forgetful of wintry gloom, Visions of summer-time filled the room. A Story in Verse. 241 Unheeding the storm of wind and rain, I was joyously building a castle in Spain, With a highway to it, broad and plain, When, tap-tap, came a rap on my window-pane. My castle instantly vanished away ; My thoughts came back to the wintry day, And the world outside my firelight s ray, Centering, at last, on the garments gray Of a dark-eyed girl, some twelve years old With earnest face, firm, sweet, yet bold, And hairs of sunniest threads of gold, Beside my window, shivering with cold. Slowly I opened the entry door, Oh how fiercely the wind did roar ! " What do you want ? You ve been here before ! " Quickly she stepped on my tapestried floor. Half hiding her basket, she timidly said : " Please, ma am, will you give me a piece of bread ? I ve two little sisters to be fed, And Pa s in the army, and Mamma is dead." I looked in the basket where crusts were piled, A pitiful story has oft beguiled, I thought, as I asked, " Where s your home my child ? Her face was honest ; her voice so mild ; 242 A Story in Verse. 11 Up Bleecker Ally, not far from here." "And do you beg for a living ? " A tear To her dark eyes came : " Please, ma am, I fear You ll think I m lyin , it sounds so queer ; But 1 keeps boarders." Well, on my word, A funnier thing I never heard ! " Keeping boarders ? Why, how absurd ! " Her smile by a shade of grief was blurred. " Deed, ma am, twas the best thing I could do ; For me an Alice, an little Sue Must have a home. We never knew Where Pa was gone. The rent come due. The agent come and swore a streak ; An said he d turn us in the street Nless we paid the rent that week (The mean ol low-lived, cross-grained sneak). Old Dow, he got a month s delay ; An I said I d get work twould pay. Oh ma am, I tried most every way ; Sold papers, swept crossings, until one day W T hen little Alice was crying for bread My heart was like a lump o lead, A Story in Verse. 243 An I wished all of us was dead When keepin boarders popped into my head. I knew where I d get many a crumb ; But I thought I d keep it kinder mum Till I had tried the cooking some, When, first I knew, my boarders come ! " Her sparkling eyes were full of glee To see her story pleasing me. " So you had company to tea ? " " Yes ; and the boys caught my idee, And said they guessed it could be done, An anyhow it would be fun. I told the prices to every one, And so next day I just begun." "But what do you give them to eat ? " I cried. She opened her basket and then replied : " You see, ma am, all the bread is dried ; The meat s most ginerally allus fried, So I cuts em an stews em an calls it hash, An, sells a plateful for three cents, cash. Sometimes I gits cold taties to mash, But puddin I tell you that sells in a flash !" 244 ^ Story in Verse. " And how do you make a pudding, pray ? " " Bread, lasses an spices ; fruits throwed away At hotels an markets, the boys ill pay Three cents for a dishful any day." " And how many boarders have you now ? " She counted her fingers and wrinkled her brow. " Lame Jim, Mike, Smutty, Pat, Rippy and Howe, The Pidgeon, Bill, Champe, the Rat and old Dow. Land s sake ! it s most noon. Indeed I must go. Little Alice 11 think I ve been awful slow. Thank you, ma am." And out she darted into the snow. Now here s a true story for Bertha and Grace. Up Bleeker Ally you ll find the place, Of "Borde fur Bootblaks "that s the place, When you call, inquire for Emily Chase. A ROYAL GREETING. MRS. MARION T. FORTESCUE. (Read by the A uthor.} |OW gather all the gems that shine, And, swinging censers in her honor, Lay them at our Lady s shrine ! Put royal-purple ro bes upon her ! Wave ye banners silken symbols Of her good and gracious deeds Flash ye loud triumphant cymbals, Blaze, oh torch that Genius feeds ! For true as steel as diamond keen, Aye, true as purest gold of Guinea, Is she we crown to-day our Queen, No ermine needs our own Erminnie ! Right gladly have we claimed and crowned her, And now in loyal love surround her ; Aye, give her crown, and shield, and sceptre, Bright as eyes that never wept or Eyes that she hath kissed from blindness By her warm and tender kindness. 246 A Royal Greeting. Come each fair aesthetic maiden, Come, with myrrh and incense laden ; With flow rs that bloom and vines that clamber, Twine the sacerdotal amber ! Bring the opal s soul of fire, Bring rubies, red as love s desire ! Bring amethysts from caves of elves, Bring pearls, as pure as your pure selves, And the sapphire s steady splendor Like her eyes, blue, true and tender, Translucent topaz, emeralds green For gems befit our jewel-queen Who plucks the highest plumes from science, And weaves them into dear alliance With the softer plumes of fancy, Till, by loving necromancy, Nature, science, history, art, All thrive in one harmonious heart, Whose thousand deeds of noiseless worth, Like good seeds hid in the silent earth Bedewed with tears in grateful showers, Will testify in four-fold flowers ; Why ! even the dusky Indian chief, Who, brooding o er his dark belief, A Royal Greeting, 247 Asks bitterly the bitter question : " Is robber synonym for Christian ? " Even he will turn to her and listen With softening face and eyes that glisten ; And her wise words and silken speech Far deeper than loud sermons reach, Though broken on progression s wheel, Converted at the point of steel, Though fed on ruin, rum, and rapine When horrid deeds of vengeance happen, The pious lift white hands of wonder And sigh, and legislate and plunder ! Though but this is theme too dark, pathetic ; For thy fete day belle reine esthetique, God save our Queen, long may she reign, The world of genius her domain, And on her throne of science sit, Our Queen by grace of brains and wit ! PAUL ON THE HILL-SIDE* AUBER FORESTIER. (Sung by Mr. H. R. Humphries.} AUL let his chickens run out on the hill-side, They o er the hill went tripping along ; Paul understood, by the way they were acting, Reynard was out with his red tail so long, Cluck, cluck, cluck, the chickens were sighing, Cluck, cluck, cluck, the chickens were sighing, Paul was making wry faces and crying : " Now I m afraid to go home to Mamma. " Had I now jaws, and had I now claws, and If I but knew where old Reynard lay ; How I would bite him, and how I would scratch I off his body the hide soon would flay : [him, Shame on all the red-haired foxes ! Shame on all the red-haired foxes ! Oh, how I wish they were dead, and in boxes ! Then I d not fear to go home to Mamma." * Folk-song from the Norway Musical Album. Paul on the Hill-side. 249 Paul took the corn to the mill and he ground it, So that it echoed both far and wide ; Dust and the chaff were flying around him, There stood the meal in the bag by his side. Paul now roared and laughed like the dickens. Paul now roared and laughed like the dickens. " Now I am paid for my eggs and my chickens Now I can safely go home to Mamma." EDWARD EVERETT CHAIR. WE LAY US DOWN TO SLEEP. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. (Read by the Author,) E lay us down to sleep, And leave to God the rest, Whether to wake and weep Or wake no more be best. Why vex our souls with care ? The grave is cool and low, Have we found life so fair That we should dread to go ? We ve kissed love s sweet, red lips, And left them sweet and red : The rose the wild-bee sips Blooms on when he is dead. Some faithful friends we ve found, But they who love us best, When we are under ground, Will laugh on with the rest. We lay Us Down to Sleep. 251 No task have we begun But other hands can take : No work beneath the sun For which we need to wake. Then hold us fast, sweet death, If so it seemeth best To Him who gave us breath That we should go to rest. We lay us down to sleep, Our weary eyes we close : Whether to wake and weep Or wake no more, He knows. GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE. JOHN L. HATTON. (Sung by Miss Addie Kellum.) |HE bright stars fade, the morn is breaking, The dew-drops pearl each bud and leaf, And I from thee my leave am taking With bliss too brief, with bliss with bliss too brief. How sinks my heart with fond alarms, The tear is hiding in mine eye, For time doth trust me from thine arms. Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. For time doth thrust me from thine arms, Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. The sun is up, the lark is soaring, Loud swells the song of chanticleer, The hare bounds o er earth s soft flooring, Yet I am here, yet I am here. Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye. 253 For since night s gems from heav n did fade And morn to floral lips doth lie, I could not leave thee, tho I said : Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. I could not leave thee, tho I said, Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye. TO MEET AGAIN. DAVID S. FROUDFIT.* (Read by the Author.) AREWELL ! farewell ! So short a word ! A whisper in the twilight heard, So faint the air is scarcely stirred ; But yet, withal, Deep thunder doth not heavier fall. What ashen lips ; what straining ears ; What pallid cheeks ; what blinding tears ; What fainting hearts through all these years ! Farewell ! farewell ! Slow lingering like a funeral knell. If every word, through space profound, A widening circle ripples round In endless wave on wave of sound, Forevermore, Nor breaks on any farthest shore ; Peleg Arkwright. To Meet Again. 255 And some bright spirit in his place Upon the azure verge of space Floats, poised, with calm expectant face, And, listening, hears The echoes of a thousand years ; As come the pulsing murmurs clear, The voices from the distant sphere Which only angel ears can hear, How mournful swells The burden of the world s farewells ! Farewell to the glories of the strife ; Farewell to lover, child, and wife ; Farewell to hope and joy and life. Farewell ! farewell ! A doom ! a dirge ! a tolling bell ! Not such our parting word to-day. To meet again, we, smiling, say : To meet again we fondly pray ; To meet again, With loving, trusting hearts. Amen ! RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO* 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD i HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW SEP 211980 ttc. a* MAR 2 7 980 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1 1 778 BERKELEY CA 94720 s YD 03059 M266573 <?/ i A THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY I