IM ^ i 4 OtrlKISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S ^ IR;^ ^ K ® /^ • • • • • • • • •! r I • • • •/ • • •••«•»•• • •• • • • • • . .• . •••• ••••. Christmas aitJU ^du |i^ar's LEAVITT & ALLEN. 379 BEOA\)WAY. F74- ILLUSTRATIONS Pagb. IDALIA, - - Feontispieoe. PRESENTATION PLATE, Before Title. EARLY DAYS, - • 12 THE PORTRAIT, - - 92 SAPPHO, - - 179 MATILDA, - 217 M63531 CONTENTS. The Eainbovv Bridge . • 9 The Silver Birdsnest— by H. F. Gould 11 Early Days— by R. C. Waterston i:i The Countess Survilliers, a translated Fragment — by Nathaniel Greene 16 To M. A 25 Sonnet: To Louise — by Mrs. Ilofland 26 The Velvet Hat — by Mrs. Seba Smith 27 Early Flowers — by Mrs. Whitman 2y A. Love Match — by the Author of " Wealth and Fashion" . 33 To ***** , the Genius of Plaintive Music — by S. G. Goodrich 59 The Mantilla— by GrenvlUe Mellen 61 The Fatal Choice — by Mrs. L. K. Wells 64 Life — by E. A . . 93 Lines Suggested by a Picture — by Mrs. Whitman . 95 Stanzas for Music — by the Author of " Miriam " . 98 Phrenological Speculations — by Mrs. 9eba Smith . . . IOC The Politician of Podunk 109 The Thoughts of the Dumb— by J. II. Clinch 112 Sea Rhymes — Return of the Victor Ship — by James T. Fields 113 Lines written on the Summit of Mount llolyoke — by Grenville Mellen 114 A Sketch from Life — by the Author of " Wealth and Fashion" 119 Lament for the Decline of Poetry — a Fragment 125 Luxury, or the Lady-Bird — by Mrs. Seba Smith 126 The Journey of Memory 129 The Legend of the Large Feet — by Miss M. A. Browne . . 132 A.ncient Reminiscences — by the Author of the "Three E.xperiments," &c 161 Stanzas to a La»ly— by Grenville Mellen 173 VIII CONTENTS The Haunts of the Sea-Fowl 175 To a Wild Violet, in March — by S. G. Goodrich 175 "Show us the Father" — by Mrs. Sigourney 177 The Lyres of Old — by W. W. Morland 17a The Grave of Marqiiene — by the Author of "Miriam " . . 181 Mount Auburn — by the Author of ' Sketches of the Old Painters " . . If-'l The Debut— by H T. Tuckerman IBS The Confession 191 Tyre- by R. C. Waters»on 195 A November Landscape — by Mrs. Whitman 198 The Widow's Hope — by H. F. Gould 199 Second Thoughts Best — by Miss Sedgwick .... 201 The Fairies' Dance . . 253 The Portrait — by H. F Gould 262 Guess my Name • • • • 3S4 THE RAINBOW BRIDGE Love and Hope and Youth, together Travelling once in stormy weather, Met a deep and gloomy tide, Flowing swift and dark and wide. 'T was named the river of Despair, — - And many a wreck was floating there. The urchins paused, with faces grave, Debating how to cross the wave, When lo ! the curtain of the storm Was severed, and the rainbow's form Stood against the parting cloud. Emblem of peace on trouble's shroud. Hope pointed to the signal flying. And the three, their shoulders plying O'er the stream the light arch threw. A rainbow bridge of loveliest hue ! Now, laughing as they tripped it o'er, They gayly sought the other shore ; But soon the hills began to frown. And the bright sun went darkly down. Though their step wuj light and fleet. The rainbow vanished 'nealh their feet,- 10 RAINBOW BRIDGE. , , And down they Tvent, — the giddy things; — \ \^' Bu,t Kojfe'ptit fofth his ready wings, — ^ And /Jinging Love and Youth he bore '«,' c ;. ir^ ttitiMp^,to,the otiier shore. But ne'er I ween should mortals deem On rainbow bridge to cross a stream, Unless bright, buoyant Hope is nigh. And. — light as Love and Youth, — they fly. THE SILVER BIEDSNEST. BY H. F. GOULD. We were shown a beautiful specimen of the ingenuity of birds, a few days since, by Dr. Cook of this borough. It was a birdsnest, made entirely of silver wires, beautifully woven together. The nest was found on a sycamore tree, by Dr. Francis Beard of York County. It was the nest of a hanging- bird ; and the material was probably obtained from a soldier's epaulette, which it had found. — West Chester Village Rec ord, Spring of 1838. A STRANDED soIdicr's epaulet The waters cast ashore, A little winged rover met, And eyed it o'er and o'er. The silver bright so ft^^'^f.'i iicr sight On that lone, idle vest, She knew not why she should deny Herself a silver nest. The shining wire she pecked and tMrirled; Then bore it to her bough. Where, on a flowery twig 't was curled, — The bird can show you how : But, when enough of that bright stuff The cunning builder bore Her house to make, she would not take. Nor did she covet, more. 12 SILVER BIIlDbNESl. And when the little artisan, While neither pride nor guilt Had entered in her pretty plan. Her resting-place had built ; With here and there a plume to spare About her own light form, Of these, inlaid with skill, she made A lining soft and warm. But, do you think the tender broorf She fondled there, and fed. Were prouder, when they understood The sheen about their bed ? Do you suppose they ever rose, Of higher powers possessed, Because they knew they peeped and gr&^ Within a silver nest? t * ■, 4 ^: 1 .Y. :^.a4^0^,i-.lZ^a^2AJ . EARLY DAYS. BY R. C. WATERSTON. Who, for all that age could bring, Would forget life's budding spring? Hours of frolic ! school-boy days ! Full of merry pranks and plays ; When the untaught spirit beats With a thousand wild conceits; When each pleasure, bright and new. Sparkles fresh with heavenly dew; When the light that shines abroad, Seems the very smile of God ; Who, in after toil and strife. Would forget the morn of life ? Maturer age brings riper thought. Fills with nobler hopes the mind, Seeks the truth by Prophets sought, Toils to benefit mankind ; — Yet who, 'mid all that age can bring, Would forget life's budding spring? « « » 4 *♦ New-born minds, untouched by sin. Make the earth seem holy ground ; Thus the innocence within Sheds its light on all around, Till the hills and flowers and streams Are woven o'er with golden dreams. EARLY DAYS. How oft in youth I wandered out, With bounding step and merry shout, Running and leaping in the sun, Witli heart brimful of joy and fun, Till by degrees my eye grew mild, And I became less gay and wild, And every thing by Nature wrought Awakened me to calmer thought. And my young spirit, unaware, Seemed lifted on the wings of prayer. # » -t * » How oft beneath the shadows dim, I sat bepide the fountain's brim, Watching the wild- wood flowers, which there Breathed their sweet perfume to the air, And saw each dew-bent blossom shine With something of a light divine ! How oft I watched, with thoughtfu* eye, The clouds that slowly wandered by, Amid an atmosphere of blue, With pearl and rose and amber hue, And felt, as thus they went abroad, They were the messengers of God ! And when, upon the river's side, I saw the silver waters glide ; While my school-mate, half in play. Watched the tranquil current flow. And sought to draw the speckled prey From its native home below ; EARLY DAYS. 16 How often have I felt the sight Fill my whole being with delight, While waves below and clouds above Stirred my young heart to holy love! * » « if Then each scene, before me brought, Did unfold some inward thought ; Happy moments ! Golden hours ! Pure and blessed joys of youth ' Then I felt those inward powers, That now pant for highest truth ! Not for all that age can bring. Would 1 lorget Life's budding spring THE COUMTESS SURVILLIERS. A TRANSLATED FRAGMENT BY NATHANIEL GREENE. I HAD passed an hour in the saloon of the Count of St. Leu, whose palace stands conspicu- ous among those splendid buildings upon the quay of the Arno, near the bridge of the Holy- Trinity, in Florence. The Count was confined to his bed by illness ; his customary evening circle awaited him in vain ; it was at length announced, that he was too ill to appear; sherbet was served, and the guests departed. Nothing is more disagreeable in a strange city than an interrupted soiree^ by which our social arrangements for the evening are destroy- ed ; one then feels doubly a stranger. ]\I. de D . . . , a relative of Prince Talleyrand, proposed to take us to the Pergola, where the " Rosa- mond " of Donizetti was to be performed, and in which Duprez was to sing. " Rosamond " is a »eeble composition. It is said of this work, thai THE COUNTESH SURVILLIERS 1*7 the composer had been captured by four brig- ands, who led him to their cave, and, with their bayonets at his breast, compelled him to write an opera. " Rosamond," written in one night, was the result. We approached the Pergola ; the street was dark and the theatre closed. Some one of the neighbourhood informed us, that Duprez was to sing at the Palazzo Pucci, in a concert given by a celebrated vocalist. " We may as well proceed to the Palazzo Puc- ci," said our conductor, with a smile ; and away we went. The street was full of carriages, and the hall crowded with people. It was impossible to ob- tain a place for one, and we were three. M. de D^. observed, that he was well aquainted with the owner of the palace, a wealthy Englishman, who often indulged in the generous practice of loaning his hall tmd his lustres to artists, for these occasions. " We must obtain admission at all hazards," added he ; "I have just heard, that Duprez is to sing two arias from 'Tell,' and that is worth more than the whole of ' Rosamond.' Wait for me but one minute." He leaped up the steps with the light and 2onfident tread of a favored family friend. 18 THE COUNTESS SURVILLIERS. The minute lasted an hour. At lengih we saw him returning, and, as he approached, he threw up his arms in token of ill success. There were already more people in the hall than it would hold ; even the owner had himself retired to make room for strangers. Could hospitality further go ? " We will to the Countess Survilliers," said M. de D . . . ; "I have not seen her for five weeks, and will introduce you to her." We gladly acceded to the proposal, and our carriage was soon rolling along the dark and solitary streets leading to the Ponte Vecchio. Crossing the Arno, we penetrated a sombre and dilapidated suburb, where one would hardly think of seeking for a queen's palace. It seemed, indeed, as if we our- selves were going into exile. The carriage stopped before a high trellis ; the servant pulled the bell ; it seemed like ringing at the door of an Egyptian tomb, so many were the answering echoes and so solemn was the silence of the place. At length the slow movement of a porter was heard. Before opening, he asked our names. M. de D . . . gave his, which was known to almost every porter in Florence, and ilie gate swung upon its hinges. The dark and deserted court, through which THE COUNTESP SfJRVII.LIERS 19 we passed, was rendered still more dismal by the dying flicker of a solitary lantern. We ascended a broad, resounding staircase ; M. de D . . ., after very cavalierly dismissing the old porter, opened the first door of the apartments, and conducted us to the grand reception-room. Two ladies were in the saloon. One of them, the ci-devant queen of Spain, appeared to have been asleep upon a sofa, and aroused by the noise of our entrance. The other, the Princess Char- lotte, her daughter, was occupied in drawing at a small table. The Countess Survilliers welcom- ed us by a graceful inclination of the head, and with a motion of her hand pointed out to us our seats. She was ill and suffering much ; her pale countenance, however, yet retained its noble and dignified expression. The Princess Charlotte discontinued her drawing, yet preserved a cold and melancholy demeanor. We knew not how *o introduce conversation ; no one spoke ; M. de D . . . himself, with his adventurous boldness, ac- quired by constant intercourse with the world, was constrained and silent. The impression made upon me by this group may well be imagined. It was the first time I had seen the Countess, and I understood nothing of this extraordinary silence in a Florentine sa* 30 THE COUNTKJSS SUIIVILLIERS. loon, where the winged words generally fly so rapidly and all seem to speak in chorus. 1 Arst learned, alas, after leaving the palace, how much of meaning and consecrated etiquette there was in this reception. I knew not, at the time, that a dreadful calam- ity had recently fallen upon this exiled family , I knew not that this young and lovely princess was the widow of that unfortunate Napoleon, the son of Hortense, who had met a violent death in Romagna. Time had robbed the catastrophe of none of its horrors, which were constantly pres- ent to the minds of these sad mourners. But, instead of tears, prevailed that deep-seated, in- exhaustible, and unconquerable sorrow, which still endures when the black crape has faded, and ceases but with the last throb of the broken heart. A widow of eighteen years, and in what manner widowed ? There are some misfortunes so dread- ful, that they momentarily shake even a settled and unwavering faith in the righteousness of God's providence. There are calamities, en- tirely out of the usual course of human events, apparently intended for the special aflliction of some devoted individual, and resulting from a combination of circumstances so strange and rightful, that to the skeptic they naturally seem THE COUNTESS SURVILLIEKS 2i to emanate from the Spirit of Evil. It was not enough that a young girl, full of grace and spirit, like this Princess Charlotte, at an age usually gilded by the sunshine of careless joy, should be called to mourn all those illustrious dead, who, to us, are merely the brilliant subjects of universal history, but to her were near relatives and dear friends. A ray of happiness seemed at last to fall upon the innocent exile ; a happy marriage had prepaa-ed for her a brilliant future, and given her the most delightful residence in that city of refuge for the unfortunate, beautiful Florence , it had blessed her with wealth, honor, love. But, alas ! ere the bridal garland had yet lost its fresh- ness or its fragrance, ere the last echoes of the marriage hymn had yet ceased, commenced the solemn requiem for the loved, the lost, the dead ! I remained an hour in this abode of sorrow, during ay which time but few words were inter- changed. Although exerting myself to restrain a childish curiosity, I could not refrain from an occasional glance at the objects around me. The saloon was spacious, splendidly gilded, and luxu- riously furnished. In one of those moments when the Princess Charlotte had made a suc- cessful effort to combat busy memory, that she 22 THE COUNTESS SURVILLIERS. might speak on other subjects than that which incessantly occupied her heart, she observed to me, that this palace had formerly belonged to the Prince DemidofT, of whom her family had purchased it. This noble building, now so silent and solitary, of which two sorrowing women were the sole inhabitants, had, then, witnessed all those brilliant festivals given by the rich Muscovite to the descendants of the Guelfs and the Ghibe- lines. How instructive, how full of change, is the history of a palace ! As joy dies away in the hesgrts of men, so also expire the flames of the lustres, and the mournful darkness of the saloon affords its silent sympathy to suffering hu- manity. The amiable princess seemed desirous of mak- ing compensation for the sad constraint which circumstances had imposed on us all. Twice, towards the end of our visit, were her pale features lighted up with a faint, sweet smile. She showed to us her album, which contained many beautiful emanations from her own mind and heart. The lady who accompanied us, re- quested permission to transcribe the following stanzas which they showed us, and which are upon the willow standing by the grave of Napo- leon, at St. Helena : THE COUNTESS SURVILLIERS 23 " Pour lui raconter sous la terre Sa vieille gloire de quinze ans, II n'a qu'un arbre solitaire, Le dernier de ses courtisans ; De tant de guirlandes de fete Qu'un raonde tressa pour sa t^tc, Que lui reste-t-il aujourd'hui ? Un saule sur la roche dure, ^ Seul arc triomphal de verdure Que le terns ait laisse pour lui ! " Visitant sa froide demeure, Nos marins, le front decouvert, Du saule echevele qui pleure Se partagent un rameau vert; Et, plus confians aux 6toiles, A la brise ils ouvrent leurs voiles, Sftrs de revoir leurs beaux climats ; Car on dit que ce saint feuillage Donne au navire un doux mouillage Et porte bonheur k ses mdts ! " It was not without humid eyes that we took our leave. No word was spoken in the carriage ; and the whole city seemed to have caught a shade of our sadness. The Arno murmuringly rippled by the foundations of the old Ghibeline mansions upon its banks ; the rising moon shed its pale light upon the cypress wood which frowns above the Villa Strozzi ; and the illuminated clock upon ,he dark tower of the old palace indicated the 24 1^. COUNTESS SURVILLIEES. hour of eleven, when, amid congenial stillness and gloom, we reached our hotels. Note. Since the above sketch was handed to the Editor of the Token, he has noticed the following account of the death of the Princess Charlotte. Extract of a Letter from Florence, datea the 4:th of March, , 1839. " Princess Charlotte, daughter of the King Joseph Napoleon, died at S irzana, on her way from Florence to Genoa for the benefit of her health. Her decease has produced great regret where she was known, from her taste for the arts, for which she possessed remaikable talents. Since her youth, she had been in exile with her family, but still entertained an enthusiastic affection for France. She resided with the Queen Julia, her mother, in Frankfort and Brussels, till the death of Napo- leon at St. Helena. She traversed the Atlantic to offer con- solation to her father, then in the United States, the feeble state of her mother's health having prevented her from going. Princess Charlotte returned to Europe in 1822, and she was soon united to a prince worthy of her. Prince Napo- leon. His premature death had deeply affected her, and in her turn she has been suddenly taken away by the breaking of a blood ressel." TO M. A. As one that gazeth on a star. In adoration from afar, I gaze on thee, as pnre and fair, — And yet, alas, as cold thine air I Still, 1 have fondly, madly dwelt On one bright orb, till reason knelt In worship at so loved a shrine, And, oh, how deeply wished 't were min* And when I saw its equal rays Bestowed on all who chanced to gaze. Spite of its high and haughty birth, I would have plucked it down to earth. Lady, forgive ! that star is bright, No thought of mine can dim its light ; Proudly it sweeps the azure sky, And I am left alone to sigh. SONNET: TO LOUISE, DAUGHTER OF A FRENCH REFUGEE. BY MRS. HOFLAND. Fair, trembling girl, methinks I ne'er beheld So sweet a sufferer in Love's hour of woe : Not one, the ruthless deity compelled To crush a father's heart by such strange blow. Though happy in thy choice, — unhappy thou In the stern secret he hath bade thee keep. Sinless, yet joyless, thou canst not bestow One sympathetic smile, but turn'st to weep From him who yearns to oless thee, — him whose brow The coronet of rank restored shall grace, — But finds not there one jewel that can glow Like the bright beauty of his child's dear face, — « Fn days of confidence. Oh I ne'er forget The daughter's deep, unutterable d>*bt. THE VELVET HAT. BY ME 8. 8EBA SMITH. I THixK I see thee, gentle one, When fii-st that " velvet hat,** Before the lo<.»king-glass put on. Upon thy dark curk sat ; — I see the look of youthful pride. Which thou didst seek in vain to hide,— The triumph lingering in thine eye, The conscious blush, that flitted by. I see thee turn aside thine head. Adjust the glossy curl, — And backward go with tiptoe tread. And pretty, girlish whirl, Then forward step for one last view ;— The " velvet hat " was then quite new. And thou wouldst know if it would be Becoming to thy curls and thee. Yes, all was right, — I see it now, By that complacent smile. The calmness of the placid brow. The dash of maiden wile, That seesis to dimple round the eye And lurk about the corners sly Of that sweet, budding lip of thine, Which I oould almost press to mine. 2« THE VtLVET HAT, The " velvet hat," it was, sweet , irl, The very tiling for thee, — So causing hrow and sunny curl In softened light to be. O ' may no shadow ever rest More coldly on thy youtnful breast^ Than this, that falls upon thy orow But making it more lovely now. EARLY FLOWERS. BY MRS. WHITMAN "Vergnugen sitzt in Blumen-kelcben, uud kommt alle Jahr einmal als Geruch beraus." — Bahel. " Pleasure sits in the flower-cups, and breathes itself out once every year in fragrance." As the fabled stone iato music woke, When the morning sua o'er the marble broke, So -wakes the heart from its stern repose, As o'er brow and bosom the spring-wind blows ; So it stirs and trembles, as each low sigh Of the breezy south comes murmuring by ; — Murmuring by like a voice of love. Wooing us forth amid flowers to rove ; Breathing of forest-paths damp with dew. Which the milk-white buds of the strawberry strew ; And of banks that slope to the southern sky. Where languid wolets love to lie. Its wings are heavy with rich perfume. Won from the hyacinth's purple bloom ; It has rifled the buds from the blossoming tree, And robbed of his banquet the roving bee, 30 EARLY FLOWERS* Their white petals far o'er the fields are bloHP Like pearls on a mantle of emerald sovm No foliage droops o'er the wood-path now, Flinging rich curtains from bough to bough, But a trembling shadow of silvery green Falls through the young leaf's tender screen Like the hue that borders the snow-drop's b'?il Or lines the lid of an eastern shell ; There the gold-cup may burnish her crown a^. taj As she basks in the sunshine beside the way, The anemone open her sleepy eye, And look at the clouds as they wander by. Or hide neath the shade of a drooping fern. To gather the dew in her waxen urn. Already the green-budding birchen spray Catches the light in its quivering play. And the aspen thrills to a low, sweet tone, Breathed for her listening ear alone. Through the tangled coppice the dwarf-oak "reavcB Its fringe-like blossoms and crimson leaves. And the velvet buds of the willow unfold Into downy feathers bedropt with gold, While, thick as the stars of the midnight sky, n the dark, wet meadows the cowslips lie. Now on rocky ledges the columbines grow, With their heavy honey-cups bending low. As a heart, which vague, sweet thoughts cppress, Droops neath its burden of happiness. There the waters drip from their mossy wells. With a sound like the tinkling of silver bells % EARLY FLOWERS. 31 Or fall, with a mellow and flute-like flow, Through the channelled clefts of the rock below. Ay, music gushes in every tone, And perfume on every breeze is blown 1 On the flashing fount and the blossoming bough. The light of gladness and beauty glow ; While all sweet sounds through the air that float, The himi of the bee and the wild-bird's note. The flush on the wind-flower's delicate cheek, The perfume that steals from the violet's beak, Confess a presence of joy and love. That bends o'er earth like a brooding dove. The flower in fragrance, the bird in song, The glittering wave as it glides along, All breathe the incense of boundless bliss, The eloquent music of happiness ! And the soul, as it sheds o'er the sunbright hour The priceless wealth of its princely dower, Linked to all nature by chords of love, Lifted by faith to pure worlds above. In vain would it utter the full, free tide Of grateful thoughts through the heart that glide. Fervid and deep as the hue that glows In the burning core of the crimson rose. Yet sad would the heart of the dreamer be, And this world a withering mockery ; Its glory, a meteor that sweeps the sky, A blossom, that floats on the storm- wind by ; 82 EARL? FLOWERH. If, as it passes on arrowy wing, It left not a token of endless spring. If it nurtured no rich-fruited flower of love, To bloom for yon far land of beauty above. A LOVE MATCH. BY THK AUTHOR OF " WEALTH AXI FASHION " It is surprising how many different stages people may pass through in the course of their lives, and yet preserve their identity. The Lin- tons were always spoken of as very worthy peo- ple. They were industrious and economical, and then they were called wealthy people. They purchased an elegant house, and furnished it with French furniture, and rairrors to the floor ; then they were called fashionable people. At length they gave dinners and balls, and brought out their only child, who was a belle and a beauty, and then they were called stylish people This is the very acme of praise in the aristocratic vocabulary. " The force of nature could no further go 5 " anci after the Lintons became wealthy, fashiona- Dle, and stylish, they stood still. Was it not a great mistake, in abolishing titles in this country, that we did not abolish the de- sire for them ? Now, with a certain class, nothing 3 84 A LOVE MATCH. is left to distinguish them but what can be pro- cured by vulgar coin, and all the wealth in the country cannot turn one American citizen into a duke, or even a three-tailed bashaw. Emma Linton, the heroine of our tale and the only child, though ambitious, possessed no vulgar ambition. Many a youth sued for her fair hand. She smil- ed upon them, talked with them, waltzed with them, and accepted their bouquets ; but her heart remained untouched. She had her secret aspira- tions, and determined never to marry unless she could see them accomplished. It was not wealth she sighed for, nor such rank as our republican country affords, but for what she consideredits true nobility, talent. There were many young lawyers, physicians, and divines, who gave fair promise of future em- inence in their respective professions ; but this was not Emma's idea of talent. Talent was a magic word, that embraced every thing. The man who realized her beau ideal, was to charm by his eloquence, dazzle by his wit, convince by his ar- guments, and conquer by his energy. To find him was not easy, yet it had been her dream for years. She had heard of such, and read of such , but they were like wandering comets, that never crossed her path. A LOVE MATCH. 35 It is extremely difficult to know where to seek for our distinguished men. Every party has its demigods, and poor Emma was kept in a state of feverish vicissitude. One position, however, she resolutely adopted, that they were only to be found in public life ; and she therefore sought her fu- ture husband in all the newspapers. She read whig speeches and democratic speeches, tariff speeches and anti-tariff. She turned from the frozen zone of the north to the fiery tropics of the south. She wandered from the far east to the still farther west, and her heart found no resting- place. At length, however, one star seemed to rise above its twinkling associates. All the world began to talk of Mr. Merville. " When he spoke in public," the newspapers said, " every eye was fixed upon him, and every tongue was mute." All parties acknowledged his talents ; but only the party to which he belonged, gave him credit for virtue and principle. Mr. Linton happened to be on an excursion to Washington when Mr. Merville's fame became so transcendent, and therefore had the good fortune to hear him make a speech six hours long, dur- ing which it seemed doubtful whether he once stopped to breathe. All this Emma learned 36 A LOVE MATCH. through the newspapers, and waited with the ut> most impatience for her father's return. She had ascertained that Merville was a bachelor, and, if disengaged, he was the very hero of her aspirations. All in time Mr. Linton arrived, and Emma inquired, with no small degree of agi- tation, what he thought of the distinguished Sen- ator. With surprise she learned that he was an early friend of her father's. They had met, with a glow of feeling that carried them back to youth, and in the fulness of communication Mr. Linton expressed his astonishment that Merville had never married. " It would be surprising," replied his compan- ion, " if mine had not been an occupied life ; but I begin to grow weary of the strife of politics, and tired of gazing year after year on the hard, unyielding visages of my constituents. I want different specimens of creation; its corals, its pearls, and its roses ; — the truth is, Linton, I am determined to marry, and live for myself." '^ I wish," replied his friend, " you could take ome fifteen or twenty years from your age ; and then, as far as my influence and consent could insure success, you might become my son-in law." A LOVE MATCH. 37 " And why not now ? " said Merville eagerly " do you see in me any of the imbecility of age ? Is my arm feeble to protect my wife my heart cold in its pulsations ? Where is th man, on whom you could bestow your daughter who would insure her less chance of vicissitude and change ? You may obtain for her youth, but you must *take with it the uncertainty of worldly success, of moral character, and of dis- position. Perhaps you may see her breasting the storms of life with a man who h-as nothing but his youth to recommend him, an advantage of all others the most perilous and the most fleeting." As he spoke, his eye sparkled with the vivaci- ty of youth, and certainly at that moment there was little to mark the accumulation of years. His hair was slightly bleached, but the manly dignity of his form was still unimpaired. Mr. Linton became a proselyte to the eloqu'ence of his friend, and consented that he should try his influence with the young beauty. His surprise was great when he returned home, to find her mind already engaged upon the subject; and, when he opened the negotiation, she lent a ready and willing ear. Mr. Linton communicated to his friend the 38 A LOVE MATCH, favorable intelligence, with the permission to hasten on and make his own impressions. Mr. Merville was too important a man easily to get leave of absence. His name was on various committees; and petitions, signed by many a Harriet, Mary, Eliza, &c., were daily coming in. which he felt bound to denounce or to support. At such a juncture, he could only write at first to the father. By degrees a correspondence was commenced between the parties. Had aught been wanting to confirm the fair Emma in her favor able impressions, these letters would have been sufficient. The flame was kindled and burned brightly. Every newspaper that contained his name was preserved, " Mr. Merville made a motion," " Mr. Merville sat down," " Mr. Mer- ville rose," were all words of magic import; and now and then a speech of four columns in length, to be continued in the next, and con- cluded in the one after, by Mr. Merville, gave her employment till the next appeared. Emma DO longer troubled herself to keep up appear- ances. Instead of wearing the numerous bou quets that were laid at her shrine, and which often made her resemble " Birnam wood com- ing to Dunsinane," she left them to fade and die on her dressing-table. The consequence A L O V E M A 1 C 11 159 was, that the passion of the innamoratos faded and died with them, and Emma Linton ceased to be a belle. At length, however, the long ses- sion was over, and Merville, crowned with hon- ors, and his party triumphant, was speeched, and feasted, through all the principal cities and towns, till he arrived at , too late at night to visit the lady of his love. The first notice she re- ceived of his vicinity, was through the newspa- pers, those important agents in the present love affair. It was announced in capital letters, that Mr. Merville the great Senator, the great Speak- er, the great Statesman had arrived, and that he had already received an invitation to a public dinner, which he had graciously accepted. Now did Emma's heart flutter, her cheeks glow, as she thought, " This man whom all the world de- lights to honor I& engrossed solely by me." She walked before her Psyche glass, scanned her slight and youthful figure, and felt a degree of wonder that any thing so diminutive could set the world in motion. At an early hour she was prepared to receive the Senator. But he was detained by calls, and shaking of hands, and accepting the homage of half the city. At length, however, the august moment arriv' 40 A LOVE MATCH. and Mr. Merville was introduced to the elegant and classic apartment of the young lady. Em- ma was an only daughter, and had the privileges of one. Though Mr. Linton had no great taste for pictures or statues, Emma had cultivated an ardent love of the fine arts. She had collected around her specimens of Italian sculpture ; and a Cupid, beautiful as day, surmounted the pillar which rose in the centre of the crimson divan, against which she reclined. On either side were placed upon pedestals an Apollo and a flying Mercury. The walls were ornamented with the finest copies of Raphael's Madonnas, the St. John of Dominichino, the Magdalen of Guide. The furniture was in the simplest style of Grecian beauty; tabourets and divans, and the slight modern cane chair, that looks as if it was hardly made to support one of mortal mould, had excluded the French comfortable hergere and faideuil. This apartment, so beautifully ar- ranged, was exclusively her own, and was re- flected on every side by superb mirrors, which produced the effect of a suite of rooms. It was an agitating moment to its youthful mistress when the great Merville entered, — great^ we regret to say, in more senses than one. " The waving line of beauty" has long been cele* A LOVE MATCH. 41 brated, but it seems difficult to defiue when brought into real life. Fanny Kemble we think illustrated it, who never stood erect, but bem; like a graceful sapling with every emotion of her mind. If it means merely a curve^ Mer- ville illustrated it, for time often gives a sur- prising rotundity to the figure. Emma had been too much engrossed in her worship of ta* ent to ask a description of the temple which enshrined it, or she would have learned that he was what we Yankees call a portly man, with a comfortable share of the bones and sinews of old Kentucky. Emma had placed one of the light cane chairs near the divan, on which she meant to give audi- ence ; thinking it would be a convenient seat for her lover. Even the elephant is guided by in- stinct or reason, and refuses to cross a bridge that may totter and sink under him ; how much more a man of talents would avoid such a snare. Merville had real good sense, and none of the affectation that belongs to a little mind. Ho paid his respects to Emma in a manly and grace ful mann-er, and, as he considered the cane chair wholly out of the question, he took a seat on the small circular divan upon which she was sit- ting. This was unfavorable for first impressions, 42 A LOVE MATCH. it brought them nearly back to back, refieeted from the magnificent mirrors, and the light and graceful Cupid with his bow bent, rising above them, and ready to take aim. It however was only a first meeting, and it was of short contin nance, for Merville was a public man and had many engagements on hand. Perhaps he was too wise to make a long visit. His allusions were tender and respectful, as to the object for which he came, and yet not so pointed as to alarm the fair one. She felt that he still considered her the mistress of her own destiny. "When he took leave, she watched his retreating form in the mirror opposite, and as the door closed her beau- tiful head drooped, and she burst into tears. At that critical moment the door was again gently opened, and Merville appeared ; he had left one of his gloves, and returned for it. What a spectacle for a lover, — his fair mistress, after the first triumph of a meeting, half suffocated by sobs, and bathed in tears ! His quick and comprehensive mind at once caught the meaning of her distress, and he determined to let his engagements wait and set her heart at rest. " My dear Miss Linton," said he (he had been used to addressing her thus in his letters), " why A L(3VE MATC 11 4 f^ this asjilat ion, this causeless distress ? You have incurred no responsibility, you are entirely your own mistress ; whatever encouragement or hope I may have cherished, has been the result of my own sanguine wishes. This excursion, with out so powerful a motive, would have been desir able to me. Much as I had heard of your beau ty and sweetness, and truly as I read your mind in the letters I have received, I do not hesi- tate to say, that the reality far transcends my expe/itations. I feel that it was presumption in Tfie to expect to win youth and beauty. Recover your cheerfulness and put me wholly out of the question ; consider me only as the friend of your father." The soothing tones of his voice, his manner so tender and respectful, at once produced the desired effect ; her tears ceased, and by degrees furtive smiles dimpled her cheeks. Their con- versation grew more interesting, yet that odious divan ! There was but one way of settling it ; Em na arose and seated her slight figure in the slight chair, and then they could talk face to face. Merville gained wonderfully by this ar- rangement. There is no old age to intellect, — it diffuses over the countenance the animation and briehtness of youth. Emma saw all her 44 LOVE MATCH. dreams realized. Whether the little Cupid ac tually drew his bow or not, it is difficult to sav but, before they parted, another appceintment was made for the evening, and, when he a second time disappeared, the mirror reflected to her eye " a port like Jove." Mr. Merville had no time to lose, and their engagement was soon settled and announced. Strange as it may seem, Emma was deeply in love ; and we verily beLeve, if she had heard all the spiteful things said about their difference of age, it would not have given her a moment's uneasiness. Some tried to make it out a mercenary match on her side ; but, as she had rather more wealth in expectation, than Mr. Merville in possession this did not go well. Tliey next endeavoured to prove that it was for an estaUishment she was forming ihe connexion, to be mistress of a lx>use and of a carriage ; but all this she enjoyed under her parent's Koof. Finally, they contented themselves by saying, " she had thrown herself away ; " a conclusion that settles all difficulties, and is a wonderful cordial to the ill-natured. In a few weeks Mr. Merville led his young bride to the altar. He was th-e happiest ot hus- bands, Emma the happtest of wives, and Mr Linton the happiest of fathers ; but there was /I LOVE iMATCH. 45 one quiet, unobtrusive being, that we cunnot rank among the happy, and this was Mrs. Linton, the tender mother of Emma. She was neither tal- ented, nor gifted, but her heart was true to na- ture ; she had from the first been averse to the maitch, and ventured to remonstrate against it. Emma listened respectfully to her objections they were entirely based upon the difference of years. " How is it possible," said she, " that the young and the old can assimilate ? Your hus- band will soon want quiet, and retirement, while you are yet sighing for gayety and amusement." " Never, mother," said Emma, and she fully believed what she said. " His pursuits will al- ways be mine ; there is a perfect assimilation of mind, and time has no power over intellect." " And vpT," said Mrs. Linton, " I have known such disproportioned matches end unhappily, and what you call intellect crumble away before old age." " Then it ceases to be intellect," said Emma, triumphantly, "and cannot apply to our subject. We are all liable to the casual- ties of life ; I too may become an invalid, but we can only provide for the present." Mrs. Linton was always silenced by Emma's ready wit , she ceased to oppose, and, when she parted from her beloved and only daughter, made every ef- fort to suppress her rising tears. 40 A LOVE MATCH. Emma rej aiied to the pleasant mansion of her husband, and for three whole months was the happiest of human beings, tliough far away from her parents and early companions, and comparatively among strangers. The mtellect and talent, to which she paid homage, were de- votedly hers. Her husband suffered the wheels of government to re^ olve as they might ; it mat- tered little to him which part was up, or which down. His beautiful bride absorbed ail his thoughts. He accomm.odated himself to her youth, her fancies, and even her whims. They had promised a distinguished artist to sit foi their pictures, and Emma insisted that they should both be put on the same canvass. Mer- ville's good judgment led him to oppose this fancy, but the young wife would not be contra- dicted. Notwithstanding the skill of the paint- er, the contrast of age was strikingly preserved. Emma was unpleasantly affected by it, and she protested they were neither of them likenesses. Hitherto Mr. Mervillc's world of politics had gone smoothly on ; but who expects stability in our new hemisphere ? Electioneering times were drawing near, and the hu.sband began to arouse from his slumber. His brow was sometimes thoughtful, and Emma grew anxious lest he A I.OVE MATCH. 'l7 loved her less. She had a modest and painful conscio jsness of intellectual inferiority compared with him, which sometimes disquieted her. Her hushand was in the habit of calming these so* licitudes by assuring her how much beyond compare were her native and intuitive percep- tions, to any dull acquisitions of his own. Her genius and taste were amply and justly alleged, and always with feeling and eloquence. But this could not last in electioneering times. Mer- ville was a determined poUtician, and whigs and democrats were in motion. One evening the netted wife actually found herself alone in her ora wing-room. The French clock struck nine and he did not arrive ; she tried to read, she walked the room, she rang the bell, she poked the fire, and whiled away another hour. At length the clock struck the deep, funereal notes of ten. At that moment he entered, and found his beau- tiful Emma in tears. " What is the matter with you, my dearest," said he tenderly, " no bad news, I hope, from our dear father or mother ? " It must be con- fessed he had the affectation of calling li:s early friends by their parental titles. Emma shook her head. " What then has happened ? " *' Where have you been all the evening 1 * said she, with a rising sob. 48 A LOVE MATCH. " To a caucus, my love," replied he. " Promise me, then," said she, throwing her- self into his arms, " that you will never go to another."' It was easy for him to restore Emma's seren- ity for that time. But, alas ! caucus after cau- cus followed ; his whole time became engrossed. He was the leading man of his party, and the very popularity that had won her heart, now made her wretchedness. The chosen friends of her husband were politicians and of his own age. He urged her to invite friends to her house, and to visit ; but he was always too much en- gaged to be with her. At length, he proposed her making her parents a visit, and promised to hasten to her the first moment of leisure. Emma received this proposal as a wish to be re- lieved from the little restraint her society im- posed upon him, and made her preparations with the air of a martyr. His engrossment did not prevent his attending to every proper arrange- ment for the journey of his wife. Her father joyfully welcomed her, talked of the popularity and success of her husband, of his high stand- ing among his constituents, and congratulated her on having chosen so wisely. The mother's eye soon detected a cloud on the fair you A LOVE M \ C T ri €9 brow ; and, when Emma seated herself on a low cricket by her side, Mrs. Linton did not repress the confidefice that was tremhling on her lips. " C mother," said she, " all you predicted has arrived. I am interested in nothmg, I en- joy nothing, I have no society, I am alone in the world My husband has become indifferent to me." " You shock me," said Mrs. Linton. " Indeed, mother, it is too true ; but little more than three months after we were married, his alienation began." " My dear child, Mr. Merville is a man of honor and principle ; I fear your conduct has been injudicious." " I Imve been the most devoted of wives," replied Emma ; " I wanted no other society than his. Only three months after we were married, he left me for" " My child," interrupted the mother, " beware of suspicion, and do not expose any faults you ^Tiay have accidentally discovered." 'Surely I may speak to my own mother," replied Emma. " Three months after we were married, he left me a whole evening entirely alone, and I discovered that it was for nothin;.' but a caucus ! " 4 t LOVK MATCtl. " ] an) rcjoicea," said Mrs. i^lntou. sniiihig, " that it was for nothing but thai. But now do tell me, Kmma, why you married Mr* Merville?" " You know, mother, it was for his talents 5 they first secured my affection.'" " 'J'heu ^'0 has lost his talents ; he is no long* er an hon'.'i to his country : " " Indeed, you are mistaken," said Emma, warmly ; " he is more popular than ever." " Then it is you that have changed ; you love him no longer for what first won your affec- tion. FTad he grown indifferent to the public good, and passed his time in attendance upon you, you might have justly complained that you had thrown yourself away upon an imaginary greatness." Emma had good sense enough to feel that her mother's representations were just, and she only added, " Well, great talents are for the world, nor for domestic life." Yet when her friends 'hronged to see her and all spoke of her husband, she felt her former enthusiasm re vive. Week after M'eek she expected him, but he deiinonent did not arrive ; and at len[,:h he wrote to her, that he was so much oc «jpied, that it vould be impossible for him tc r.ome for hei til' a certain day of the month whcr A LUVE MATCH &I the electioneering would be over. The letter was written in the hurrj' of occupation, and undel darker views of his political horizon than had yet taken place. His wife imagined there was a peculiar coldness about it, and she became quite wretched, and announced her intention of immediately returning. There is a restlessness in unhappiness, that will not allow the subject to wait patiently for the unravelling of events. Emma, notwithstanding the remonstrances of her parents, who did not understand the stjite of her feelings, actually took passage in the stagecoach, and arrived at her own door just a* night, after two days of rapid journeying. She hastened to her room ; it was cold and cheer- less. The servants were surprised to see her, and she almost regretted that she had come back. She would not unpack her trunks, but seated herself on one of them, thinking bitter thoughts. " How soon will your master probably be at home ? " said she to one of the servants. '' Early to-night, madam," said he ; 'he hiu a parly of gentlemen to sup." " No wonder," thought Emma, clasping her hands in a theatrical style, " that he could not come for me, that he does not wish me back ^ 6*J A LOVE llJ.TCli. I will no longer blight his prospects ; I will re- turn, for ever, to my parents." She seated lier- self at her writing-table to pen a farewell epis- tle to her faithless husband. In the mean time, he returned just in season to receive his friends, and did not learn till the late liour of their departure, that she had arriv ed. The servant then put a letter into hi? hands, with the information ; but added, that Mrs. Mervilte was very much fatigued, had retiree for the night, and requested not to be disturbed Mr. Merville opened the letter with real anxi ety, and with the intention of at least watching by the bedside of the invalid, after he had as* certained the cause of her sudden return, which he presumed the letter would explain. " To Mr. Merville. " Where the feeling of affection exists no more, it is useless to recriminate ; it neither suits the dignity of your character, nor the forbear- ance of mine. I should think it my duty to continue to endure indifference and neglect, did I not feel, that, in returning to my father's roof, I relieve you from a responsibility, that, with your sense of justice, must weigh heavily upon your conscience. Your time will now be who^ A LOVE MA TOR. 53 ly youi own; and you may devote it to the public weal, or to such convivial pleasures as have feeen the occupation of this evening. It would have been generous in you not to hiivc awakened me so early from my dream of happi- ness, which for a very few months seemed to me a blessed reality of all I had ever hoped to en- joy. The painful lesson I have received of my own insignificance, is one that no doubt I re- quired. We measure ourselves by those around us and, brought up as I have been, I had but little to lower my self-esteem. Though we part, it is still my earnest wish to bear your name. It is an honor to myself and to my family. " Emma Merville." Twice the husband read the letter without comprehending the tenor of it. He then direct- ed her waiting-maid to go to her with a mes- sage ; but the girl said the door was locked, and^ as no answer was returned, her lady must be asleep. Upon further inquiry, he found she had made arrangements to set off early in the morn- ing. Again Merville read the letter, and not, as before, with a total unconsciousness of its mean' irg. His own quick intellect supplied the ex.. planation she had withheld, and a generous teai 54 A LOVE MATCH. oedrwed his eye. " She is but a child," thought he ; "a lamb thai I took from the fold ; I plac- ed her in the green pasture by the dov -g brook, but I ought to ha-ve carried her in my Dosom." He thought over her youth and her beauty, and some humiliating contrasts rose to his mind as to his own claims. He felt that her happinesa ought to have been his first care, and whan, arttj. giving orders to his servant, he threw himself upon his bed, it was in p tender A LOVE MAICH. 55 tti 3s that she should never .see agam. Hei tears fell in torrents. The servant came to say that the carriage was at the door. Placing her hand- kerchief to her eyes she left the apartment ; and, with a feeling of despair, as if she cared not who witnessed her sorrow, ascended the steps of the carriage, and with a convulsive sob, threw herself back, — not on the seat, but into hor husband's arms ! Fondly and tenderly he press- ed her to his bosom. " Hould you think, mv Emma," said he, " that J would let you a sec- ond time leave nie ? Where thou goest, I will go too.V • He had secretly conntermanded her orders the night before, and they travelled alonu in the carriage. Never had the powers of Mcj- ville'3 mind been so fully called forth ; not »is a statesman or a politician, but as a husband, luv or, and friend, blending with all a tenderness almost parental. No allusion was made to iho iieroic epistle, and Emma hoped he had not re- ceived it. Two days of travel, devoted to conversat'.jn, passed rapidly away. Merville had the hapj^y art of mingling useful reflection with informa tion. His mmd was stored with experienci;, and many a little narrative called forth her svpj- 56 A I^OVE MATCH. pathy. As they entered the city and drew neai to her father's, Emma faintly whispered, " Am 1 now in a dream, or have I awoke from a mis- erable one, to happiness ? " " We have both awoke," said he ; " God grant we may dream no more ! " They were received with great delight by the parents, though they were much surprised at Emma's speedy return. Merville had always entertained an instinctive feeling that Mrs. Lin- ton was opposed to their marriage ; and, though he had treated her vvith filial respect^ there was less of warm-hearted confidence than iie had evinced for her husband. He now, however, took an early opportunity to request a private conference, and candidly communicated to her all that had passed. '' Henceforth," said he, ** Emma shall have no reason to complain of neglect, neither shall you find any maternal anxieties you may have felt, arising from the difierence of our ages, fulfilled." " I have always thought," said Mrs. Linton, good-humoredly, " and still think, notwithstand- ing Emma's griefs, that hers bids fair to be among the few happy matches. But my senti- ments are not changed ; and, if I were ever to write a dissertation, it would be against such alliances." A LOVE MATCH. '57 " It would do no good, my dear madam," re- plied he ; "as long as there are human motives and sympathies, such alliances will take place. Rather turn your attention towards mitigating any evils that may arise from them." Emma remained a week at her father's, and still her husband said nothing of rkurning ; at length she proposed it herself, and he at once consented. On their journey home the reconcil- iation was so perfect, that Emma did not hesi- tate to discuss her grievances. The shock she received on her arrival, at finding preparations for a supper party, was alluded to, and she learn- ed with some confusion, that it was the regular meeting of a club of Merville's ancient com- peers. From this time the aspect of things seemed to have changed. Emma began to dabble a little in politics, and assisted in writing votes for dis- tribution. Just as she had made up her mind to become a real politician, the election took place, and the opposite party obtained the vic- tory. Perhaps Merville bore this disappoint- ment with more philosophy from his new views of domestic duty ; and, when a second Emma came to brighter his existence and awaken parental affection, nothing of political party mingled 58 A LOVE MATCH. with his love for his country; hut, with his ear- nest desire for its prosperity and happiness was united gener?! phihmthropy towards his fellow- citizens. Emma realized more of her dreams of happiness, than perhaps helongs to the lot of most of her sex, and always professed herself a warm advocate for disparity of age in a mat- rimonial connection; not, however, exceeding thirty-five years, exiictiy the difference between her husband's and her ov/ru " Such matches," she said, " were the happiest in the world when they were real love matclies.^^ TO * * * * *, THE GENIUS OF PLAINTIVE MUSIC BY S. G. GOODRICn. When Eol's finger strikes the string, It yields a wild and wailing tone, — But, like a night bird's whistling wing. It seems a thing of sound alone. The wooing dove, the lapsing rill. The waves that faint on ocean's shore, Can make the ear with pleasure thrill. But all their art can do no more. The notes of yonder breathing flute. Soft as the voice of one above, "Would leave the unansweriog bosom mute. If fancy linked it not with love. The spirit harp within the breast A spirit's touch alone can feel, Yet thine the power to wake its rest. And all its melody reveal. Yes, — and thy minstrel art the while. Can blend the tones of weal and woe, So archly, that the heart may smile, Though bright, unbidden tear-drops flov. 60 THE GENIUS OF VLArVTIVE IVIL'SIC. And thus thy wizzard skill can weave Music's soft twilight o'er the breast, As minglinjT day and night, at eve, Robe the far purpling hills for rest. Thy voice is treasured in my soul, And echoing memory shall prolong Those woman tones, whose sweet control Melts joy and sorrow into song. The tinted sea-shell, borne away Far from the ocean's pebbly shore, Still loves to hum the choral lay, The whispering mermaid taught of yore The hollow cave, that once hath known Echo's lone voice, can ne'er forget, But gives, though parting yp.ars have flown, The wild responsive cadence yet. So shall thy plaintive melody. Undying, Imger in my heart, Till the last string of memory, By death's chill finger struck, shall part THE MANTILLA. BY GRESVILLE MELLEN. 1. She gatliered 't about her, and stepped forth In her rich robe, upon the balcony, — And her foot trembled as it touched the flowers That clustered round her sandals. Mirrors saw No lovelier image on their surface shrined. Than she, who, through tlie still, dark water, look«d Up to her darker eyes, and midnight hair, As they spoko from that cold intensity. IL There was a weary lustre in that eye, As though she had been weeping. Yet no tear Told you that killing tale of spirit scathed. Or heart played false to, that white brows so olt And cloudy eyes proclaim. She knew not these. She looked and listened from her lattice flowers, And the slight tracery of that balcony, As one whose sorrow was but soberness, — With shade of disappointment mingled so, As scarce to make vexation, — but to breathe Over all, face and figure something still, That looked both expectation and rebuke. 62 THE MANTILLA. III. She was a Spanish maid, with Spanish soul, And it went quickly, every hope or puise. From fountain through her frame. She had said all To gladden by her promises, to one Whom she held worthy of her golden vows, Yowed to his own in echo. They oft met In bower and hall, — until the tale was told, Of isles and flowers in blue meridian seas, And homes the fairies envied. She must go ! And she consented. It was now the night When he, whose love and honor had entranced Her young aifections till they knew no life Save for him, and beside him, to her bower Should come, to lift her to those dreamy isles That he had sung of in their dreamy hours I IV. But he came not. She stood there, gazing out Under the stars, not wondering, but in fear I A gem was pendant at her marble neck, And her hand gloved as for the dasning oar Should lift her o'er that water. From her head. And down her shoulder, floated like a cloud A dim mantilla, — and a rose had fallen From her bent waist, close to her flashing feet. THE MANTILLA. 68 V He never came again. Nor did she glide Again into the world. But chronicles Have told of one who for long years did sit Upon that balcony, — gazing far down Intently on the water, till she grew To her own image, or saw others there That would not let her go. At last a shriek Startled one stormy midnight, and a call For " Idercy-J " brake the waters ! She h&d passed. THE FATAL CHOICE. BV MRS. L. K. WELLS. *Love wound its chain around my heart, Ambition tore the linlis apart." 'Knevv'st thou with what thou wert parting here, Long wouldst thou linger in doubt and fear j Thy heart's light laughter, thy sunny hours, Thou hast left; in our shades with the spring's wild flowers." '-' No, Albert, I would rather be an eagle, anu soar towards the sun, and bathe in his glorious beams*, than that poor little robin, whose life you so much admire." " But, Ellen, the home of the eagle is amon^ barren locks, and amidst storms and tempests. He may not dwell on the beautiful green earth, or have his ruffled pinions smoothed by the gentle western breeze, nor hear the soft mur- muring of waters, nor all the rich melodies that float in the vales alone. He dwells on the lonely mountain ; the lightnings of heaven, the dashing of the cataract, and dreary desolation, are about him. Would you choose a home like that ? " THE FATAL CHOICE. 65 " Yes, oh yes ! I am weary of this tame and spiritless state of existence. What if the eagle is alone ? — do not men toil to reach his retreats, and pry with admiring curiosity into his inac- cessible haunts ? and do they not look on him with awe and wonder, as he soars among the cloud, and rises above the tempest, as if he were indeed its ruling spirit ? — and does not the gaze of admiring crowds follow him as he looks with undazzled eye on the meridian sun, and rises higher and yet higher towards the glorious orb, till he is lost in the dim distance ? Give me a destiny like his, and I could bid farewell to all the melodies of lowly life without one pang of regret." " Ah, Ellen," said Albert, laying his hand on her arm, and looking mournfully on her animated and dazzling beauty, " you were not wont to talk thus. When, together, we planned this little retreat, and placed the rose-bushes around this arbor, and twined the honeysuckle over it, you loved more quiet and simple pleasures. You watched with interest the robin, as she gathered materials for her nest, and you would sit here for hours, with your sewing, listening to the gush of the fountain which sparkles there among the white sand, — to the warbling of the birds, and 66 THE FATAL CHOICE, the music of the breeze. You looked happy then, and more quiet and gentle, methinks, than now ; — why is this change ? " " Because I did not then know myself. I did not know the lofty aspirations of which my soul was capable, or the fount of deep feeling in my heart." " Ellen," said he, in a voice of reproachful tenderness, "has the heart any part in these aspirations of your spirit ? Are you not under the sway of imagination, a dazzling, hut cold and bewildering guide? — and forgive me, if 1 ask, has not ambition been whispering in your ear ? " " Yes," she replied, " I do not hesitate to acknowledge it. I would impress my thoughts upon the minds of others; I would bear sway over human intellect, the most godlike domin- ion ever bestowed upon man." " Ellen," said he, in a tone of deep sorrow, "I see the destiny you have chosen ; my dreams of happiness have vanished like that purple cloud in the west, which I have watched till it has melted all away; and, for the same reason, — the sunbeams have departed. This, however, I could endure, though you know not, you never can know, how closely with every fibre of my THE FATAL CHOICE. 67 Boul, your image is entwined ; yet I could endure to see you sparkling far above me, if you were to be bappy. But the time will come, wben woman's heart will speak witbin you. You will weary of fame, and then you will yearn for the voice of calm affection, and your mem- ory will turn to the image of those quiet haunts, as the fainting traveller, in the desert, dreams of the cool, sparkling fountain, in his home among the hills. You know the powers of your intellect and fancy ; but, dazzled by ambition, you do not know your heart. You have been nurtured in the midst of tenderness, — an atmo- sphere of love has been around you from your infancy ; the voice of affection has mingled with your earliest dreams, and you know not how necessary it is to your existence. Like the sweet air of heaven, you neither see nor feel it now, but, when it is withdrawn, you will droop and wither. Ellen, you will go far away from me ; that haughty stranger, with his burning thoughts and eloquent lip, has won you ; but you may not go without knowing how deeply the love, of which I have never yet breathed a word to you, is engraven in my soul. '* Love for you is the first emotion I can recol- lect ; and, even in childhood, there was a ten- C8 THE FATAL CHOICE. derness, a feeling of protecting kindness in my love for you, which I did not feel for my sisters. How I have lived but for you in later years, you well know. Our walks, our amusements, our books, our conversation, — has it not been but as one s6ul speaking by two voices ? Ellen, I know I am scarcely worthy of you ; but that stranger, with all his brilliancy and genius, has not a heart like mine to bestow. That eager look, that impetuous flow of glowing thoughts and images, that haughty air, which makes inferior minds shrink before him, do not veil, as you fondly imagine, deep affections, but a cold heart, awake only to the promptings of ambition. I speak calmly and advisedly. My affection for you is too pure and exalted to admit of jealousy. Think for one moment, before you decide to barter the priceless wealth of your affections with so cold a being ; — cannot you yet be happy here as in former years ? " She paused a moment before replying. His lip quivered, and, for an instant, a flush of hope passed over his countenance. At length she answered : " No, Albert, it is impossible. He has awak- ened feelings which can never be hushed. I musf soar, if it be only to fall ; — I must climb THE FATAL CHOICE. 69 the dizzy steep, even if it be full of hazard, t deeply feel your affection, and the time has been when, — ^but that is past, — God's blessing be with you, and, with some gentle being with affections warm and devoted as your own, may you yet be happy." He turned quickly away ; for emotions of which manhood is always ashamed, were rising, and burning tears, not for himself, but for her, were starting from his eyes. Ellen remained for some moments lost in thought. It was the hour of summer twilight ; she was in a spot which had been a favorite re- treat of her childhood, and, in later years, Al- bert, guided by her taste, had gathered around it many quiet beauties. Under the shade of three wide-spreading oaks, a rustic alcove, with seats, had been formed, a woodbine had been trained over it, and it was so surrounded by roses of every shade, that they had given it the name of " the home of the roses." On the left, just at the foot of a smooth, green hill, a cool, sparkling fountain boiled up in the midst of pure white sand, and became a tiny brook, winding through the valley with so many backward turnings, that one would fancy it loath to leave the quiet spot. On the right, under the shade of two elms, that 70 THE FATAL CHOICE, gracefully entwined their limbs above it, was her mother's grave. She had died when Ellen was so j^oiing that she remembered little of her, ex- cept the melodious sweetness of her voice, the subdued expression of her pale face, and the atmosphere of quiet, which seemed to breathe around her. Had she lived, Ellen would, doubt- lass, have been a very different being. This parent was sensitive and warm in her affections, but she had been chastened by early sorrows. She saw the world as it was, and, while entering, with warm sympathy, into the feelings of others, she was not misled by the false coloring of fan- cy. Calmness and repose formed the beautiful groundwork of her character, which was deli- cately shaded with all the quiet virtues. Though Ellen was but six years old when she died, she saw the dangerous gifts of her child, and her last hour was spent in prayer for her, that a " heart, so perilously fashioned," might be shielded, by a Saviour's love, from this world's temptations. She died, and her place was but poorly supplied by an indolent and self- ish step-mother, sufficiently indulgent, indeed, because she wanted energy to control the im- petuous child, but ignorant of her character and capacities. Her father's talents fitted him to be THE FATAL CHOICE. 7 her friend and guide ; but he was too dotingly fond of her to see that she had a fault. Her sisters, too, almost idolized her. They were much older than herself, and, while she was yet a child, all but one left their father's mansion ; and she was a sickly, gentle being, and left the bright, playful child to pursue her own fancies. Albert Carlton was her early playmate ; they grew up together, and, as she had no brother, she transferred to him all the affections of a sister. He was four years older than herself ; but, as his leisure for reading was limited, com- pared with hers, the quickness of her intellect fitted her to be the director of his taste and mind. She recommended the books he read, and guided in a great measure the judgments he formed in early youth ; but, as he approached manhood, his calm, reflecting mind often cor- rected the wild vagaries of her fancy. Perhaps there is no tie more near and close, between gen- erous spirits, than the mutual consciousness of conferring and receiving benefits. Ellen felt that his taste had been formed by her influence. With many women, this circumstance would have had little influence. But hers was no common spirit. She loved to feel that she was influenc- ing the minds of others, — that she was looked 72 THE FATAL CHOICE. up to, with respect and admiration, as well as tenderness. On the other hand, Albert felt a constant care for the ardent, gifted, and impetu- ous being who honored him with her confidence and affection. He understood her character, and often, with the utmost gentleness, without her suspecting his purpose, corrected her judgment, softened her prejudices, and induced her to re- linquish many a wild, impracticable scheme. Yet not a word of love had ever passed between them. It seemed so perfectly natural that they should be much in each other's society, that they had never asked themselves the reason. At least, Ellen had not ; though something more deep and tender than a sister's love spoke in the care with which she cherished the flowers he gave her, in her fondness for his favorite tunes, her uneasi- ness when his absence was protracted, and the bright glow which sent light to her eye and bloom to her cheek, when they met again ; but of all this she was wholly unconscious. Per- haps Albert's thoughts took a more tangible form, but he had never embodied them in words. When Ellen was in her seventeenth year, a Btranger, from a distant city, by the name of Beaufort, came to pass a few months in that retired spot, to restore his health, which had been THE FATAL CHOICE. T5 impaired by close study. He boarded at her father's house, and, for a time, his manner was haughty and reserved. He looked, with an indifr3rence, to which she had been little accus- tomed, on the rustic beauty, and she in her tuni, p.qued by his coldness, was too proud to seek his admiration. Albert felt a little unquiet when he first saw the handsome face and com- manding mien of the young stranger; but his fears subsided, when he found that his walks, reading, and conversation with Ellen were not in- terrupted. It was not long, however, before some bursts of eloquence from Beaufort touched an answering chord in Ellen's heart ; he marked the flash of intelligence in her fine eye, and a deep interest was awakened. He now sought opportunities of conversing with her, and soon found, that she possessed a glowing fancy, a taste formed after the purest models, strong in- tellectual powers, and a heart capable of warm and devoted attachment. He now began to look with a dark and suspicious eye on the mild, retiring friend, who engrossed so much of her attention. "Ellen, said he to her, " how can you devote so much of your time to that rustic .?" "Because I know his worth better than you 74 THE FATAL CHOICE. do," she replied, with an indignant air ; "he has been as a brother to me from my childhood." " Oh, very well," said Beaufort, with a smile " he may be a very good brother, for aught I know bit you are worthy of the society and homage of other minds. With a soul formed to delight in all that is beautiful in nature, in science, and in art, I cannot endure to see you pass your days in such deep seclusion. I long to see you, with all your native loveliness and sim- plicity, where your powers would be awakened by the society of minds attuned like your own." The blood mantled in her cheek and brow, and he saw that the poison was infused into her veins. Then, in tones of such eloquence as she had never before listened to, he described the brilliant and intellectual society in which he had mingled, — painted the wonders of art he had seen in his travels, — dwelt with seductive interest on the pleasure attending the conscious ness of bearing sway over other minds, and the mere feeling of mental power. She listened, with breathless eagerness ; and then he alluded, darkly mdeed, but with sufficient distinclness to his own plans and prospects for life ; ana with an air of proud humility, added, " I know not what 1 may be ; but this I know, I will never THE FATAL CHOICE. V& plod contentedly on with the herd of spiritless beings around me." This conversation infused a new spirit into Ellen ; her pursuits appeared grovelling and mean, and his words were constantly ringing in her ears, when she attempted to follow her for- mer occupations. She became thoughtful and pale, and Beaufort's vanity was flattered by the hope that he was the cause. He was interested in her peculiar character, where simplicity, im- agination, and intellect were singularly blended. He loved her, too, perhaps, as well as one is capable of loving, when the affections have been made wholly subservient to the intellect. " Ellen," said he to her one evening, " you look sad, and I do not wonder at it. In this seclusion, where there are so few kindred spirits, your mind must prey upon itself, and retire within its own deep recesses." " I did not know my own privations or wants," she replied with affected gayety, but in a voice slightly tremulous, " till I saw you. You have awakened the consciousness of powers and ci desires, which I would that I had never known. Once I was happy in my duties, happy in my ignorance ; now I am doomed to feel a vair thirsting for intellectual pleasures and distinc- tions I must not hope to reach.' 7C -THE FATAL CHOICE. " Must not ?" said he, in an inquiring, softened tone ; " to-morrow, I leave you, Ellen, to engage again in the exciting bustle of the world. I am striving to rise, — perhaps, to fall ; but may I carry with me the assurance that one heart, at least, will watch my struggles with kind inter- est ? " A starting tear was her only answer. " Farewell, then," said he, grasping her hand, and bending his gaze on her as if he would read her thoughts ; " if I rise where I hope, it shall be your own fault, loveliest and purest, if you remain pining in hopeless obscurity." It was on the evening after his departure, that the scene, with which we opened our little nar- rative, occurred. Albert invited her to walk ; and, after some time spent in almost silent ram- bling, they sought the bower which had been formed by their united taste and skill. They had stood for some moments listening to the evening song of the robin, when Albert said, " If I could be content to part with the high birthright of reason, I would rather be that robin than any thing else." The conversation that followed blighted the cherished hopes of years. After he left her, Ellen's eye feF. on her mother's grave, and the deathbed scene rose before her. One petition THE FATAL v. a O I C E . 7? which she remembered as always being rt3peated in her mother's prayers for her, now rung like a knell in her ears. " Keep her, oh, heavenly Father, from that pride which goeth before de- struction, and that haughty spirit which is before a fall." " Oh, my mother, my mother," murmur- ed she, " did you even then see, with a prophetic spirit, the danger of your child ? Is it, indeed, for pride, that I have spurned the pure and enduring affection of that gentle being, who would have lived for me alone ?" She was softened, and, for a moment, almost resolved to revoke the crue. sentence she had just pronounced. But Beau- fort, with all his commanding dignity of manner and seductive eloquence, was before her, and she said, " No, I will not throw away the prize within my grasp, from a foolish, supersthious fear that my ambition may be wrong." After this time, the two friends seldom saw each other; but each was sensible of a painful void. Ellen, indeed, thought it was nothing more than just the change, the mere deprivation of what she had been so long accustomed to. Albert grew pale and thin, and lost all relish for the pleasures he had once loved, now that she no longer shared them. Yet he never upbraided ler ; and, when he could show her any little 78 THE FATAT, CHOICE. kindness, he did it with an alacrity, that lold how dear her happiness was still to him. There was a touching sadness in his manner, more subd-ing to a high spirit, like Ellen's, than the most eloquent protestations of regret could have been. She was disquieted and unhappy ; and she knew not why ; but, whenever her mother's image recurred to her fancy, it seemed to wear a look of reproof and sorrow. In a few weeks, all these melancholy feelings were banished by a letter from Beaufort, full of hope and exultation. He had entered on the arena of political life ; and, at a very early age, was elected, against a powerful opposition, to a seat in "Congress. After dwelling, at some length, on the past struggle, he went on to say; "Chosen, as I have been, by the unbought suffrages of free- men, as a guardian of their dearest rights, it will be my first object faithfully to perform my duty to my country. I know not what is before me, but a bright vista now seems opening, and 1 hope to enrol my name among those whom my country delights to honor. I would not die, and have all perish with me ; but would transmit my name, as a talisman, to awaken the memory of all that is generous and self-sacrificing in the love of country. And you, Ellen, I feel that you THE FATAL CHOICE. 79 nave a spirit in unison with my own, and that your genius is worthy of a place among those, who would not waste all the energies of a death' less mind in the dull routine of daily duties." All this, and much more of the same charac- ter, Ellen read with delightful anticipations, that blinded her to the heartlessness apparent through the whole. She could not, or would not see, that ambition, thinly disguised, indeed, by the veil of patriotism, but still ambition, was the ruling principle, and that domestic happiness had no place in his hopes. She could not resist the temptation of reading the letter to Albert, and asked him, at the close, " Has he not a noble heart .^" " Do not ask me, Ellen ; it is too late. He is highly gifted, no doubt ; but, for your sake, I could wish there was less of the feverish excite- ment of gratified, and yet grasping ambition." Albert soon found, that he could not remain where every object awakened bitter thoughts After revolving various plans of life, he decided on becoming a physician. " In ministering to the woes of others, and relieving their real distresses, I may," thought he, " lose sight of my imaginary ones, and may, in time, forget ' that the iron has entered into my soul.'" 80 THL FATAL CHOICE. He left his native village with a determination to return there no more, till Ellen had dej)arted She now lost sight of him, and only heard, inci- dentally and at long intervals, that he was distinguished as a scholar, and beloved for his philanthropy. " I wish," she sometimes said to herself, " I could have retained him as a brothei and friend ; but these men are so grasping, they must be the whole, or they will be nothing." In two years, Beaufort came to claim her as his bride. His debut in Congress was most eloquent, and his name resounded from one extremity of the land to the other. Ellen ex- pected to see him with the air of triumph and conscious power in his eye and mein. But, though he was lavish of admiration and brilliant predictions for her, he spoke of weariness and dissatisfaction, and looked forward to the time when a seat in the Senate should release him from some of his present vexations. It was Sabbath evening; they were to be united in the morning, and immediately to com- mence a tour through some of the most pic- turesque parts of the country. Just at sunset, Ellen went alone to her mother's grave, and to that bower, " the home of the roses." It was the same hour, and there was the same purple THE FATAL CHOICE 81 cloud, as it seemed, as when she first revealed to Albert the new hopes which were to be, in future, her guiding star. She lingered till the stars of evening appeared, one after another, " like infant births of light." What were her thoughts we know not ; but, ere she left that hallowed spot, she knelt upon the grave and breathed, for herself, and for him to whom her destinies were so soon to be united, her moth- er's prayer. " Keep me, and him too, oh my heavenly Father, from that pride which goeth before destruction, and that haughty spirit which is before a fall." But prayer, without effort or watchfulness to avoid temptation, what does it avail with that Being who looks upon the heart .'' Pass we over some years. Beaufort has received, one after another, some of the highest offices in his countr^''s gift ; but, still restless and unsatisfied, he cries, " Give, give." Har- assed, weary, and care-worn, he came to his home to contrive, with his wife, new schemes of ambition, and new methods of circumventing his rivals. And Ellen, — how does her woman's heart bear all this, so foreign to her nature, and to all her previous habits } For a while she entered with eagerness into all his plans and interests And, in witnessing his success, she fancied hcr- 6 88 THE FATAL CHOICE. self happy. One scene of high excitemeiit fol lowed another, so rapidly, that she had no time to think. She saw her busband caressed and flattered, and beheld inferior minds vainly str-ying to reach the dazzling height where he stood. The voice of fame rung in her ear, in tones more dear to the heart of woman, than if its rich music had been breathed for her alone. It was for him, who was the object of her pride and de- votion, that those seductive strains were breathed, and for him that the incense of flattery rose in intoxicating perfumes. She, too, as united to him, received her full share of homage ; and not for that alone ; but her beauty and brilliancy, together with the freshness and originality of a vigorous mind, fo^-med in seclusion and from books alone, made her an object of admiration and envy. Her opinions were sought, her in- fluence craved, and her sayings repeated with applause. She proudly felt, that now, indeed, she bore sway over other minds. All her fancy had pictured, all her soaring ambition asked, was now hers. Was she happy ? We know not ; she never said she was not. But there was, at times, a weariness in her step, and a listlcssness in her mien, and a vacant look, as if her thoughts were far away. There were some THE FATAL CHOICE. 83 simple and touching strains of mus!c to which she could not, or would not, listen. There was a brilliant festival in Beaufort's sj/lend.d home. The elegant, the polished, and the intellectual, of our own and some other lands, were gathered in one dazzling assembly. Ellen was gliding from one gay group to another, the very personification of beauty, dignity, and grace. At her request, a lovely girl, whose very soul seemed to gush out in song, took a seat by the piano, and called out rich tones of har- mony, which she accompanied with her voice. Ellen was leaning, enraptured, over her. Sud- denly, she struck the notes of " Home, sweet home," while her voice poured forth a strain of melody, so full and sweet, that every sound was hushed through the crowded suite of apartments. Ellen started as if an adder had stung her, and, forgetting ever}-' thing but those sounds, so full of anguish to her, she rushed Into an adjoining boudoir, and, sinking upon a couch, put her hands upon her ears to shut out the tones. A look of surprise and wo{j' der passed round the circle ; but in a few mo- ments sho made hex appearance, perfectly calm again, and apologized by referring her emotion te some early and peculiar associations. H4 THE FATAL CHOI€E. After some years she became a mother. Thfc infant lived just long enough to stir the deep fountain of a mother's love, and then was snatched away. Deeply and bitterly did she mourn. But her husband was now in the midst of a new scheme, which promised complete suc- cess to his party, and he could hardly spare time to shed one tear over the babe, beautiful^, even in death. Once, indeed, he showed some emo- tion ; when taking the last look of the body, from which the unsullied spirit had departed, he said, in a suppressed voice, " Thou couldst not have had a better time to die, pure as thou wert. Would that I had been taken, like thee, before the dark stains of earth were upon my soul." Ellen now opened her mother's Bible, which she had always kept near her ; but a darkness seemed to shroud its pages, once so full of ligh,- and hope. Her husband was a skeptic. He had never, indeed, tried to make a proselyte of her ; but he was one of those, who must exert a commanding influence over other minds, for good or for evil. She had, insensibly, imbibed his cold and heartless views of the Deity, and could find no consolation from the bright hopes and cheering promises of the Gospel. A midnight gloom now settled down upon her. She shunned THE FATAL CHOICE. 8f society, and took no interest in her husband's ambitious schemes. For a while he tried to lure her into the gay world again, but in vain. Up- braidings and reproaches, for her want of energy, for owed ; but, finding it all fruitless, he left her m her desolation, and pursued his path alone. Among all her summer friends, not one knew or cared for the secret of her grief, not one probed the wounded spirit, or shed upon the benighted mind the beams of heavenly hope. Then she began to feel deep yearnings for the voices of love in her early home. They were with her in her dreams, and she awoke but to feel the vain thirstings of a desolate heart. That early friend, with all his forbearing tender- ness, his pure and devoted affection, was before her. Her mother's spirit seemed hovering over her with a look of pitying love. Her father's prayer, which was offered each morning and evening, in lowly guise, before the family altar, when the youngest blossom of their house was always specially remembered, was indelibly im- pressed on her memory. " Once more," thought she, " could I but hear that prayer once more methinks it would descend like cooling dew on my withered and burning brain. These thoughts and imaginings she revealed to no one. Her 86 THE FATAL CHOICE. husband would have spurned them as childish folly, and other friend she had not. She hoarded them in the depths of her soul, and brooded over them unceasingly. Hour after hour she would sit ty her piano, listlessly running over the keys, and singing snatches of old songs, such as the young girls, in the vicinity of her cottage- lome, sung when pacing back and forwards at their wheels. Or she would chant the solemn melo- dies, which she had heard in the simple strains of vocal music, in the unadorned building where she first joined in the public worship of her father's God. By degrees these musical reminiscences of the past changed to yet closer communings with the shadows that now began to seem as realities. When alone, she would converse for hours with these imaginary beings ; and then the treasured memories of years, and deep, burning, consuming thoughts she would scatter to the idle winds. For a while she indulged, voluntarily, in this spiritual converse, conscious that the forms existed in her own fancy alone. But as rea-; son's lamp glimmered yet more and more dimly through the mists, she lost the power of distin guishing illusions from realities. It was after a closely contested choice, when Beaufort had at last succeeded in obtaining what THE FATAL CHOICE. 87 he had long desired, an appointment to a distin guished foreign court, that he returned, at a ^aie hour. As he walked slowly homewards, he thought with unwonted tenderness of his once gay and beautiful, but now heart-stricken wife. " This voyage and change of scene will, 1 trust, restore her to her former seif ; and I will exert myself more, now that I have leisure, to awaken harmony in the shattered chords of her soul. Hers was an exquisitely strung spirit. I fear I have neglected her." When he entered the cham- ber, he was surprised to find her still watching. She was sitting in a large easy-chair, in which her emaciated form seemed almost buried. She was robed in a loose night-dress, and her rich, brown hair fell in a dishevelled mass upon her shoulders. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy, and her lips moved rapidly. He entered and stood by her side, but she did not see him. Her voice soon rose to an audible whisper, and he could distinguish the words, " Mother, Isabel, why don't you speak to me ? — why do you look so silently on me with your 'cold, bright eyes'? — Speak and tell me of that land of rest, where I long to be with you. Ha ! why did they say you were dead, — now you are here, — come 't is almost sunset ; we will go to ' the home of the roses,' — 88 • THE -FATAL CHOICJl. there is a cloud, a purple cloud, they say," — ana her voice sunk so as to be inaudible. Beaufort shook in every nerve ; and, at that moment, wlien viewing the fearful wreck of an immortal mind, what to him was fame, or all the success that had followed his footsteps ? " Ellen," said he, at last, tenderly taking her hand, which was so cold that he shuddered, " you are not well to night. Had you not better try to sleep ? " " Well ? oh yes, never better," bursting into a wild laugh ; " only 't is so strange they won't speak to me, and there they have been these two hours ; nor walk with me, either, when my head is burning so, and the sweet dews of heaven would cool it. Come, you will go wdth me, and bathe my brow in that cool, boiling spring ; oh, how pure it looks, and how the bright sand spar- kles round it ; there we will rest, in that shaded bower. Albert is there already ; he told me I was ambitious, once ; but I am humble, oh, very humble now, and I would that gentle sister Isabel would come and sing me to sleep," — and a passionate burst of tears relieved, for a few moments, the fire in her brain. The morrow brought no change for the better , but wilder fantasies hovered around her, and THE FAT.^.. CHOICE. 89 shouts of vvild mirth rung from her lonely cham- ber. It was necessary that Beaufort should depart for liis destined station ; and, after a severe strug- gle with his pride, he decided on placing his wife in a private hospital for the insane. When they arrived, his first inquiry was for the attend- ing physician ; when a noble looking man, with an intellectual and most benignant countenance, entered the room. Something in the expression of his countenance perplexed Beaufort ; some long-forgotten memories haunted him, and, when the physician spoke, he was confident that he had heard the full and rich, though mild, tones of that voice before. After mentioning, in brief and sternly calm and cold terms, his sad errand, he announced his name. The physician started and bent his placid eye, with an incredulous and sor- rowful gaze, upon him, for a moment, before giving his own. When he said, " Doctor Al- bert Carlton," in a slow, firm voice, Beaufort started in his turn. After passing his hand, with a troubled look, across his brow, he said, " I oelieve I recollect you, Sir ; you were the early friend of my poor Ellen," and, as fancy pictured her as she once was, his voice faltered. Carlton bowed assent, for his heart was 1 benignant countenance of her husband. On the other side, is a female, pale and thin, but witli the traces of beauty on her wasted face. Her expression is sad, but subdued and calm. She is reading a worn volume, whose contents seem to absorb her whole soul. Various emotions flit across th/it speaking face, till, laying her finger emphatically on the page she had been reading, she looked up with a radiant smile, saying, in a 'ow, sweet tone, " Albert." It was Ellen, — healed, and in her right mind. The volume she held was her mother's Bible, and her spirit, chas- .ened, humbled, and peaceful, was sitting " at the feet of Jesus." " Albert," she repeated, as he looked silently, but with deep emotion, on the heavenly serenity that beamed from her tranquil eye, " here is a passage I have never seen before. ' Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.^ How beautiful, how cheering, how full of hope ! " she added, in a low voice, while a tear stole silently down her cheek. " It is all I want, — rest — not for the body merely, — though how sweet is rest to the weary frame ; but this is rest to the soul. How sweet the assur 92 THE FATAL CHOICE. ance to my weary, tempest-tost spirit. Albert you have been the physician, not of my body merely, but of my immortal soul. You have led me to the Heavenly Physician, and applied the Balm of Gilead to my wounded heart. You have pointed me to him who laid down his life for his friends, and left, as his last legacy, peace, — his own peace, not such as the world gives, but a peace deep and unbroken, reaching beyond time and constituting the bliss of eternity." ty^6Z^>\ LIFE. A cLo P o'ershades each human lot A mist enwiaps each path of pain ; To solve tlie mystery of life, Let each wild dreamer seek in vain* A fitful, fleetinjf joy vre grasp, A lightning glance, a meteor flame, We toil for gold, we strive for power. We sigh for love, we '•cverence fame. And some in Pleasure's mazes tread * But all m vain each Imman art ; The poison lingers in each cup, The skeleton in every heart ! Some mocking light allures our steps O'er moor and fen, in giddy dance ; Forward we press, the phantom flies, Receding still as we advance. Wearied and worn, we pause awhile, Then watch some new illusion's glare; Again we hope, again we grieve, Our spectre glory melts in air • Some, like the far-famed queen of old, Their pearly treasures offer up. And joys, which should a lifetime fill. Are quaflfed in one delicious cup ; 94 I'IFE. Life has no further boon to give, In apathy their days glide by, Their tideless hearts, and aspect calm, Boldly each turn of fate defy ; Some wretched hearts their anguish veil, Their fierce despair they fain would hide, Each vanished hope, and dream conceal, Beneath the iron mask of pride. A cloud o'ershades each mortal's lot, A mist enshrines each path of pain ; To solve the mystery of life, et each wild dreamer seek m vam , Ever a firm, unwavering ttust In the most High's divine behest The only steadfast rock is found, On which our trembling hearts to rest C A LINES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE. The picture represents the beautiful La Valliere, in her fctirement at the convent of the Carmelites*, and under it are inscribed the words once uttered by her in reply to the interrogatory of a friend, — " Not happy, but content." BY MRS. WHITMAN. ,- How calmly beautiful The pencilled scene ! It is the evening hour, — The golden close of an autumnal day. Seen through yon time-worn arch, the parting sun Rests like a weary hunter on the brow Of the far western hills, — and there lingering, To mark the silent flight of his last arrow Through the liquid air. Through the tall Gothic casement pours a flood Of golden glory, streaming o'er the walls, The marble pavement, and the vaulted roof; While in the far-perspective waving woods. Vineyards, and fields, and trellised cottages Are brightly tinged with the rich sunset glow, And autumn casts her mellow tints o'er all, Deepening the beauty of the quiet scene. "« LINES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE. The hour, the season, breathe of calm decay, Of life's brief splendor and approaching gloom, And touchingly accord with that sweet form Of fading loveliness, so calm and pale. It seemeth some fair statue there enshrined , The brow of marble beauty, raised to heaven, Is smooth and peaceful as the unclouded front Of sleeping innocence ; yet sober thought, Full of sweet sadness, there asserts her reign, While the dark eye, once eloquent «^f love, And fraught with human sympathies, now seems But the calm mirror of that tranquil heaven On which its rapt gaze lingers. Did St thou find. Sweet sufferer, within those hallowed walls, That heavenly peace which the world cannot give And did'st thou, through thy solitary hours. Feel that support which those can never know Who cling to broken reeds, and bow before The self-created idols of the heart ? Did thy fond fancy never lead thee back To vanished hours, and pleasures long gone by ; — Nor memory linger round those dazzling halls Of regal splendor, where thy dawning charms, Thy dreamlike beauty, and unconscious grace Enthralled a monarch's heart, and shone awhile The light of courts, a nation's cynosure ? Could that fond heart Its early dream forget, — its dream of love ? Ah when did woman e'er that dream forget? i.INES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE. 97 Man's love lives but with hope ; while woman's heart Still echoes to the music of the past; — And never heart was formed more prone than thine To the impulsive, trustful tenderness Of innocence and youth ; — its thrilling chords Responded to the burning breath of love, With all the sweet, wild, mournful harmonv Which passion wakens in the youthful breast, Ere the rude hand of stern reality, And all the earth-born interests of life, Have marred its music, and its chords unstrung ! Ay, thou hast loved as woman only loves, — A love all sacrifice and sulFering ; a star That gathers lustre from the gloom of night; A martyr's fond idolatry; a faith Baptized m tears, to sorrow consecrate And still one liquid gem, unmarked before, Seems trembling on that pale and faded cheek ; As if some dream of other days had thrown A passing shadow o'er thy thoughts, and dimmed Heaven's image, pictured on their peaceful stream. Yet all seems tranquil now, and that warm trace Of recent sorrow lends a touching charm To the deep sanctity and holy rest That breathe o'er all thy beauty, and bespeak A heart resigned, — "not happy, but content;' — A heart, that, like the Dove, long sought its rest In vain o'er earth's wide waters, — till, at last, Wearied and faint, it wings its homeward way. And folds its pinions in the aik nf peace- STANZAS FOR MUSIC, BY THE AUTHOR OF " MIRIAM." Thou lonely stream ! thou lonely stream! Beneath the twilight's dying gleam, Art thou, when busy feet are gone, Still flowing on, still flowing on? Thy murmuring song Dost thou prolong Beneath the awful midnight skie«, While 'mid the trees The folded breeze In slumber lies, — in slumber lies .'' Yes ! murmuring stream ! and far away The dweller on thy banks must stray j But thou wilt heed not who is gone. Still flowing on, — still flowing on : But oh' mine ear Those murmurs dear In distant lands shall ne er forget* Though 1 depart Mine aching heart Shall hear thee yet, — shall hear thee yei STANZAS FOR MUSIC 99 And shall my stream of life then cease, Lost in the shadowy Land of Peace, While thou through forest, dell, and lawn. Art flowing on, — still flowing on ? Where young trees cast Their shadows fast, Beside thee dies the aged pine. And the whole span Of pilgrim man U less than thine, — is less than thin** PHRENOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. BY MRS. SEBA SMITH. Gentle reader, art thou a Phrenologist ? If so, we will indulge in a few harmless lucubra- tions. We will, if you please, enter this place of public resort, because, if I mistake not, there is a school kept hard by, and soon the door wiL fly open, and out will burst a little host of future legislators, embryo judges, incipient divines, and unfledged orators and statesmen. Stand one side. Hurrah! — out they come. Now mark ; did you ever see such a set of heads .'' What facial angles ! what breadth, height, and compass of brain ! Observe their temperaments too. None of your little, puny, pale-faced children of the aristocracy, looking like the relics of humanity ; but firm, athletic, vigorous young republicans, half able, even now, to cope with the venerable and musty sticklers for preeminence, and ancient usages in the tottering fabrics of other lands. Mark PlIRExNOLOGlCAL sVev' ' \'ri OKS. \ IC^ the clear, brilliant eyfe Ipe^k^n^" • i?V if, :^^ y^^y; volcano of thought andf passion v%ure slumber- ing beneath. Address them, and ten to one, some sturdy young democrat will read you a lecture upon the rights and privileges of boyhood, worthy of a Jefferson. Does any one believe the mothers of boys like these, are weak, nervous, unthinking fashiona- bles ? No, it is contrary to the very laws of our being. They are strong-minded, strong-hearted, rational matrons, worthy to be the countrywomen of Mary, the mother of Washington, — worthy to be called American wives, American mothers. Of the fathers we will say nothing, now. It is the mother that stamps the character of the future man. She gives the boy the bias to good or ill, — makes him the hero, philosopher, or statesman. It is she who makes him the upright, virtuous citizen, the supporter of the laws of his country, and the upholder of its institutions, or the degraded and depraved outcast, on whom the stern arm of justice executes her severest penalties. She may be unconscious of all this, but it jb no less the fact. Her child will inherit hers, rather than its father's intellectual organization ; and it is the tones of Jier voice, her teachings ?-P^, ''Plh^Nv^L'^C'CAL &FECULAT10NS. by its infant bed, /if/' language and daily demean- or, that are stamping its character, and making the hereafter good or bad man. If she knows all this, and is faithless to her trust, who shall depict the guilt and woe that may ensue ? Na- ture, as well as religion, cry shame upon such a mother. But we are straying. Let us stand by in this recess, and mark the boys as they divide them- selves into groups. Do you see that boy in the centre of half a dozen others, all. of whom are talking with great vehemence, while he is en- tirely calm ? There, I am glad of that, he has taken off his hat, and we can see his head dis- tinctly. What a calm, intellectual brow ! He is rather pale too, — a young student. But marj^ the preponderance of the intellectual over the animal region. He will through life sway the intellects, but never the passions of men. He speaks now, and his voice is low, and very sweet ; the boys are perfectly quiet about him. There has been some juvenile litigation amongst them, and they have chosen him umpire ; and they will abide by his decision too. He has given his award now, and, I dare say, it is worthy of a Hale. You see the boys are perfectly satisfied with the propriety of hia 5»HRENOL.OGICAL SPECULATIONS 102 decision, and are dispersing. That boy, I doubt not, will one day sit in the place, once occupied by Chief Justice Marshall, unless he be over* taxed in youth, and thus fall a victim to hia precocity. There comes a young leader, swinging his cap, and hurrahing at the top of his lungs, fol- lowed by a score of boys, all as eager as himself, about to engage, I warrant, in some trial of strength or skill. You see those boys are all smart, all active, but yet how naturally they move off in the wake of that young champion. What a Napoleon head is there ! What power in the animal region ! and how nobly balanced by the broad, intellectual forehead ! That boy is made to command armies, and to sway popular assemblies. He will rule, let him be where he will. People will bow before him as by an instinct they cannot resist. . What are those boys collecting about that rich, crusty old gentleman's door- way for ? They are in close consultation, and, if I mistake not, he has m'Dre than once rated them soundly for mak- ing so much noise about his premises. Hurrah! there it goes, three cheers for Mr. , and they are ")ff in a giffy. Out comes the old gentleman, his face red with wrath, shaking his head, and 104 PHRENOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. denouncing vengeance upon every soul of them He looks up and down the street, — not a boy is to be seen. There, a roguish, chuckling face has just peered round the corner, and is off like a flash. He gives chase. The boys have been round the square, and, in the absence of the owner have repeated the cheers at his door, and now turn up another avenue. They will not dare repeat the experiment, and the irritated, baf- fled old man goes in, breathless and mortified, ruminating plans of revenge. Here is a group of miniature politicians, deep m the mysteries of party. They gesticulate as much as their fathers, and are ten times more in earnest. They are of opposite parties too, and some heat has been elicited, for combativeness is pretty actively excited. Hard names have been exchanged, and both leaders (you can easily distinguish them) are quite red in the face. Yes there are blows, and their voices grow loud. " Call me Tory, will you ? I won't stand that, — the Tories helped the British, and were against our independence." " Then don't call me Hartford Conventioner, — nobody shall do that." There, will not those boys understand the prin- ciples of our governjnent ? Will they not at PHRENOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. 10£ some day be nobly capable of exercising iho elective fmncliise ? Suppose they be a little intemperate in their discussions, it is infinitely better than the dull, cold apathy of a despotism. Our boys have a most sovereign contempt for what we call aristocracy. Even the boys of the silly things in our land, who try to affect the airs of that class, will do nothing of themselves to sustain such pretensions, except as it is drilled into them by 'perpetual talking and coercion. The boy has everywhere a glorious contempt for caste. He naturally chooses the brightest and smartest boys for companions, let them be found where they may. I recollect in a neighbouring city the boys at one time were divided into two classes, dis- tinguished by the names of the " upper-enders," and " lower-endei-s," and much bickering and ill-blood ensued. The upper-enders were the sons of the wealthier citizens, and the lower- enders, of the middling class. Never did one boy meet another of the op- posite faction without bristling up and looking defiance, or skulking to the other side of the street, according to the strength of his nerves, age, &c. Things remained in this conditcn /06 PHRENOLOGICAI. SPECULATIOKS. apparently, for some time ; though a close ob server might have detected symptoms indicative of an approaching crisis. The ower-enders began to bandy contemptuous terms ; sometimes " stumped " the upper-enders to fight, — talked of gloves, soft hands, and white faces. The upper-enders grew exasperated, tried to look fierce, and at length, screwing their courage to the sticking-point, actually challenged their op ponents to combat. The call was obeyed with alacrity. Never did mail-clad champions of the olden time thirst more eagerly to distinguish themselves in military prowess, than did these doughty heroes of a dozen years, to signalize themselves in the war of the upper-enders and lower-enders. It was a bright moonlight evening. The elements were hushed, unconscious of the great destinies about to be decided, or else breathless with expectation. A certain brother of mine, a youthful Mars, having enjoined silence, divulg- ed the precious secret. I was at that time too much an admirer of martial achievements to betray him, and he departed with many and sage injunctions to " be careful," " not to get hurt," &c. About eleven o'clock he returned thorougb- PHRENOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS. 107 ly bespotted and betorn ; but what was all that and a few bruises into the bargain, when his party had been victorious ! The lower-ender? had beaten the upper-enders, and driven them into yards and enclosures, whence they dared not show a head ; and they never, from that day forth, presumed to turn up a nose at the lower- enders. Thus ended the war. All this is boyhood, you say ; ay, and so it is ; but it is American boyhood. Did you ever think of the thing before ? Did you ever think of the difference of boyhood in our own coun- try, and that of every other on the face of the earth ? Did you ever think of the contrast in America and England even ? Here we have no aristocracy, no privileged orders, no laws of primogeniture ; and boyhood, in the mass, must be altogether a different affair in the mother country-, from what it is with us ; and it is too obviously so under other governments to admit of even a comparison. Our boys will not tamely submit to usurpa- tion, to airs of superiority ; they are keen observ- ers, and even keen thinkers. They ask the why of every thing, and the wherefore must bo rational indeed, to excitP the reverence of these 108 PHRENOLOGICAI STECULAT10^'S. Stripling republican cavaliers. They are rut*'"*^ boys as our own institutions, and no others., are calculated to develope. Their education 's ic accordance, — the circumstances by which thej are surrounded are likely to make such boys unlike those of any other country ; and they must be followed by such men. And here J come to the point phrenologically. The institutions of America, all of them, polit ical, moral, and religious, are, of all others, bes» calculated for the developement of the highe; faculties of our nature ; and these are of them selves establishing among us a cast, a type oj head, tohich will itself guaranty the perpetuity oj those institutions. We have nothing to fear from foreign oi internal disorganizers and corrupters, — for the permanency of our institutions is written upon tho very brows of our children, — in plain, legible characters upon the forehead of every school-boy that, sauntering, swings his satchel in our streets We need not enter the legislative hall, to seeV for the conservative principle of our govern ment ; it is to be found everywhere, in the vigorous, manly outline of the heads of our pro- fessional men, our artisans, our free voters. THE POLITICIAN OF PODUNK. Solomon VVaxtend was a shoemaker of Po- dunk, a small village of New York, some forty years ago. He was an Englishman by birth, and had come over the water to mend the insti- tutions, as well as the soles^ of the country. He was a perfectly honest man, and of natural good sense ; but, having taken pretty large doses of new light from the works of Tom Paine and the French Revolutionists, he became, like an inflated balloon, light-headed, and soared aloft into the unknown regions of air. Like many of his coun- trymen brought up under monarchical institu- tions, he was slow in understanding the mysteries of our political system ; and, wanting the ballast of Yankee common sense, he nevertheless thought himself specially qualified to instruct the people of Podunk in every thing relating to civil liberty. Accordingly he held forth, at first, over his lapstone, then at the bar-room, and finally at a caucus. He had some gifts, and more of the grace of assurance. He set up for a great man, became a candidate for representative, and was 110 THE POLITICIAN OF POiDUNK. triumphantly elected a member of the Gener- al Assembly of New York. With all the spirit of a true reformer, he set forth for Albany, to discharge the high functions of his official state. EJe went. He rose to make a speech. His voice failed, his knees tottered, he became silent ; he sat down. The whole affair was duly reported in the papers. It was read at the alehouse in Po- dunk! Solomon Waxtend came back an altered man. He went away round, ruddy, and self-sufficient ; he returned lean, sullen, and subdued. He shut him- self up for a month, and nothing was heard in his house by the neighbours, save the vigorous hammer upon the lapstone. At length, one even- ing, he appeared at the village inn. It was a sort of holiday eve, and many of his partisans were there. They looked at Solomon, as if they saw a ghost ; but he had that calmness of counte- nance which betokens a mind made up. His late friends crowded round him ; but Solomon, waving his hand, bade them sit down. Having done this, he spoke as follows. " I trust I am duly sensible, my friends, of the honor you intended me, in sending me to the Assembly. If I have disgraced you, it has, at least, been a lesson to me. I find, that in ordei THE POLITICIAN OF PODUNK. 11 i to understand your institutions, and to cope with your Yankee people, it is necessary, like them, to live long in the country, and to study its history, and become familiar with its political sys- tem. 1 find that an Englishman, with his Tory .notions, his hereditary love of monarchy, his loyalty, woven in with his first lessons of life, is like a ' fish out of water ' in one of your demo- cratic assemblies. I have, therefore, only one thing to say, and that will be told in the way of a story. " Some people, digging in a sandbank by the seaside, in search of Kid's money, came to a chest, with the following inscription, — ' Take me up, and I will tell you more ! ' This gave them fresh courage, and they continued their efforts. At length they dug up the chest, and on the bot- tom, they found the following inscription, — ' Lay me doian as I was before.'' '' Having told this story, the cobler departed leaving his hearers to apply the obvious hint con- veyed by the legend. THE THOUGHTS OF THE DUMB. BY J. H. CLINCH From words we gain ideas ; — there are some, Alas ! whose only knowledge rests in words, Their wisdom empty wind. How different The shadcwy thoughts which wander through suea minds, From. those ideal pictures, fresh and warm And well defined, which crowd the mental sight Of the deaf mute. — Words are unknown to him, — His thoughts are things, — his logic and his chain Of metaphysical deductions, — all Pass through his brain in bright depicted facts, The fresh reflections in mind's mirror clear Of Art's achievements or of Nature's works. One, to whom Heaven, in wisdom infinite, But to our sense inscrutable, had locked The gates of Sound and Speech, was asked to tell The meaning of ^'■forgiveness.'' Pausing then A moment, with the eye of memory " To glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. For fitting thoughts, he seized the ready pen And wrote, — The odor which the trampled flower Gives out to Mess the foot tchich crushes it ' SEA RHYMES. RETURN OF THE VICTOll SHli^ BY JAMES T. FIELDS. She hung her snowy pinions wide, A moment on the breeze, Then dashed the crimson waves aside, And leapt the foaming seas ; She swept a banner o'er the flood That never bore a stain, And like a giant forth she stood. As if to dare the main. Away ! away ! ye gallant souls, With swelling hearts ye fly ; In clouds of fire your thunder rolls Its white smoke on the sky, — I hear, I hear, the ringing peal, Your flashing arms I see ; Away I away ! what joy to feel The thrill of victory ! Behind ye moans the battle-cry, Of many a foe man doomed to die, Above ye float the stripes and stars Amid a nation's loud huzzas, While glory's boon, — proud honor's fame^ Encircles each exulting name ! 8 The interesting and picturesque fact, Ihat you can say, in all the poberncss and gravity of prose, that you leally sorn- posed " stanzas " on the top of a " heaven-kissing " mountain, — or on some capital quarter-deck '^ at sea." is something too valuable, withal, to pass over with a poor indifference. The chance is, that matter thus brought to light might do some- thing extra towards advancing the " good and true " in poetry. So would have judged Swedenborg, at least. For my own part, I am so certain, with reference to the article that follows, that enough to " swear by " was actually done, in pencil, on the very crown-rock of the mountain sung of, that I feel no disturbance of conscience in telling about it here, under the title of LINES WRITTEN ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT HOLYOKE. Great God ! thy works oppress me. As 1 gaze Upon thy beautiful creation, I but feel My frailty and my meanness. — I look down On a world mapped beneath me, like the world Of forms upon the firmament, when clouds Are marshalled there, amid a shadowy light That touches them with hues beyond our dreams* 1 look down with a fearfulness, — I hear A voice, as of a choir, bursting in song Of gratitude and glory to the Power LINES WRlTTExN OiN M ^UNT IIOLYOKE. . That fashioned such immensity. I hear An anthem rolling to the Architect Of such a boundless beauty. It comes not From some towered city, where the booming bell? Send up faint music through its cloudy pall It comes not from one land amid its joy, And gladness of its harvest, and its flowers, — Sot from one sounding river, in its flow To the great flood that bosoms it, — nor yet iTrom one upheaving ocean, — but it comes f'rom all their voices, mingling in this blue A.nd far vault of the mighty universe ! 11. My vision dims, with wonder ! — 1 look in Upon the panorama of my soul, And hear a whisper from deep places, full Of a subdued devotion, telling me, That man, though but an atom glimmering through This sea of things incomprehensible, Yet looms above the mountains in his mind. And holds great conversation with the stars ! And when he bends him to the checkered earth On its vast altar-peaks, — the dreamy world. That, like a canvass touched by his own hand. Seems but a painted pastime of the power Of the far God that walks above the clouds. And the broad blue they curtain, he is touched With some proud intimation ; — and his brow, Illuminate with a proud hope, and full Of the unfathomed mystery within. 1 16 LINES WRITTEN ON MOUNT HOLYOKE. Lifts to the high home of his destiny ; Then hows on earth's bald pinnacles, in prayer ' III. Silence and prayer, — upon the mountain tower ! Where clouds rest on their passage through the sky And its bright orbs seem nearer ! — where the wind Sweeps, with a hollow sound, like that of waves Or countless organs mingling, and the storm Peals with a fierce music ! O, if here, On these unshadowed places of the world, Where the earth looks the dim and dwarfish thing That well within the hollow of his hand, Who called it from immensity, might swing, — If here, where man, and all his works seem tombed In the dark forest that embosoms all, — W^here of his triumph voice no echo comes, And the great cannon's call scarce undulates, — If here he bow not, as a creature struck Down to the dust he tends to, and outpour In that confession, sanctified by tears, That ever mark the noblest penitence, — The story of his consciousness, — and ask For mercy, with a deep shame on his heart, Shading it as some great incubus, — if yet He prate of power, and dream of glory here, — Wrap him in pride, and curl the paling lip, That must to-morrow parley with the worm, — Then let him pass, — as but a breathing thing God's glories cannot reach, — nor beauties bow A creature with whose soul companionship LINES WRITTEN ON MOUNT HOL VOKE. 1 1 Must merge in misery, — a mass of earln That seems not formed to live, — yet dreads to die iV. Silence and prayer! — O tell me, ye who come As pilgrims to these towers, — these cloudy homes Where Nature casts her banners to the sky, Above the bravest battlements of man, And tells the story of her lordliness In her unfading oak and waving pine, That count the passing centuries from their crag. Dare the red bolt, — and laugh above the storm,— O tell me, — can ye come here, and bow down Where the world dwindles 'neath ye, like a point. Nor feel its passions lessen ? Can ye hear The voice of cities, and the waving fields, Sweep far beneath ye, like the sound of winds. Nor feel how lesser than a child's it is ? Can ye look down upon the ocean sea, Nor feel how infant-handed are its waves When storms are at their bravest, to the waves That mingle in their battles of the sky. When the tornado rides its tempest-car. And whirlwinds gather at its thousand wheels. And the red thunder leaps from spire to spire Of clouds that point the heavens like citadels, And blacken tlie horizon like a veil? V. O say, — can ye bow here, nor feel how far Ye are from earthy — and yet how near to heaven f ; I 1 8 LINES WRITTEN ON MOUNT HOLYOKK, Can ye, on summits wliere ye almost hear Tlie clouds swoop by ye on their passage, gaze On this mosaic of the land and sea, Or the unfathomed blue, nor feel deep tears Breaking within ye, as from founts that stir Only to One great voice ? Can ye bow down Without that unheard utterance of prayn, Which the heart whispers, when the thi^go of Go9 Bend it to silence that is eloquence ? A SKETCH FROM LIFE. BY THE AUTHOn OF " WEALTH AND FA3niON.''' How many essays have been written on that simple word, happiness^ from the times poste- rior to Miss Hannah More's charming poem, entitled, " Search after Happiness," to the present day ; when it seems to be conceded, that happi- ness is a celestial resident, who has no home on earth, and whose " visits are few and far between " ; that she only comes now and then to say, that we must not expect to be intimately acquainted with her till we seek her in her own region of life and glory, where she dwells in the presence of the Creator. Let us then cease to repine that she so con- stantly eludes our pursuit ; and take the best substitutes we can find, cheerfulness and cod- tentment It wouid be a utilitarian service, not unwor- thy the projects of the present day, to prove that these qualities are within the reach of all, but I am not sanguine enough of success to a' 120 A SKETCH FROM LIFE. tempt it. An habitual discipline of mind, howev- er, will secure a comfortable portion of content- ment, and a conscience at peace with itself will conjure up its partner, cheerfulness ; it niusi be confessed, nevertheless, that conscience is not apt to be perfectly at peace with itself ; and, the higher the standard, the less there is of self- complacency. There is one great truth connected with this subject, which illustrates most powerfully the goodness of God. Contentment is not oftcner the portion of the rich, than of the poor ; neither does it ally itself to rank, or intellect. One of the most contented people I ever heard of, was one among the least gifted. She was uncouth in her figure and gait, and deeply pitted with the small pox, which she had had severely in her youth. By daily labor she supported an aged mother ; and they occupied a room furnished with the bare necessaries of life. Let not the wealthy disdain " the simple annals of the poor.'' She often spoke of her success in life with fer- vent gratitude, and said it seemed to her a miracle how she had risen in the world, so as to be able to " keep house." Her idea of affluence, was bounded to a sufficient supply of work to enable her to clothe A SKETCH FROM LIFE. 121 herself suitably for the season, to furnish three meals a day, and to pay an annual rent of twelve dollars for her room. This last demand she considered exorbitant, and said, " if she consulted oiiy her own coznfort she would not submit to It, but Marm must live well, she was used to it, and could not be reduced in her old age ; then, upon second thoughts, she did not so much blame her landlord, for the prices of every thing had risen, and it was natural enough that rent should rise too." At length, however, she said, with something like gloom, "that they must move ; — the landlord had raised their rent from twelve to fourteen dollars, and she could not afford to pay it, and, if she could, she should think it wrong to be living at such a rent." I offered to lend her the two dollars. I would not have risked hurting her feelings by offering to give them. She said, " No, everybody must accommodate themselves to their circumstances ; she would move, though it would take her off from a day's work, and she was afraid they should go behindhand. The bedstead must be uncorded, and there was a chest of drawers tc be moved, and only one pair of hands to do it but, thank her stars, they were strong ones." I proposed sending a hand-cart for the heavy lSi3 A SKETCH FROM LIFE. articles, and asked how far they were to be car • ried. " Only across the entry," she replied ; " the landlord can get a higher rent for this room than the other, and so that is more suit- able for M5." She certainly lost none of this blessed quality of contentment by getting into a smaller apart- ment, but said, " the same good luck had fol- lowed her that did about every thing ; — it took less fire to warm it, and was every way a saving." In time, Sary's mother died, (this was the name she always went by,) and she became rheumatic and unable to work ; and then she got what she called " a nice snug birth in the alms- house." I knew her love of independence so well, that I thought this must be a calamity to her ; but I found it otherwise. The first time I went to see her, she began to enumerate hei comforts; said, "she had half abed to herself and that was as much as she had, when her mother was living." After she recovered her health, which she did in the course of a few months, she preferred remaining in the alms house as an assistant. " I can do more," said she, " than earn my living ; I can do something for the poor, and it is but just that I should, for A SKETCH FROM LIFE. 123 I have been living almost a year upon charity not that I ever felt humbled by it, for we are all living upon God's charity." Sary was some- thing of a philosopher ; for she added, " that she knew she was well off there, and it was uncer* tain whether she should ' better her situation,' by trying to live independently." She certainly had not book learning, for she could neither write nor read ; but she had col- lected a good many sayings, that she applied to the affairs of life. The wisdom of them she always tested by her own experience, and never yielded her opinion to their authority without full conviction. If she had any affectation, it was in quoting the observations of men, instead of those of her own sex ; and she always pre- faced her quotations by remarking, " I have heard sensible men say," &c. I recollect one striking instance of her inde- pendence of public opinion. She prefaced a quotation as usual, by, "I have heard sensible men say, ' If you mend your clothes on your back, For poverty you '11 ne'er lack j ' now I know that is not true, for I have mended mine on my back a hundred times, and I never yet wanted for any thing." r i24 A SKETCH FROM LIFE. Some circumstances took place which ren dered it necessary for Saiy to make a journey, It was upon the whole a trial to her equanimity ; but she was too wise to repine at an unavoidable evil, and so she made up her mind to perform it for pleasure. It was eight long miles, and then there was a bridge to cross, which would cost her two cents. This last difficulty was obviated by crossing in a boat below for nothing ; it made her foot journey two miles further, but she saved her cents. She said, however, " that it was the hardest job she ever went through for pleasure, and, upon the whole, the dearest one, taking into account the wear upon her shoes." I will not further illustrate my subject, lest some one should say, this is not intellectual content- merit, but mere vegetation. It may be so ; foi God ripens fruits, flowers, and plants by his sun- shine ; and he will watch over the humblest mind to which he has given existence, even though to the highly gifted it may seem scarcely raised above the clod of the valley. LAMENT FOR THE DECLINE OF POETRY. A FRAGMENT. Alas ! the days of song are past, And all is downright prose at last; No more the lover wooes with verse, But argues better with his purse; And haply finds, if this is long, His suit fe short, his pleading strong. The Moon, that once inspired the lay, Now only wakes the watch-dog's bay. The Muses, wooed and won of yore, Are sought or worshipped now no more; And soolii to say (I speak from knowledge, Although I learned it not at college), — Since Homer thundered in their ear, The deafened Nine have ceased to hear; At least, 't is vain their aid to seek, Unless your prayer is couched in Greek; For 1 have tried it many a time, And could not even get a rhyme ; So, let them pass, — they 've lost their zest,- They 're nine old musty maids, at best, They 're not in vogue, and that 's enough; A goddess, out of fashion, 's stuff ! Old Helicon is but a hill, — Dry is Castalia's bubbling rill, — Arcadia's golden age is flown, So Benton's mint-drops did not go alone ! LUXURY, OR THE LADY-BIRD BY MRS. SEBA S3HTH. 1 SAW three children gathered round A tulip's bed, on the dewy ground, And their little voices chiming rung, While these were the words the young group avmg ** Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home ! Your house is on fire, your children will roam.' They thought, to be sure, the dainty thing Would flutter aloft its tiny wing, And fly to rescue the little brood. Away, far away, in the deep, green wood. They waited in vain, — it stirred not a wing. Though the warning voices did loudly ring. They looked with surprise, then raised again. In a louder voice, the warning strain. " Lady -bird, lady-bird, fly away home ! Your house is on fire, your children will roam." The words were sweet, and the morning clear. But it fell, I am sure, on a senseless ear. On a callous heart, or danger and home Would have urged her away where her children roam They thought she was an insensible thing, And proud, perchance, of her spotted wing. I looked in the cup the monster to see, And learn what the truth of the case might be. LUXURY, OR THE LADY-BIRD. 12' I saw, at once, that her silly brain Would think no more of that home again. The whirr of her wings no more would be heard. In the woody dell, by insect or bird, — For there she sat, like a fairy queen. On her velvet couch in the tulip's sheen j And the dainty thing hjad gathered there Whatever is rich, or sweet, or rare, — A thousand things, that were all unknown In the rose-tree shade, from whence she had flown j And things, that her sisters there would deem Too wild for even a lady-bird's dream. Her palace was hung with crimson and gold, And gems gleamed out in the tapestry's foA ; And tiny vases, with nectarine dew. Their coolness and fragrance round her tnrew. There were pearls, too small for a common eye, And such as a poet alone can descry. And fairy sprites were hovering there, To deck the brow of the lady-bird fair. The rose's leaf, and the thistle's down, And the gossamer web were round her thrown; And all that were .skilful in things like these. Came hither the dainty one to please. A globule of dew for a mirror hung, And the glow-worm's lamp in the hall was strung A band of insects was stationed near. With music to charm the lady-bird's ear A spider came with a solemn tick, To know if the lady were well or sick j I judged by his air, and his sable hue, Of the lady -bird's doctor I 'd had a view, 12 3 LUXURY, OR THE LADY-BIRD. And grieved to see that the insect throng Were aping our manners, right or wrong. * « * » * The insect we called a luxurious thing, Too idle to spread its beautiful wing, Ana fly away on the balmy air, Where the joyous group 'neath the rose-tree were We knew it would die in that gorgeous home. And never again the green-wood roam ; The rustling leaf, and the healthful breeze. Were all unmarked in her selfish ease. The gentle voices of love and mirth, In vain rang up from the joyous earth. We left her there m her pride, to die^ A lady-bird spoiled by luxury. THE JOURNEY OF MEMOKV. I HOVERED, in guise of a witching dream, O'er the captive's couch , and a brilliant gleam Of the purest joy in his features shone, As I spoke, in a low and impassioned tone, Of a lovely home in a tranquil glade. And the changeless faith of a dark-eyed maid. But I touched the fetters which bound him faat And a cloud of anguish that face o'ercast. I lingered not with the yovug; and fair, If love aud hope were my rivals there ; But 1 knew I should come, when youth was flo^n And raise, m those innocent hearts, a throne. I sought the dwelling where death had left, On the joyless hearth, his ioot-pj.nts deep; A mother, unconscious of earthly ill. Was tranquilly sleeping a " dreamless sleep." I harrowed the souls of a youthful throng. Not mine to comfort, not mine to bless ; 1 called from their graves the thoughtless word, The wayward deed, and the cold caress. Which had grieved that kind and gentle heart, Which could lavish no longer its " wealth of love ' But, worn and wearied with earth-born cares, Was glad of a refuge in realms above. Remorse and regret alike were vain ; Nor all earth's treasures, nor all earth's tears, 9 130 mi'. JOUUNEY OF MRMORf. Could win that priceless blessing again, To soothe or counsel their coming years. I entered the church; at the altar's side Stood a noble youth, and a lovely bride ; A hallowed sight were that youthful pair, But the bridegroom's face had a glance of care For I led him back to the days past by, When another had won his roving eye, And earnests of deep-felt passion shone In the pleading glance, and the softened tone The scene was changed ; at the altar's oide Stood an aged man, and a youthful bride ; A dark shade hung o'er the maiden's brow, As I boldly spoke of an earlier vow, Plighted to one in his manhood's prime^ Gathering gold in a far-off clime. She sought to bribe me with sparkling gems^ I would not list to her earnest prayer ; Uncalled, ungreeted, unwelcome, I came . No wedding garment was mine to wear. But 1 laughed at the powerless rivals, which shone In those dark-waving tresses, and glittering zone As I plodded onward my weary way, A group of wild urchins entreated my stay ; They were conning their tasks in the morning sun, And earnestly wishing such penance done; They shouted a welcome, but shouted in vain ; I dared not mix with that rival train ; For Wit was there, with his arch reply, And Mirth, with her saucy, wandering eye, And Sport looked forth, and longed to ride His mimic bark on the river's tide ; *r THE JOURNEV OF MEMORY. 131 While Sloth, that dark, insidious foe," In silence aimed the deadliest blow. I sought a lovely sequestered spot, Where, wealth, and splendor, and power, forgot. Dwelt a tranquil spirit, of purpose high, Yet looking on earth with a kindly eye ; Gladly he proffered me shelter and rest, Cheerfully greeted his welcome guest ; A faithful record was mine to read, Of the high-souled thought, and the generous deed» Of a cheerful spirit, enduring long, And meekly brooking the keenest wrong; Of a life, in noble&t efforts spent, And a soul, in its conscious worth, content. E. A. TEIE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. BY MISS M. A. BROWNE. Which is the true earthly fairy land, — the region where the wayward, but lovely little beings love best to hold their revels ? Germa- ny, with her black forests, and her strange tales of demons and monsters, has claimed those fair and delicate creatures for her own. Scotland can show the green rings their light feet have left among her brown heather ; and often have they been seen, by hardy deer-stalker and wan- dering minstrel, in the parks and forests of merry England. But there is another country, not less beautiful and famed, which has enjoyed, at least, an equal share of fairy favor. Can it be doubted that I speak of Ireland ? Never was land more prolific of fairy lore ; not that lore which is clasped in dusty volumes, or hidden in unintelligible old manuscript, but that wnich is transferred from generation to generation, learned by the infant from its mother's lips, believed as a faith which it were a sin to doubt ; written on THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 13 Ihc hearts and twined in the minds of the chil- dren of Erin, with their earliest ideas. It was in the spring of the year 1833, that 1 had occasion to visit the south of Ireland , and my business led me to the little town of Clonacarty, in the County of Cork. During my stay, I fell in with the quondam schoolmaster of the parish, who had formerly " taught the young idea how to shoot," beneath^ the shelter of a stout hawthorn hedge, until the march of intellect, and a national school, had fairly robbed him of his vocation. Why will people be so much wiser than their fathers ? I verily believe that many of his old pupils, under their new lights, would have gone near to doubt the truth of the tale which follows. He related it to me himself, one fine summer noon, as we sat on a green knoll, and overlooked the scene of the story. " 'T is long ago smce there was a house here ; before my time, there was n't one stone of it left upon another ; but, notwithsta/idin', there was wanst a dacent house stood convaynient to this, jist beyant the grate ash trees. 'T was called the farm of Kilavain, and was burned in the grate rebellion ; but that is nothing to the purpose. 134 THI-: LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. " On this farm lived one Dick Donovan, ana his only child, a very party girl, called Moyna. I wish I could paint you the likeness of Moyna Donovan ; — sure she was handsomer than an angel itself; so at laste, my grandfather towld me, — the saints be good to his sowl, for iver and iver, amen ! She was about sixteen years old ; small and light made, her eyes blue as the skies above, and her hair black as the raven's wing. These are ould sayings, but I can't find newer or better in spakin' of Moyna. Jist round the fut of yonder hill, lived the landlord of all these fields and farms about, one Misther Doyne, or, as he generally was called, Misther Walter. A dacent jintleman he was ; lived on his estate the year round, barrin' an occasional visit to tho city of Cork, and was, altogether, as merry- hearted, open-handed, free-spoken a youth as you M see of a summer's day. Long and well had he loved Moyna Donovan, and often had he vow- ed to make her his wife ; but crops failin', and tmnants runnin' away, and one thing or another camr ctcross him, and he was forced to put off marryin', till his afiairs were put a bit straighter. With Walter Doyne lived one of his relations ; that is, he had a score or two of them about his place, but only one, for a wonder, who ate and THE LEuEND OF 1 HE LARGE FEET. 135 dlirank wid liimself, and was looked on as nearly his aiquil. Whether he was his uncle or his cousin, or some friend of his father's, nobody could rightly tell ; but he never wint, amongst high or low, by any name but Uncle Jack. He was a jolly, stout little man, about forty years old, wid a good-tempered face, and a hearty laugh ; remarkable for nothing but a wonderful dislike to doing a hand's turn for him- self. But, give him his due, he was ready enough to mend all the broken spades and fishin' tackle, and go a nuttin' with the byes and girls, and tache the childher to make bows an' arrows, or to do any thing in life for a neighbour. Now, 1 think, you have the picktur of all parties con- sarned in this story, except Jeriy Maguire and Nelly Malone. Jerry was the finest specimint of a Kerry man, that iver you seen. A tall, raw-boned crathur, wid red cheeks, a rownd face, wid blue eyes, an' white teeth, which you were sure to see if you looked in his face, he was so apt at smilin' at you. Nelly Malone was a purty fair-haired colleen^ who waited on Moyna, the cows, and the chickens. " At the time I spake of, yonder little green spot, which you see the ploughmen have taken care to leave unbroken, was the favorite meet- 1 36 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. ing place of the good people, as they call 'em bad ind to 'em, for what they done to purty Moyna Donovan, as you shall hear in proper time. Well ; the good or bad people kept their nightly revels there, jist as you see, a little before you come to Dick Donovan's farm, that is, when the farm was in it. They could have seen thim junketin' from the very windys, if the ash trees had not stood betwane, and spiled the prospect. It was a fine, lovely summer's night, when Moyna Donovan was walking from the fair of Clonacarty wid Walter Doyne. I should tell you, she was thought to have the purtiest fut and ancle, and to be the best dancer in all Munster. They had jist passed through the ould gateway that used to be here, and Walter, in a jokin' way, was spakin' of Moyna's dancin', and she blushin' like a rose, an' frownin', and cry in' ' Nonsense,' and thin turnin' away her head, that he should not see her smilin'. ' True for you, Moyna, avourneen^'' said he, ' sure didn't you bate them all out an' out, the two Sullivans that set themselves up for the hoith of gentility, and MiSs Rose Flaherty, that taches, and Misthress Newenham, an' all ? I b'lieve you'd bate the fairies thimselves, only they'd not dare to thry wid you, wid thim purty little feet of your own, THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 137 siz he, lookin' down at thim, as they glanced in and out from beneath her -white gown in the moonlight. " What Moyna answered I do not know ; an}' way, she almost believed all Walter Doyne had been sayin', partly because he said it, and part- ly because it plazed her. Somehow, she was restless in her mind that night. May be she was over- heated wid the dancin', and the walk home ; may be she did not know the rason her- self; but, any way, when Walter Doyne was gone, she walked out into the garden, and then into the field. She had not gone far, when she heard the sound of music, but so low and soft, she would have thought it was only coming on the wings of the wind from the town of Clona- carty, if every note had n't been heard as clear as if it was jist beside her. Some way, the thought of the fairies come into her head, an' all that Walter Doyne had been sayin' ; and she almost wished she could have struv wid the fairies ; for Moyna, small blame to her, was a little taste proud of her dancin'. Well, the mu- sic sounded nearer and nearer ; and, just turnin' round by the ash trees, beyant the green rmg, Moyna came upon the whole fairy court, in the midst of their merrymakin'. They were danc/n' 1 38 THK LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. away to the music Moyna had heard, in the best of time, and as hght as a feather. Some of thim were standin' by, and Moyna, half pleased, half frightened, stood watching them, too. But in a minnet, her fear overcame her wish to stay, and she was hoping to slip away, and get home unknownst, when one of the little crathurs, who had been cuttin' capers, and snappin' his fingers over his head like mad, danced up to her, an', wid a low bow, ' Moyna Donovan,' siz he, ' will you take a dance wid me P " Now Moyna, though she was but a woman, had a true Irish woman's heart in her bosom , and, whatever she felt, would have scorned to seem afraid ; so she curtsied in reply, and danced forrits. Thin began such a dancin' match as these fields niver saw before or since. At first, all the advantage was on Moyna's side ; she was light and slight, and knew all the steps and figures which were never so much as heard of in fairy land. She shot hither and thither, up and down, slow and quick ; now swimmin' along as if she was goin' to faint ; now burstin' into a hght quick step, enough to electrify you to see it, while the fairy spectators clapped their hands, and laughed for very pleasure. But she was but a mortal afther all. The fairy music played fast- THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 139 er and faster, and her partner leaped and capered higher than ever. Poor Moyna's limbs began tc fail her ; she tottered and trembled, and at last was obliged to stop and rest, sinkin' down at the fut of one of the trees. Immediately there was a shout of triumph from the elves, and Moyna would have run away ; but she was too weary to rise. " The whole tribe of fairies gathered round her, and her malicious partner took a harebell from his cap, and shook the dew from its cup upon her feet. No sooner did it touch them, than a great pair of brogues rose out of the earth, and the fairies, sazing them, buckled thim on the helpless girl's feet, singin' an uncouth sort of charm, and vanishin' wid a shout of laughter that shook the leaves from the ash tree. The words of their song Moyna could not rightly recollect ; but the drift of them was, that she should never be ridded of the brogues, till she should find a thorough-bred Irishman, with courage and strength enough to challenge the fairies to dance, and to bate them, too. " How she got home she did not know ; she was lyin' in her own bed in the morning, and the sun comin' shinin' through the windy, and she started up, hoping she had been dhreaming. 1 l THE LEGExND OF THE LARGE FEET. But she soon found the differ, for there were the big brogues fast round her slender ancles, makin' her purty feet look bigger than any gossoon's on the farm. Greatly terrified and grieved yoii may be sure she was ; she dreaded to tell her father and Walter Doyne how she came by the brogues. They would, no doubt, scowld her for her night- walkin' ; and, may be, Walter would judge her to be unlucky, and have nothing more to say to her. She tried to loose the strong leather latch- ets, but in vain. As soon as she got one clasp undone, it fostened again tighter than iver. Fair- ly bothered she was at last, and the only thing she could do, was to sit down and cry for the bare life. Presintly she hears her father callin' out for his huckoshl, and ' Moyna, Moyna,' siz he, ' where 's the colleen at all. Sleepin' after her dancin', I suppose. It's likely I'll let her go to the fair of Clonacarty, if this is to be the way of it. Moyna, agra, can't ye answer > ' and Moyna called down to him that she was comin', as well as she could for the cryin'. When she got into the kitchen, her father was gone out of it, and she had jist time to slip in asy, and gel behind the table and hide her large feet, before he came back. She said little enough, you may be sure, and her father, atin' in a vast hurry, THE LEGEND UP THE LARGE FEET. 141 scarcely looked up from his mate ; only now an' then asKing her a question about the price of whate, and bastes, and such like, at the fair, where he had not been,* for a rason of his own. Moyna know as much of them things as the man in the moon ; but she answered as well as she could, keepin' her feet hid undher the table, and turnin' her face to the door, when he happened to look over to her. But at last, ' Father,' siz she, ' I must go to confession this very day.' " These were the first words that made ould Dick Donovan look full at her. He riz out of his sate, and stared full in her face. ' Yarrah, what ails you at all, avourneen,^ siz he. ' It 's but last week ye were at yer duty. You can have nothing to confess now but what ye might as well tell yer ould father. Spake to him, dar- lin', and tell him all that 's troublin' the little heart of ye.' " Wid that, Moyna threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him ; but she sobbed so sadly, it was long before she could spake. At lasi she tould him all ; how she had evened herself, in the pride of her heart, to the fairies, and how they had punished her ; together wid the only manes of ridding her of the brogues, if indeed she ever could be released from them. 1 42 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. " Donovan was bothered entirely what to ad. vise ; but he thought he M have one trial to got the brogues off, any way. So he tuk a knife, and begun to cut the .straps , but sure never was leather like them. The knife wint in asy enough, and cut as if it war goin' through water ; but, like the same water closin' over the wake of a vessel, the, leather closed over the track of the knife. Then Donovan grew mad, and he swore by this and by that, that he 'd have the brogues off, in spite of the fairies, and the ould boy himself to back them, and he made a desperate slap wid the knife at the thick leather ; when, oh murther, it slipped aside, and, scratchin' his daughter's purty ancle, drew more than one dhrop of blood. Then he flung down the knife in raal despair. ' There 's nothing for it,' siz he, ' but to go to father O'Halloran. [ '11 take you to him myself, this day ; or may be, he would step over here ; for we would n't be makin' a show of them feet to the parish, if we could help it.' " Well an' good. Father O'Halloran came, and soon poor Moyna tould him the story, and showed him the grievance of the brogues. ' My daughter,' siz he, ' it was a sinful thought to even yourself to the good people, and it 's THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 143 tor meddling o' them that this evil is permit- ted. However, we '11 thr} what can bt; done. I did not come widout the manes ; ' and wid that he took out his manual, and a little bot- tle of holy wather. But if all the precious tears Moyna's purty blue eyes had shed would n't help her, you may be sure the holy wather did little good. The priest prayed to the saints all round, and wasted a dale of the blessed wather, but all to no purpose ; the brogues would not stir an inch for him. Then siz Father O'Halloran, *I 'm sadly afeard, Moyna, you 're a bad mimber, either in faith or practiz. There 's somethin' on your mind that ye never tould me of, or these devices of the evil one would not have such power over you.' " Moyna began cryin' again, and purtested she ' knew nothing to cause her to be so punished, always exceptin' the meddlin' wid the fairies ; but she was willing to confess to his riverence, notwithstanding.' "I cannot tell you what her confession was, for that, you know, is a matter betwane the priest and the penitent ; any way, there was no pinance appointed her. But the confession did no more good than any thing else ; so Father O'Halloran pocketed his two thirteens, and walked peaceably 1 44 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. home, hummin' ' The Groves of Blarney,' and wondering what the dickens ailed Moyna Don- ovan. *' When Walter Doyne came in the evenin', as usual, it was a hard task for Moyna to see him, and tell him what had happened to her, and how she feared it would put an ind to all betwane them. But when Walter heard of the way she might be relased, you may be sure he was not long in offering to dance her feet to their proper size again. But Moyna would not hear of it. She said it was only puttin' himself into useless danger. It was a thorough Irishman only could sarve her, and he was half English by his motli- er's side, so it would be in vain. But he was not to be sed ; and that very night, when everybody was asleep in their beds, he set out for the fairy ring. He had betther have stayed at home. He called in vain on the fairies to appear. He conjured them to have pity on poor Moyna, and fasten their infernal brogues on his feet instead of hers. He invoked them in the names of all the saints and sinners he could remember, but never a fairy did he see. * Just as the mornin' was dawning, he turned to go home, vexed entirely, an' vowing ven- geance on the good people, though he wint to the THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE i EET. 145 Popt at Rome to get it. Jist then his foot slip ped on a wet place in the path, and down he fell. A sound ran through the grass and trees. May- be it was only the mornin' wind, freshenin' with the daybreak ; but to Walter it seemed like a distant peal of laughter, burstin' from many peo- ple at once. It rose high and long, an' died away in the sobbin' and wailin' of the wind. Walter tried to rise, but found he could n't ; and he might have lain there from that time to this, had not one of Dick Donovan's laborers, comin' to his work, helped him home. He found he had sprained his ancle, and that so badly, that it would be many a day before he could strive wid the good people, even if they should take his next offer of a thrial. " It was wid a heavy heart that he gave up the thought of relasin' Moyna Donovan for the pres- ent, and heard the doctor say, he must keep still and not even walk for days, or perhaps weeks. " When Moyna heard of his disaster, she was like to go ravin'. ' She was the most unfortunate crathur on earth,' she said, ' first to suffer this way herself, and thin to bring a friend into trouble, and all for no rason at all.' " Poor Walter was obliged to stay m his room, an' the only body he had to spake to was one he 10 14« THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FE15T. could not well avoid, and that was Uncle Jack, He had heard of Moyna's misfortune, and now Walter, to ase his heart, up an' tould him all his troubles, and how perplexed he was vvid thuikin' what a while it would be before he would get another chance of bating the fairies, by rason of his lameness. Uncle Jack pitied him sincerely, and he said so ; but he did not say a word of the plan he had thought of, for puttin' every thing to rights. He had been schemin' it all in his head, while Walter was talkin' to him, though he stood quite innocent like, vvid his hands in his pockets, chewin' his tobacky quid, and seemed to be watchin' the brood of young ducks, that was wabblin' and squabblin' in the yard before the windy. 'Make yourself aisy Walter, ma houclial^^ he began. Then he stopped himself. ' What can't be cured must be endured,' siz he, ' so take another tum- bler to Moyna's good health, and your own suc- cess the next time you 're to thry your skill with the fairies.' " But Walter had no mind to more punch then ; the more wondher for him ! an' Uncle Jack was glad to get to his own little room m the garret, an' think about his scheme. An' what think you it was .? Nayther more nor less than THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 14/ to challenge the fairies himself! Fancy Uncle Jack challengin' the elves, that they say are as light as the dewdrop dancin' on the bennet top ! He who, if he was not much taller than the cluricane^ was at laste six times as broad * But I 'm a true Irishman, every inch of me,' siz he, ' an' there 's a purty girl in the case, which ought to be enough for me any day, without mintionin' my own born relation, poor Walter ! ' An' so sayin'. Uncle Jack wint to the little cracked shaving-glass, that he might make himself dacint, and go respectable to the dancin', which lie had determined on for that very night. " Now the moon shone brightly out on these wide fields about us, and comin' down yonder path, you might have 'spied a little rollicking looking crathur, with his hat cocked on three hairs, his shillelagh in his hand, steppin' lightly along on his toes, and whistling as if he were ready for a frolic. On he came, as bould as whiskey and a good cause could make him, until he reached the fairy ring. He was consithering how he could call the good people in the po- litest manner, when a little crathur, dressed all in green, popped up before him, and whichever way he turned, there was another and another till he stood in the very midst of the fairies. 1 1 S THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. *' ' What do you want here, mortal ? what do you here, man ? ' demanded many voices, at once. " ' Manners, manners, ladies and jintlemen , one at a time, if you plase, an' I '11 do my best to answer ye,' siz Jack, no ways daunted. ' I 'm here in regard to my nevy, and purty Moyna Donovan, whom you so kindly gifted wid a pair of brogues gratish ; an' I 'm here to see if there 's no way of pershwading you to take your present back again.' " ' There 's but one way,' replied a silver voice, ' and you know the way quite well. You must bate us, — tire us down at the dancin', an' if you win, she '11 be relased at once.' " It was the queen of the fairies herself who spoke. " ' My dancin' days have been long over, ma'am,' siz Jack ; ' but,' says he agin, bowin"' and drawin' nearer to her, ' if your ladyship's self would do me the honor,' " ' /,' said the lady, drawin' back like any ijiieen in the world, — 'Mortal, presumptuous mortal ! do you know whom you address ? but any of these my maidens,' wavin' her hand mighty stately, ' will thry their skill with you as soon as you like.' THE LEGEND OF THE LAIIGE FEET. .4^ " ' Wid all my heart,' siz Jack, quite bould like ; ' which will I take ? ' " ' You must choose for yourself," replied her majesty of the fairies, and the word * Choose, choose, choose ! ' ran from lip to lip, like a fair t wind goin' from rose to rose. " ' Then, by your lave,' siz Jack, ' I '11 take out the little lady in green ; she 's a sweet crathur, 1 'm sure, an' won't be hard upon a poor bye like me, that 's twenty times her weight upon his heels,' siz he, thrying to luk insinivatin', an' thinkin' to come over her wid a bit of the blarney. " ' Don't be puttin' your flummery on us, Uncle Jack,' siz she, standing forrits ; * but just begin, and do your best, as I shall do mine ; ' but Jack saw she was not altogether displeased with the taste of flatter}' he made bould to give her. " Well, the unseen musicians began to play, an' away they went. Jack and the fairy, to the .une of ' Katty O'Lynch.' In a few minutes. Uncle Jack threw away his hat ana wig, as useless incumbrances, pufiin' and hlowin' wid the fatigue and want of breath, but sail dancin' on, as if he had quicksilver in his heels. For some time you 'd have sworn he had as good a chance as his antagjonist, whose lapes an' bounds was n'f 150 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. to be compared to Uncle Jack's flings an' capeis. But when the fairies saw this, they got vexed and did nothin' but torment him. Some would Vb.n jist across him when he would be chassey- ing forrit ; others were riddy behind to pull the lap of his coat, thinkin* to bring him backwards on his scull. It was in vain that Uncle Jack roared for fair play, and danced faster for very anger. Still the little crathurs were so trouble- some, one of them in particular, that he could not forbear raising his fut, an' givin' it a kick. Immadiately there was such a williloo as never was heard ; and before he could bless himself, Jack was laying on the broad of his back, as unable to rise as a turtle in the same condhion ; and one of the fairies was standin' on his chest. " ' Och,' cried he, ' by the powers ! is this the tratement ye give strangers, ye little venomous sprissonneens ! If there 's law or justice to bo had ' but here the fairy on his breast, bad cess to it, set its foot on his mouth ; and, though it was no heavier than a flower-bud, it stopped his spakin'. " * Have done wid yer nonsense. Uncle Jack,' siz the imp, ' and go quietly home, an' lave other people's affairs to take care of themselves [f it was n't that the day is jist going to break THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE I EET. 15l I M give you a mark that you should be known by for ever an' a day. Good mornin' to you, Uncle Jack, an' betther luck to you in your next undertaking.' The elf then jumped off his breast and, as it passed, struck his wrist with its hand, and the whole court vanished, wid a shout of aughter, lavin' poor Uncle Jack wid his wrist twisted out of joint, and altogether in a very bad condition. " Things went on in this way for some weeks. Mr. Walter's ancle got worse, instead of betther an' Moyna's feet were as fast in the brogues as ever. Her misfortunes were noised far an' wide, an' she came to be spoke of by strangers as ' The Lady of the Large Feet.' " Now Nelly Malone, the maid, had a raal affection for three things in the world, — for Miss Moyna, for the white turkey-cock, and for Jerry Maguire. May be, bavin' but few things to set her heart on, she loved them the betther ; for poor Nelly had nayther father or mother, or any other relation livin'. She had reared the white turkey-cock herself she had been fostei sister to Miss Moyna, and Jerry Maguire had been her fellow-servant and sweetheart evej s'Dce she could remember. " ' Jerry, jewel,' said Nelly, one fine evening 1 5 2 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. as he was siltin' wid her uiidhcr the side of a big hay-rick, ' Jerry, darlin',' siz she, ' I 've somethin' on my mind.' •* 4 Never say it twice, Nelly, achorra ma- chree^ siz Jerry, ' but tell me what 's ailin' you ; spake out acuishla.^ " * I 'm grieved for Miss Moyna,' siz Nelly * to see her sweet purty feet spiled with them brogues ; an' sorry I am for Mr. Walter ; an', al- together, I 'm greatly troubled.' " ' Sure, you 've your own dear bye to com- fort you, — an' that 's myself,' siz Jerry. " ' Ah ! then,' siz she, ' you '11 do what I ask you for poor Nelly's sake.' " ' If it 's possible to be done, Nelly ; any thing m rason, avourneen.^ " ' An' ain't you a raal good dancer, Jerry, and a true Irishman to yer heart's core : bate the fairies at the dancin', an' then Miss Moyna will be relased an' married, an' Nelly will be yer own wife ; ah ! sure ye '11 not refuse me.' " ' Avocli ! we thank you kindly ! Go an' be strangled by the fairies, is it } Shastone ! give me any thing of flesh and blood to deal wid • any thmg mortal, Nelly dear, but as for the good people ' " ' An' you won't obleedge me, then ' said THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET- 155 Nelly, burstin' out cryin'. ' Well, you aie not what I tuk you for. I thought, when I prom- ised Jerry Maguire, he was a bould bye, fearin* nothin' ; an' instead of that, he 's a mane, pitiful crathur, or coward, that 's afeard.' " 'Don't say that word agin, Nelly Malone, if you M not drive me mad at wanst. I 'm no more a coward than any man, but where 's the use of throwin' myself away to the fairies ? Luk at Mr. Walter, wid his sprained ancle, and Uncle Jack, wid his twisted wrist, an' then tell me, would n't I be goen' on a fool's errand ? My Nelly, don't .luk so vexed, — you know if you insist,' " Well, bless the women ! They bate the world for gettin' their own way, an' makin' the byes do as they plase ; an' somehow, between scoldin' and cryin' and coaxin', Nelly Malcne made Jerry Maguire change his tune, and prem- ise to challenge the fairies ; an', as long as Nelly was wid him, he had almost as good a mind to it as herself, when wanst he 'd promised. But whin the maslher called her away, and Jerry was left to himself, he was in a complete per- plexshity. He turned the thing over an' over in his mind, but tli^re was no crack to creep out at. He was not the bye to run off his word, — ■ 154 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE TEET- but then to face the good people ! Jerry haa but one resource left, an' that was, to set out to Father O'Halloran, trusting he M forbid the chal lenge as a thing unlawful, an' lay the ban of the church on him, if he attempted it. " He was disappointed, hov ever. Father O'Halloran said the promise was a rash one, yet it must be respected ; that we must keep faith, though it was wid the father of lies himself; and that though the matin wid the fairies was not over and above holy, the end, in this case, sanctified the manes, an' there seemed no other way of riddin' poor Moyna Donovan of her large brogues. So Jerry, lookin' mighty foolish and downcast, stood tvvistin' his canheen in his hands, and then raisin' his head smart, as if a thought had jist struck him, asked if ' there was nothing his riverence could give him by way of a charm, to hinder the good people doen' him any harm. " ' When do you mane to make the thrial ? ' asked Father O'Halloran. " ' This night, plase Heaven,' siz Jcrr}\ ' Whin a thing 's to be done, the sooner one sets about it the better.' " ' There 's only one thing I can do foi you,' returns the priest ; ' step home an' back as fast as you can, and bring me the little bottle I seen THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. 155 in your harvest last harvest ; an' be sure there 'a some sperrits in it.' " Jerry was not long in bringing the bottle, and when Father O'Halloran tuk it up, he held ;t up to the Ught, an', ' It 's too full by half,* nz he. " ' Och n hone ! ' mz Jerry ; ' if I 'm to fact the fairies, I 'm sure I 'd need it every dhrop.' " ' But there 's not room for the holy wather,' siz Father O'Halloran, uncorkin' the bottle, an' pourin' out a dacent share into his own tumbler, which stood convaynient, ' I 'm goen' to bless the whiskey ; and, whine ver you 're gettin' tired in dancin', jist take the laste taste in life of the blessed whiskey, an' you '11 lape like a trout in the sthrame.' So the priest tuk a little vial from the chimney, and was pourin' out the holy water " ' Ilould, hould, your riverence,' siz Jerry, stoppin' his hand, ' sure one drop 's as good as a thousand, an' if you spile the whiskey that way, how will I be able to drink it ? ' " * Ah ! son Jerry,' siz Father O'Halloran, laughin' till his sides shook again, ' how can ye spake in that manner of the holy waiher, ye baa mimber, you ? ' But, however, he corked up the bottle at wanst, and giv it to Jerry, recommend- .b6 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE i'EE'3. in' him to say half a duzen aves^ and a duzen credes, before he made the thrial. " Well an' good, — the moon rose, an' jist wlien she was in the hoith of her beauty, an the flowers and birds in the depth of their slum- ber, Jerry Maguire made his appearance in this very field, jist outside the fairy ring. A turnip- field it was in those days, though it 's spring whate now. He did not seem to have an inch of fearful flesh left about him, and stood strikin' the ground with his alpeen, and callin' on the good people to appear for full five minutes be- fore he saw any thing of them. At last he heard a low, gruffish voice behind him, growlin out, " ' What 's your business here, Jerry Maguire ? ' " ' The dancin', the dancin',' said Jerry, cut- tin' a caper, an' flourishin' his alpeen, to show his bravery ; ' sure, you know my business well enough yerself.' " * Must we thry, — must we thry, — must, we thry .^' run round an' round him like a voice an' its echoes dyin' ofl* in a faint wailin'. " ' Faith, must you, my darlins,' siz Jerry , ^ I 'm not the bye to be thrifled wid ; so make Uaste, an' begin at wanst.'' "The moon, jist then, glided behind a big THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET, lo cloud, that looked like a heap of snow ; and when she came out again, Jerry saw a dozen o two of purty little crathurs, dressed in all man ner of gay colors, standin' in and about the fairy ring. Jerry had made up his mind not to touch one of them, nor go within the ring : so siz he, widout more ado, " ' The jig and the fling, if you plase, an' I 'II dance my part out here in the turnip-field ; you can keep within that little place if you like, — it 's not big enough for my dancin',' siz he, stretchin' about wid his hands in his pockets, while the fairies were consultin' what to do wid him. There was nothing for it, they found, but to give Jerry his own way, so one of the elves stood up in the ring, and Jerry opposite, in the turnip-field. " Och ! whisleh ! I wish you could have watch- ed Jerry that night. It would have done your heart good to have seen his dancin' ! Now pound- in' the ground with his feet, as if it was pavin' he was ; now jiggin' on his toes, as light as the fairy itself; now rootin' wid his heels, till you'd think he 'd come back on his scull. Every now and then, mash would go a great turnip, and splash would come the juice into his face ; but what cared he ? He 'd the whiskey and the holy 158 THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEET. wather in bis pocket, an' by an' by he pulled it out, and widout stoppin' took a good sup, while he was balancin' on one foot. Then away he went again, fresher than ever. Sorry were the fairies when they saw this, for they 'd great hopes he was goen' to give in. But he 'd no thought of such a thing ; and now, gettin' into the sperrit of the fun, an' enjoying the long faces of his enemies, he laughed and sprang louder and higher than ever. It was in vain the fairies tried to thrip him up, or throw him down. One of the little crathurs crept about him, thrying to catch hould of his ancle ; but Jerry was always aware of them, and whisked away in a moment of time ; and so they went on, for three or four hours. " The moon was beginnin' to set, an' the fairies had not half an hour to call their own. Jerry took another dhrink from his bottle, which the fairies seein', got mad ; and one of them, makin' a flying lape, lighted jist on Jerry's arm, an' snatching the bottle out of his hand, was away into the middle of the fairy ring in no time. But they were too sharp for themselves this time. The elf who had the bottle was tryin' to pull the cork out, an' some of the others wore crowdin' round, tryin' to get it from him, THE LEGEND OF THE LARGE FEE'l 151* when, among them, they broke the bottle, and tplash wint the blessed whiskey over the whole of them. Allilu ! they were all gone ! One grate jry of anger an' pain they set up, and then there was nothing to be seen but the settin' moon, the misty fields, the pale light, straikin' the aist, an' Jerry standin', the picture of dismay, wid the broken bottle at his feet. " Moyna Donovan had cried herself to sleep that night, after havin' heard that Walter Doyne'a ancle had swelled worse than ever. She dhram- ed a pleasant dhrame, however. She thought she was in the midst of the fairy court, an' that the queen an' one of her maids were down on their knees, unlacin' the big brogues. Jist as they were drawin' them off, a sweet strain of music wint through the apartmei.., an' Moyna awoke. The light was shinin' full into the windy, and she jumped out of bed, when, — 'Queen of glory ! what 's this ? ' siz she ; an' sure enough there was her own little feet, standin' as while and purty as ever on the flure. " Great was the joy of all the parties consarned, as you may well suppose ; an' the first use Moyna made of her feet, afther they were set at liberty, was to run off* towards Walter Doyne's house. But she had not gone far, when she 160 THE LEGEND OF THE LAKGE FEET. met himself, comin' full of joy, to tell her of the miracle by which his ancle was got well in one night. " It was not long before Father O'Halloran had a job ; an', indeed, two of them. At the same time and place tliat he married Walter and Moyna, he joined Jerry Maguire and Nelly Ma- lone. Plenty of fun there was at the weddins ; dancin' and singen', eatin' and drinken', lashins and lavins. " The fairies were never seen again in the neighbourhood. May be they were 'shamed at bein' bate by a poor Kerry laborer ; may be they were afeard of Father O'Halloran an' the holy wather. Any way, nobody ever saw ihem again. " But ever an' afther, the ring was left wid an unturned sod ; and the neighbours nev^r thought It over an' above lucky to be boastin' or talkin* proud of themselves, lest they should be gifted wid something even worse than the large feet.' ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. BV THE AUTHOR OF THE "THREE EXPERIMENTS," tfcc. In King's Chapel, in Tremont Street, Boston, is a monument to the memory of Frances Shirley, wife of Governor Shirley. There are none of the contemporaries of this lady remaining. We know but little of her except from this monument, and the faint and visionary sketches that become more and more indistinct, as they pass through successive generations. After a panegyric on her virtues, this record follows : " Near this excellent mother, lie the mortal rema'"*! cf hf^v second daughter, Frances Bollen, late u.c v». .fe of William Bollen, Esquire, the Kmg's Advocate in the Vice-Admiralty Court of the Province of Massachusetts, whose virtue and great beauty, prudence, piety, cultivated under- standing, and gentle manners, were the deligh. of all while she lived. " The too brief space of her life was passed ere she had attained her twenty-fourth year, and U 162 ANCIENT REMINlSCEN'CtS. she died on the 12th of March, 1744, deeplj lamented by her husband, parents, and friends.'* It is truly said we live a second time in our children. Of the daughter of this ladv and granddaughter of Governor Shirley, Frances Shirley Bollen, there is much known that is in- teresting. A friend of hers is still living at an advanced age. Her mother died while she was very young", and her father, being appointed agent for Massa- chusetts to the court of St. James, went to Eng- land, and left her to be educated in this country. The property which she was to inherit made it proper to appoint guardians of distinguished re- spectability. These were Judge Trowbridge, Judge Russell, and her uncle, Mr. Temple. With Judge Trowbridge, at Cambridge, she principally resided. Her wealth and beauty at- tracted admirers at an early age ; but it was well understood, that her father was averse to her forming any matrimonial connexion in America, and that he looked forward to her making a splendid alliance in England. The early part of her life was passed m inno- cent gayety, unclouded by thought of the future. She formed those associations with friends of her rwn sex, to which the youthful mind so naturall-^ ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. 163 turns, and felt as if her world of happiness existed on this side of the Atlantic. At the age of eighteen, she received a summons from her father to come to him; and, with deep sensibility, she parted from Mrs. Trowbridge, who had sup plied to her the place of her own mother. There was no mother to welcome her to the strange land to which she was going ; of her father she had but a slight remembrance ; and, if friends were in store, they must be new ones. She made a thousand promises to write constantly ; and said^ " that to lay open her whole heart " to those she left behind " would be her greatest solace.*' Soon after her arrival in England, letters came; but they were not the transcripts of her warm and affectionate heart ; it was evident to her friends, that they were written in a depressed and con- strained manner. At length, all correspondence ceased, and they heard of her only by report. It was soon understood, that her father did not wish her to continue her intercourse with her Ameri- can friends, and was continually haunted by fears that she might defeat his ambitious projects by forming some alliance beneath her. This led him to keep a constant guard upon her move- ments, and to prohibit her from general society. One solace, however, he allowed her, and that 1 64 ANCIF.iNT Kr^^:INIfCE^'CES was, the privilege oi* passing a few days ocoa sionally with Mrs. Western, a female friend, of great respectability and influence. This lady be- came fondly attached to Frances, who acquired, from her elegant and cultivated manners, a polish that she could not have gained in her father's family. Mrs. Western resided a few mifes from the city, and it was happiness to her young friend to quit its noise and dust and enjoy those scenes in the country, that reminded her of her early walks in Cambridge, and the winditig course of Charles river. Mrs. Western had sons, but they were absent from home, and the father's appre- hensions, with regard to them, seem not to have been awakened. One of them returned home on a visit to his mother, while Frances was stay- ing with her. Mrs. Western immediately made arrangements to restore the young lady to her father's residence the next day, knowing his extreme anxiety on the subject. The breakfast hour, with her, was one of cheerful meeting. She took her seat as usual at the table, and, after waiting some time in vain for the appearance of her guest, sent a summons to her room. The messenger returned with the intelligence, that she was not there, and that iho ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. 165 room did not appear to have been occupied dur ing the night. She sent to her son's room ; the young student was not to be found, and the truth flashed upon her mind, — they had eloped to- getlier ! Nothing remained but to send a de- spatch to the father, acquainting him with her suspicions. He lost no time in repairing to her mansion, and loaded her with reproaches. His accusa- tions were violent and unfounded, and he more than hinted, that she was accessory to the elope- ment. Mrs. Western preserved a calm and dig- nified deportment, and replied, " that the meas- ure was as unpleasant to herself as to him ; that her son had not yet finished his education, and a matrimonial connexion might prove a blight to his future prospects and exertions." She also observed, " that he was not of age, and could not, for some time, come into possession of his own property. That, as now the thing was irre- mediable, they had better submit to it with mag- nanimity." Necessity is a never-failing counsellor. The father contented himself with solemnly protesting ho never would forgive, or see, his daughter, Mrs. Western, on the contrary, received the young couple with gentleness when thev return IC€ ANCIENT REMINIfiCENSES. ed, which they did after a few days' absence, and endeavoured, by maternal counsel, to obviate the evils of this rash and disobedient step. Years passed on, and they had several chil- dren. Though the father still adhered to his determination of not forgiving his daughter, in the tenderness of her husband and his mother, and surrounded by blooming and healthy chil- dren, her life was tranquil and happy. Some months after the birth of the youngest child, Mr. and Mrs. Western set out on a jour- ney, taking the infant with them. At an inn, where they stopped, Mr. Western got out of the phaeton. At that moment the horses, which were usually perfectly gentle, took fright, and ran with his wife and child, notwithstanding all his own and his servant's attempts to stop them. The mother's first thought was for her infant, and seizing an opportunity when the speed of the horses was a little checked, by a hill, she threw it upon a hedge of foliage. A mother's ears are quick, she distinguished the cry of the child ; it was not one of distress, and she felt new courage, and, springing herself from the carriage with but slight injury, was able to hasten imme- diately back to recover the child. She found it safe and unhurt, and it recognised its agitated A N C I E N T REMINISCENCES. 107 niothei with the joyous welcome of infant a flec- tion. With a heart filled with gratitude for thei; preservation, she walked on to meet her hus- band, knowing he must be enduring dreadful anxiety. The first persoft she met was her own servant ' We are safe and uninjured," she exclaimed " hasten back and tell your master." He neither moved nor spoke, and as she looked m his face she perceived signs of deep distress. " What has happened ? what have you to tell ?" she exclaimed. He was unable to evade her eager inquiries, and the information he gave was abrupt and overwhelming. Mr. Western, in en- deavouring to stop the horses, as they rushed furiously forward, received a violent blow on his breast, from the pole of the carriage, and fell dead on the spot. His wretched wife fainted at the intelligence, and so dreadful was the shock, that for many months her reason was par- tially estranged. Her father could not resist this accumulation of distress. He went immediately to see her, and continued the intercourse, sooth- ing her grief by parental tenderness. After these melancholy events took place, she resided wholly in the country, devoting herself to the education of her children. She died mam 168 ANCIENT KEMINISCENSES. years since ; and only one of her American friends still survives her. We hope this little narrative is sufficiently interesting to make one of her early letters ac- ccptab.e. It was addressed to the friend just alluded to, after returning from a visit she had been making her. The contrast it forms be- tween the thoughtless gaycty of a girl, and the heart-rending events of after life, is very striking. The local allusions it contains to people who existed before the Revolution, as well as the mode of travelling it describes, making a journey from Newburyport to Boston occupy nearly a day and a half, have something of a picturesque effect in contrast with the present times, and modes of travelling by railroads and steam. " Cambridge, 1762 " Dear Sibby, " Last evening I heard of an opportunity to send to you, and I cannot omit writing ; but must give you a short account of my journey back, which was not very agreeable, on account of the roads. You cannot imagine how bad the travelling was, — we could only walk the horse for several miles, and just as we got to Parker's river, one of the wheels of the chaise came off ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. 169 It took some time to get it on again, and by the time we entered Rowley woods I was heartily tired. They looked dark and dismal, and I thought of nothing but robbers, and determined if we were attacked, to surrender even my N. P ear-rings to save my life. Well, all at once I saw a man on horseback, coming towards us. I began to tremble, but who do you think it proved ? why, Mr. Jonathan Jackson ! of all per- sons in the world, the least like a robber ! We had a little pleasant conversation, and then pro- ceeded, — but did not get to Beverly till quite dark. The next morning we left early, found the roads much better, and arrived at Cambridge about one o'clock. " To-day is Sunday, and we have had a ser- mon upon dress, from Mr. Appleton. Upon my word, I think he made it out very well ; for he told us people should dress according to their rank, and not go beyond their circumstances. He touched a little upon the propriety of our being subject to the other sex, and gave is a hint upon silence. I suppose, my dear, yov will think I could not help taking this to myself. I confess it touched me a little, but I shall soon recover from it ; for it is so natural to my tongue to go, that I cannot easily stop its motion. 170 ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. " Here ami, sighing and moaning that we ha 3 not some of this good weather while I was with you at N. P. I liked the place so well that I had quite a curiosity to see how it looked when the sun was out. " I had almost forgot to tell you how much my N. P. ear-rings were admired. I thought of them during the sermon, and ventured to wear them again in the afternoon. How I want to take a serious walk with your ladyship through those long rope-walks, -^ a walk ? no, I think the weather is cool enough for a run. I don't believe you have had any knots tied in your handkerchief since I came away. Only think of my forgetting to deliver a message from Mr. M. while I was at N. P. I am positively afraid tc walk out lest I should pop upon him, and he should ask me about it. I must beg the favoi of you to do it for me. It was to ask youi father if he received a letter by one Mr. White- field } He is a great preacher, and quite the fashion ; they say he makes people cry and laugh in the same moment ; pray go and heai him. and write me word, which you do mos-l heartily, cry or laugh ^ " The spring is delightful, the trees are coming out m blossoms, and Chailes river really looks ANCIENT REMINISCENCES. 171 majestic. How I wish you were here ! Write soon, and don't forget the message about Mr Whitefield. " l?our sincere friend, " Fbances Shibuey Bollen." STANZAS, TO A LADY. I. Ah, Lady ! could 1 deem my humble lay Worthy the pensive lustre of thine eye ; Could I awake the music of that day When Beauty, as some creature from the sky, Stirred the deep fountains of my heart, and bade Its waters leap, as to some wand divine, — Until I felt its mystery had made New hope, new joy, a new existence, mine ; How would I rush to strike my palsied lyre, And wake to melody, once more, each quivering wire II. But 1 have seen the darkness of our years Shadowing our youth, — that withering eclipse That comes upon the spirit in its tears. When the still prayer of Woe is on the lips, — Has fallen upon me, till I felt no more 'T was mine to tune my harp, or touch its strings No longer to that ecstasy to soar, Where new joy lights the Poet's lifting wmgs ! Ah ! thou canst tell the mystery ! To thee, — But why tell thee the sorrowing tale ? — 't was thine To bend o'er Love's grave, in thy mourning, — e'en as THE HAUNTS OF THE SEA-FOWI* It is " egging time," — the sea-fowl s nest In the cleft of the rock is spen, And she, who sat on the ocean breast, With folded wing in the sunlight sheen, Hath laid her eggs where the rock is high, And the white wave roars as it dashes by. 'T is a wild, wild spot, — in circles wide, From a thousand isles, the sea-birds come, — For they rear their young by the water side, In the very dash of the stormy foam : 'T is there they learn on the wave to^ play, And sport themselves in the sno^y spray. On that nignest cliff is the eagie's nest. Above the wave, but within its roar j And proudly the stern bird eyes the rest In their noise and gambols along the shore. He 's an old, white-headed, lonely bird. And he loudest screams when the storm is heard. He darts from the cliff with a piercing eye. For he marked from afar his destined preyj And he cleaves at once the cloudy sky. And dips his beak in the yielding spray. Or the prize that the fish-hawk screaming bears. The pirate eagle remorseless tears. 174 HAUNTS OF THE SEA FOWL. Ye climb not there, — 't were a daring thing To mount to that eyrie built on high, Where the eagle plumes her dark-gray wing, And soars aloft to the burning sky; For the rock, with bleaching bones is white. And the eagle by, for her young to fight. Ye 're a daring race, — but ye climb not there > The eagle ''s eyrie ye may not reach; To the white gull's nest ye may boldly dare, And seize the eggs 'midst her sad, wild screech. Yes, climb ye in to the rocky cave, Where the sea-fowl's nest is dashed by the wave It is "egging time," — and the rocks are high; But the boys were bred by the ione sea-side ; They are sure of foot, and true of eve. And know where the gull her eggs may hide; And well do tliey love the rocky shore. Where they hear the sound of the ocean roar. i% - TO A WILD VIOLET, IN MARCH BY S. G. GOODRICH. My pretty flower, how cam'st thou here? Around thee all is sad and sere, — The brown leaves tell of winter's breath, And all but thee of doom and death. The naked forest shivering sighs, — On yonder hill the snow-wreath lies, And all is bleak j — then say, sweet flower. How cam'st thou here in such an nour.? No tree unfolds its timid bud, Chill pours the hill-side's lurid flood, The tuneless forest all is dumb; How then, fair violet, didst thou come ^ Spring hath not scattered yet her flowers, But lingers still in southern bowers; No gardener's art hath cherished thee, — For wild and lone thou springest free. Thou springest here to man unknown, Waked into life by God alone ! Sweet flower, thou tellest well thy birth, — Thou cam'st from Heaven, though soiled in earth 176 TO A WILD TIOLET IN MAECH. Thou tell'st of Him whose boundless power, Speaks into birth a world or flower; And dost a God as clearly prove, As all the orbs in Heaven that move. ♦'SHOW US THE FATHER."* BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. Have ye not seen Him, when through parted snows Wakes tlie first kindlings of the vernal green ? When 'neath its modest veil the arbutus blows, And the blue violet bursts its mossy screen ? When the wild rose, that asks no florist's care, Unfoldeth its rich leaves, have ye not seen Him there ? Have ye not seen Him, when the infant's eye, Through its bright sapphire window, shows the mind ? When in the trembling of the tear or sigh Floats forth that essence, trembling and refined? Saw ye not Him, — the Author of our trust. Who breathed the breath of life into a frame of dust ? Have ye not heard Him, when the tunefiil rill Casts oflf its icy chains, and leaps away ? In thunders echoing loud from hill to hill ? Jn song of birds, at break of summer's day ? Or in the Ocean's everlasting roar, Battling the old, gray rocks, that sternly guard hii shore ? * See St. Jonn xiv. 8. 12 179 SHOW us THE FEATHER. When in the stilhiess of the Sabbath morn, The week's dread cares in tranquil slumber rest, When in the heart the holy thought is born, And Heaven's high impulse warms the waiting breast, Have ye not felt Him, when your voiceless prayer Swelled out in tones of praise, announcing God was there ? Show 2is the Father! If ye fail to trace His chariot, when the stars majestic roll, His pencil, 'mid earth's loveliness and grace, His presence, in the sabbath of the soul. How can ye see Him, till the day of dread, When, to assembled worlds, the Book of Doom is read 7^^ THE LYRES OF OLD BY W. Vf. MORLAND. The lyres of olden time, — how silent now! Shattered are all their strings ; — the hands that swept Those chords in glorious days, — when thousands wept O'er strains of woe, or bade their spirits bow- In adoration, while some hymn divine "Was chanted slow ; or, filled with fiery wine. Sang the old festal songs,— then softer flowing. The thrilling voice of youthful lover glowing ; — Or in stern notes the warrior god breathed out To martial men the battle-waking shout ! Those hands are powerless; — mingled with the dust Each bard of those famed days ; — yet, though the rust Of ages cankers every tombstone o'er. Their- names and glory brighten more and more. Though Homer's fingers touch not now the string, Still in our ears his mighty numbers ring ; — And, if the gentle Sappho's tongue is mute, And hushed the music of the Dorian flute, The enraptured poet, while he muses long. And, all entranced, glows o'er the flowing song, — Imagines still he hears the same rich lays, Warbled by voices of those olden days. But 't is not so, — the Teian lyre, unstrung, Has long unused and undelighting hung, — 180 THE LYRES OF OLD. Its potent master gone } — but who can tell ? Some new Anacreon may take again The long-neglected harp, and weave a spell Round human spirits ; — then, not framed in vain. The song shall swell responsive, — all around Shall seem some charmed land, some fairy ground THE GRAVE OF MARQUETTE.* BY THE AUTHOn OF " MIRIAM." MtTRMUR, ye waves of Michigan, low hymns Of requiem round that lone and tombless grav«» ! And let no blasts your rising waters dash With heedless fury o'er the hallowed spot Where, 'mid the sands reposing, lie the bones Of one, whose cradle rocked in sunny Franc© Men have grown old and died, their children's sons Have risen and passed like shadows, since that grav« Was by a few rude hands in silence dug, Close by thy waters blue, old Michigan ! Yet, though thy waves with ceaseless homage come To die in whispers on that hallowed beach. Touching almost the good man's resting-place ; Never, — so runs the tale, — hath billow kissed The sands, that hide his bones from gaze profane. Where oft the pebbles felt the oozing wave, Ever the dry, warm sunshine sleeps serene .: Or, when the tempest sweeps the foaming Izike, The very winds, — whose steeds inan may not bridle, — Touch with no rude, disturbing breath that grave ! What glorious hero sleeps beneath ? What son Of laughing, warlike France e'er wandered hither, * See North American Review for January, 1839. page 68 182 THE GRAVE OF MARQUETTE. All flushed with youth and wild with enterprise, Reckless and light as are the winds themselves ? How died the stranger 'mid these lonely wilds ? Bore he bright, deadly weapons ? Came his death From the bare arm, or from the sounding bow. Raised by the sullen red man 'mid his wrongs .'' Died he in wrath ? died he in blood ? the man Upon whose grave some unseen angel sits Smiling and waving still her snowy wings. While peace and reverence fall in dews around.-' What sought he here ? fame ? glittering wealtli •" s crown ? Hear how the wanderer lived ! hear how he died ! Hearts did he seek through toils and dangers fierce, Hearts for his Saviour's love ; and on, — still on, — fepeaKmg of love and peace he wandered slow ; Up the wild, unknown streams, through the deep forest, And o'er the mighty lake, with weary frame, But with a trusting spirit, on he fared ; And the poor Indian loved the poorer priest. Then came his hour. He bade them turn his prow Where the lone stream came murmuring from the hills, Pouring its simple tribute to the lake ; There, on the untrodden beach, he went apart. And bowed him down to pray. Cold death-damps stood Upon his holy brow ; his failing limbs Trembled beneath the martyr, yet no hand Of mortal strength sustained the clay that thus Its glorious tenant silently gave up ! The blue sky o'er his head, — the flitting birds, — Perchance the wild deer, pausing ere he drank, — THE GRAVE OF MARaUETTE. 18S /I lone beheld the stranger as he knelt. Thought of his distant home, and, while the sound Of murmuring waves stole fainter on his ear, Felt as if Heaven were home, — and, 'mid his prajcrs, Peaceful sank down to find the vision true ! They came, his followers few; with hasty search They found him bowed ; and on his placid Kps Devotion lingering with a holy smile j But the worn frame was cold, the heart was still Serving and praying, their meek friend had died. And in that spot, thus sanctified, they made The Missionary's lone and hallowed grave. Angel of Death ! oh ! could thy summons thus Find each tried soul witli pinion ready plumed^ Struggling to soar before thou break *st the bond, Half lifted to the skies by faith and prayer! MOUNT AUBURN, BY TH£ AUTHOR OF " SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS." On the 27th of June, 1832, the first monument was reared at Mount Auburn, with this inscrip- tion : — "In memory o^ Hannah Adams, the first tenant of Mount Auburn." To those who knew her modes of thought, there is something peculiarly congenial in this tribute. There are many who care but little about the dust that has encumbered the immortal spirit. I will not ask, that fragrant flowers Should o'er my lowly grave be shed; I '11 trust to nature's vernal showers To throw a mantle o'er the dead. For what to me is that lone spot.? It boots not where the form is laid ; " D«st unto dust" must be its lot; To earth her tribute must be paid. Take then, O earth, whate'er is thine, And in thy bosom let it sleep ; Thou canst not claim the soul divine. The joyous spirit canst not keep. MOUNJ' AUBURN. 185 Wlien Miss Adams spoke of those who were gone, there seemed to be a feeling that their spirits were hovering round her. A friend, after returning from a tour to the South, was describing the burying-grounds in Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, v>'here " the beautiful exotics, that in our northern climes we cultivate with so much labor, geraniums, myrtles, and jasmines, appear to plant themselves spon- taneously on the graves, and afford a striking contrast, by their freshness and gay colors, to the often decaying monuments v/hich enclose the unconscious dead." " How do you know they are unconscious } " said she, with animation ; " it seems to me, that I should at least dream^ if I were buried in such a spot." Her love of flowers seemed to be a part of her existence. Many were the young, fair hands that decked her humble apartment with these offerings, "Yet spanglea with the morning dew." There was one, who delighted to quit the cir- cles of fashion and sit at her feet ; one who seemed early consecrated to holiness, and in whose delicate frame were, too obviously, the 186 MOUNT AUBURN. symptoms of premature decay. We have seen her, with the sacred book in her hand, gently bending over the aged woman, and reading words of life and comfort ; — words that not only gave peace to the last -moments of her venerable friend, but filled her own with faith and joy. The monument at Mount Auburn will stand as a record of the feeling and sentiment of Miss x\dams's contemporaries. We think it is the first public tribute of the kind, in this coun- try, to female worth and talent. There is some- thing more touching, and more poetical in this removal of her remains to the beautiful spot and classic monument prepared for them, than in all the glare of public homage that crowned the living MorelU in the " Eternal City." In the following account will be recognised the original Corinne of Madame de Stael. "This day, (the 31st of August, 1776,) Maria Maddalena Morelli, called Gorilla Olimpica by the Academy of the Arcades, was crowned in the Capitol. Petrarch and Perfetti were the last Ital- ian poets who obtained this honor, till it was con- ferred in the present day. Corilla Olimpica has long gained the admiration of Italy by her extem- pore verses on any subject proposed. After un- dergoing the necessary literary examinations, pre- MOUNT AUBURN. 187 ceding that ceremony, in the presence of more than twenty ladies of the first distinction, twenty- five foreigners of rank, and three hundred per- S'>ns of known erudition, with the greatest ap- plause, she was this day conducted to the Capitol b} the Countesses Cardelli, Dandini, and Ginnasi. When she entered, she kneeled to the conserva- tors who were sitting under a canopy; and, after the usual Latin forms, the Chevalier Jean Paul de Cinque placed the laurel crown on her head ; after which the Chevalier John Baptist Conci reg- istered the act of her coronation in the public registers, under the discharge of one hundred pieces of cannon. Several members of the Acad- emy of the Arcades read pieces of their own composition, and three questions were proposed to Corilla, who answered in verse, with an elo- quence and vivacity which surprised all who were present." — Annual Register, for 1776. We almost wish that Miss Adams could have possessed the gift of the ancient seers, and beheld her Mount Pisgah. Monuments are for the living. Auburn is fast becoming tne " city of the dead."^ Earth, like a faithful mother, opens her bosom to receive her kindred earth. When we wander to this beautiful spot, we feel holier and better ; but it is because we realize that the spirit, the immortal spirit, is not there. THE DEBUT BY H. T. Tl'CKERMAN. Through the light curtains of the rich boudoif Glimmered the morning, heavily and chill; And the bronze lamp burned dimly, as the dawn. Like an unwelcome presence, gathered slow O'er pictured wall and tessellated floor, While the broad mirror newly caught the tints Of silken drapery and sparkling gems. On a Venetian chair, carved daintily, Hung, in fantastic folds, an Indian shawl; Upon the rose- wood table glittering lay A diamond necklace and an emerald ring, Brooches of rare mosaic, cameos, Bracelets of gold, and coronets of pearl ; While scattered round was many a fair device Of foreign tissue and resplendent hue, To decorate attractions now divine. Upon a couch, regardless of the scene, Reclined its mistress in a snow-white robe Wrapt in those wavy folds which sculptors fling In careless grace around their classic nymphs. 'Mid the light masses of her loosened hair, — A pearl-like star upon a cloud of gold, — Still drooped a half-blown rose, as if in pride It fain would wither o'er the ivory brow, THE DEBUT. 166 Whose rival tint it could no more relieve. The eye, whose liquid love e'er stirred with joy All who could catch its glance of tenderness. Now glistened with a moisture mild and sad; The smile, whose magic gladness all the night Had woke a thousand hearts to rapture new, — The dimples, that like rosy elfs had played Upon the rounded cheek, — all now were gone ; The maiden, with her beauty, was alone, And knew it not, save as the bright-plumed birds Are conscious of their wings, when folded down In the soft lassitude of summer sleep. "And this is all"! she murmured pensively, — " The throng was brilliant, and the music sent A thrilling sweetness through my very heart, — Ay, and tiie dance went merrily, and oft I looked on those fair faces, and was glad In the exciting hum of mutual joy. Yet how this long anticipated night Has marred my ardent hopes ! how tame the bliss £t brought and leaves, compared with that delight Which, in my fancy's view, so long hath shone 5 Mary, whom like a sister I have loved. For the first time looked coldly on my face, When rose the admiring murmur as I danced ; And he, — my own, my cherished one, — whose hand Will lead me to the altar, gazed he not With a strange jealousy, as I replied To the unwelcome praises of the crowd, — Forgetting our long love, our perfect faith, Our fond communion and affinity .'' 190 THE tEr^T. Have I not heard, that in the world's domain, Friends are dissevered, warm hearts frosted o'er With prideful hope and selfish vanity ? Ah ! happier were the hours that book and lute And friendly converse and confiding love Have borne away on soft, unruffled wings, In the ethereal atmosphere of home, Or 'mid sweet nature's balmy solitude. What is my triumph, though its circle spread Through Fashion's temple, if the dearest nooks Where Love and Friendship dwell are shadowed o'st, And my own spirit's garden is defiled With passion's gusts and envy's sickly weeds ? If the broad sunshine parches thus the spring Of our most blessed affections, shade be mine ! Yes, Father ! let the flowers, which thou hast sown, Hold meekly up in their bright chalices, Throughout my pilgrimage, the sacred dews Which thou didst shed from heaven upon tlieir buds, Till by thy hand paternal they are gleaned. To wave as odorous cr isers in thy courts. And, in eternal beauty, blossom there." . , THE CONFESSION. •* Come let us wander, dearest, through wood and shidj glen. And thou wilt speak those winning words of yesternight again ; The purple clouds with crimson edge a glorious eve foretell, The path winds near the clustering elms, to yonder flowery dell ; A grave Confessor will 1 prove, and shrive each wily art Which my romantic spirit won, and cTiained my haughty heart. " I know the wise ones counsel a maiden to deceive, And in thp labyrinth of doubt each faithful suitor leave; They warn the simple, girlish heart, its nature to conceal, And lights and shades of passion pure forbid her to reveal ; But thy unfaltering truth will scorn such mean and shallow art, Nor fear to let thy lover scan thy guileless, sunny heart" ''And must 1 tell thee, dearest, that I trembled, when thy name Was uttered in our household, in honor, or In blame; 193 THE CONFESSION. And when thy manliness and worth all voices echoed loud, I coined some trifling error, my secret to enshroud ; Some dust upon the blossom, on the peerless gem a stain, A cloud in the cerulean, a shadow on the main. " And must I own, Confessor, that in the gayest dance, I fearfully and stealthily watched each betraying glance, Which you lavished on the graceful, the witty, and the fair, While in my soul was struggling the'^Demon of despair ; But, though my heart was breaking, more brightly flashed mine eye, And proudest rival might not then divine my jealousy. *' Though gallant youths full many might throng the state 1}?^ hall, One noble form m^ partial eye could see amidst them all; Though suitors clustered round me, and worshipped at my shrine, A cold, abstracted notice, and changeless cheek were mine ; A mist, a cloud, o'ershadowed the view of all save thee,— O, if the wise ones listened, what would they think of '* A dull, diill weight was at my heart, how sad the eve flew by, If vainly, midst the motley crew, I sought thy speaking eye; THE CONFESSION 193 Fut mine the merry, merry heart, and thrill of maiden glee, If haply, m a far-off group, 1 caught one glimpse of thee; Did I mark thy hastening footstep, O how I strove to hide The telltale blushes on my cheek, fretting my maiden pride . " I dare not own, Confessor, though I remember well. When, from a distant city, arrived a brilliant belle, Her manners so bewitching, so exquisite her brow. Her eyes, the winning hazle hue, 1 think I see them now ; How much I feared those eyes would come between my love and me ! I felt that she was passing fair, and almost worthy thee ! " And when the damsels thronged around, imploring you to say, ,■ Which style of manner pleased you best, the gentle or the gay, I stood in breathless eagerness, I dared not raise mine eye, As, with intensest interest, I watched for thy reply. Careless and cold thy answer came, and banished all ray fear, — Ind'^ed, my love, such idle tales the wise ones should not hear. " I may not own. Confessor, how oft I strolled alone, And mused upon thy flattering speech, and most persua- sive tone. And marvelled that thou didst not say the words I wished yet feared. Full many a castle, fair and grand, my frolic fancy reared , 13 1 94 THE CONFL-fcSlON. And spite of bitter, rankling words, good-natured fri(;ndi might say, My trusting heart for ever found some cause for tliy delay. " And yet full oft would I resolve, that never, never more One thought of thee should haunt my mind, and conned it o'er and o'er. A hopeless task indeed it was, such mandate to obey, I would not counsel maidens such trial to essay. But, when thy deep devotion no longer was concealed, And jealous doubts and earnest hoj)es thy changeless heart revealed ; " The depth of joy which thrilled my soul, forbade my lips to speak, But could a lover's searching glance distrust my mantling cheek ? I hoped my life might prove for thee one long self- sacrifice. And prayed that I thy fondest dreams might ever realize ; And now are told, Confessor, my whims and follies all, And censure from the wise, I fear, most powerless will fall." K. A. TYRE BY R. C. WATERSTON. " It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea ; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord Goo. I wil cause the noise of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy narps shall be no more heard." — Ezekiel xxvi. 5, 13. Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, On Chebar's banks the holy prophet stood ; He was a man of God, and his great soul Pondered the fate of nations. Now his eye Pierced the dim Future, and before him shone, Far down the coursK? of time, things yet to be. * * * * * Silence was resting on the minareta Of the imperial city. The clear ray Of the up-risen sun was silvering o'er The gilded turrets of her thousand domes, And snow-white marble of her palaces ; But, to the Prophet's eye, her walls were rent, And her proud temples shattered ; e'en the soil, Where lay her deep foundations, now was spread Bare as the naked rock ; then rose the Seer, And, to the gathered multitude around. Poured forth prophetic warning. 196 TYRE. *' Thy marble palaces arise In dreamlike beauty to the skies ; Thy pillared temples, reared of old. Gleam in the light, like burnished gold j But soon the world shall read thy doom, And thy proud city stand in gloom! " Tliy battlements, with frown sublime Seem to defy the power of time ; But soon their iron strength shall rust, And all their bulwarks fall in dust; "While the wild waves shall round thee roai, And nets be spread upon thy shore ! ** Helmet and lance, and mace and spear, On all thy massy walls appear; Thy gates are thronged with warriors brave ; A thousand banners o'er thee wave ; But all shall sink beneath God's ire, As flax before consuming fire ! '' Thy merchants come o'er ever}'' sea, Laden with gold and ivory ; Embroidered sails they each unfurl, And plough the seas with freights of pearl ; But soon their treasures will have passed, Like leaves before the howling blast; " A shout of joy rings through thy skies, As from the bowers of Paradise ; Now warbling echoes float along, With silver flute and choral song; TYRE. 197 But soon shall cease each joyous sound, And Desolation reign around ! ** Thus speaks to thee the living God, * Thy feet the ways of death have trod , Glorious without, but foul within, Thy children eat the bread of sin ; Thus Ruin o'er their guilty path Shall pour the vials of her wrath ! "* The Prophet paused, and in his mantle folds Mournfully bowed his head. Ages went by; — Then rang the shout of war, the tramp of steeds Burst through the valleys. Chariots of brass Rushed madly on, with horsemen clad in steel; Before their shock the brazen gates gave way, Temples and city walls shook with the crash. Sharp arrows fell like hail, swords devoured flesh, While battle-axe and spear were drunk with blood j Crackling in flames sank tower and citadel. While, wildly streaming 'mid the fearful blaze, Waved Death's black banner! Centuries have flown And now the lonely fisher spreads his nets On these deserted shores. Here the sea-bird Builds her rude nest, and through the sultry day, With her shrill scream, startles the solitude. A NOVEMBER LANDSCAPE BY MRS. WHITMAN. How like a rich and gorgeous picture, hung In memory's storied hall, seems that fair scene. O'er which long years their mellowing tints have flung ! The way-side flowers had faded one by one, Hoar were the hills, the meadows drear and dun. When homeward wending 'neath the dusky screen Of the autumnal woods at close of day. As o'er a pine-clad height my pathway lay, Lo ! at a sudden turn the vale below Lay far outspread, all flushed with purple light ; Grey rocks and timbered woods gave back the glow Of changing hues, fast fading into night ; Through the rich gloom the bright Moshassuck rolled His rubied wave, braided with living gold ; While one fair, lonely star lay like a bride In trembling beauty on the burning tide. THE WIDOW'S HOPE. BY H. F. GOULD. Sleep on, my babe, and in thy dream Thy father's face behold, That love again may warmly beam From eyes now dark and cold. His wonted fond embrace to give, To smile as once he smiled, Again let all the father live, To bless his orphan child. Thy mother sits these heavy hours To measure off with sighs ; And over life's quick-withered floweni To droop with streaming eyes. For ah ! our waking dreams, how fast Their dearest visions fade, Or flee, and leave their glory cast For ever into shade ' And still, the doating, stricken heart, In every bleeding string That grief has snapped or worn apart, Finds yet wherewith to cling ; And yet whereon its hold to take With stronger, double grasp. Because of joys it held to break, Or melt within its clasp. 200 THE wirovv's itcfk. A blast has proved, that in the sand I based my fair, high tower! Pale Death has laid his rending hand On my new Eden bower ' And now, my tender orphan boy, Sweet bud of hope, 1 see My spice of life, my future joy, My all, wrapped up in thee. 1 fear to murmur in the ear Of Him who willed the blow, And sent the King of Terrors here To lay thy father low. I ask his aid my griefs to bear, To say, "Thy will be done,'' — That Heaven will still in pity 8pai« The wioow's only son. SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. BY MISS SEDGWICK. " Grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair." — Measure for Measure. It is a common saying, that no individual profits by another's experience, — there are few, we believe, that profit by their own ; few to whom may not be justly applied that striking say- ing of Coleridge, that " experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which only illuminate the way that is passed." But, of all the scholars I have ever known in this ever-open school of experience, my friend, Mrs. Dunbar, is the most unteachable. With a fair portion of intellect, with a quick observation, and fifty years' acquaint- ance with the world, she is as trustful, as credu- lous, and as hopeful, as, when a child, she believ- ed the rainbow was a rope, of suhstantial,, woven light, with a gulden cup at the end of it ; that there was a real man standing in the moon, and that the sky would, one of these bright days, fall. 202 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. and we should catch larks. Being of a bencvolen and equable temperament, her credulity lias the most happy manifestations. Her faith in her fellow-creatures is implicit, and her confidence in the happuiess of the future unwavering; so that, however dark and heavy the clouds may be at any given moment, she believes they are on the point of breaking away. I have known but a single exception to the general and pleasant current of my friend's life. One anxiety and disappointment crossed her, which even her blessed alchymy could not gild or transmute. Her husband lost all his fortune ; this was not the cross. Mrs. Dunbar said, she saw no reason why they should not take their turn on For- tune's wheel; she did not doubt they should come up again, and, if they did not, why, her own pri- vate fortune was enough to secure them from de- pendence and want. Her husband had none of her philosophy, or, rather, happy temperament; — philosophy gets too much credit. He had an am- bitious spirit, and his ambition had taken a direc- tion very common in our cities ; an aspiration after commercial reputation, and the wealth '»nd magnificence that follow it. Mr. Dunbar nad mounted to the very top rung of the ladder, when, alas, it fell ! and his possessions and hopes were SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 203 prostrated. A fever seized him in the severest hou^ of disappointment, and the moral and phys- ical pressure killed him. But this was not the cross. Mrs. Dunbar loved and honored her hus- band without having any particular sympathy With him. He imparted none of his projects to her, and neither interfered with nor participated her quiet, every-day pursuits and pleasures ; so that no harmonious partnership could be dissolved with less shock to the survivor. Mrs. Dunbar, beside the common-place solaces, on such occa- sions, such as, " We must all die," " Heaven's time is the best time," had a particular and reasonable consolation in being relieved from the sight of unhappiness that she could not remove or mitigate. This was not selfishness, but the necessity of her nature, which resembled {h.i*t^ plants that cannot live unless they have sunshir":, and plenty of it. Mrs. Dunbar had one son, Fletcher, a youth of rare promise, who was just seventeen at his father's death. He most happily combined the character of his parents, — the aspiring, and firm qualities of his father, and the bright spirit of his mother. His education had been most judiciously directed by his father ; and his mother, without an) system or plan whatever had, by the sponta 204 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. neous action of her own character, niosl hap oily moulded his affections. At seventeen, FletcV;er Dunbar seemed to me the perfection of a youth ; with a boyish freshness and playfuhiess, and a manly grace, generosity, and courtesy. Much more attention than is usual in our country had been given to the adornments of education ; but his father, who had all respect to the solid and practical, had taken care that the weightier mat- cers were not sacrificed ; and he had a prompt reward. So capable and worthy of trust was Fletcher at his father's death, that the mercantile house in which he was clerk offered him, on ad- vaiitUi.eous terms, an agency for six years, in France and England. Mrs. Dunbar consented to his departure. But this parting of the widow from her only son, her only child, and such a child, was not the cross. " There was nothing like throwing a young man, who had his fortune to carve, on his own responsibilities," she justly said. " Fletcher would get good, and not evil, wherever he went. She should hear from him by every packet, and six years would soon fly away." And they did and this brings me to the story of that drop, that diffused its bitterness through the cup my friend till now had preserved sweet and sparkl'ng. The six years were gone : six years tney liarl SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 20i been to Fletcher, of health, prosperity, and vir tuo. I need say nothing more for a young man who had been exposed to the temptations of London and Paris. The happy day and evennig of his arrival had passed away. Uncles, aunts, and friends had thronged to welcome him, and gone to their homes, and Mrs. Dunbar was left alone with Fletcher and Ellen Fitzhugh. I have said, that Mrs. Dunbar had but one child ; but, if it be possible for the bonds of adoption to be as strong as those of nature, Mrs. Dunbar loved Ellen as well as if she had been born to her. This instance was enough to prove, that there may be the happiness of a maternal affection without the instincts of nature, or the feeling of property in the object, which more selfish natures than my friend's require. Ellen was the child of a very dear friend of Mrs. Dun- bar, who, from a goodly portion of nine daugh- ters, surrendered this, the fairest and best, to what she then deemed a happier destiny than she could in any other way secure for her. I do not believe Mrs. Dunbar could have to.d which she loved best, Ellen Fitzhugh or her son ; in truth, they were so blended in her mind that they made but one idea. When she saw Ellen, Fletcher was in her imagination ; when she 206 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. thought of Fletcher, Ellen was the present visible type through which her thoughts and affections went out to him. Now he had returned ; they were under the same roof; — Fletcher was three and twenty, with a handsome fortune to begin the world with ; nnd Ellen was just eighteen, with "a countenance, in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food ; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." Never was there a fitter original for this beautiful description of the poet, than Ellen Fitzhugh ; and could there be any thing more natural than Mrs. Dunbar's firm belief, that Fletcher would set right about weaving into an imperishable fabric the golden threads she had been spinning for him ? The first evening had passed away ; the old family domestics had received from Fletcher's hand some gift " far fetched," and enriched with the odor of kind remembrance ; and Mrs. Dunbar and the young people lingered over the decay- ing embers, to talk over the thousand particulars that are omitted in the most minute correspond- SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 207 ence. *' Pray tell me, Fletcher," asked Mrs. Dunbar, " who was that Bessie Elmore you spoke of so frequently in your last letters ? " " Bessie Elmore ! Heaven bless her ! She was the daughter of a lady who was excessively kinc to me the last time I was in London. She bore a striking resemblance to Ellen, so I called her cousin, — a pretty title to shelter a flirta- tion ; — I should inevitably have lost my heart, but for the presumption of asking her to give up her country." « Was she very like Ellen ? " " Excessively ; her laugh, too, always recalled Ellen's. She was a charming little creature ! " Ellen blushed slightly, and Mrs. Dunbar's hap- py countenance smiled all over as she said, " Ellen is very English in her looks." " Yes, aunt, a ' rosy, sturdy little person,' as English Smith used to call me." " Not too sturdy, Ellen," said Fletcher, " and not too little, — just as high as our hearts, moth- er, is she not ? " " She has always just filled mine," replied the delighted mother, who had already jumped to the conclusion that the affair was as good as settled, and the wedding, and the happy years to follow, floated in rich visions before her. She ventured on one question she was anxious to have 208 " SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. settled. " You have no occasion to go abroao! again, Fletcher ? " " None. A happy home, in my own country has long been my ' castle in the air,' and now thank Heaven, I can give it a terrestrial founda' tion." " Ellen is not the person to relish this ' taking for granted,' " thought Mrs. Dunbar ; Fletcher should be more reserved. Fletcher soon turned the current of her ap- prehensions. " Pray," he asked, " what is the reason, Ellen, that you and my mother have so seldom mentioned Matilda Preston in your letters of late ? " " We have seen much less of her than usual the winter past. Matilda cannot ' To a party give up what was meant for mankind,* I suppose you know she has been a ' bright and particular star ' this winter, — a belle ? " " Has she ? I am sorry for it ! " " So is not Matilda. She enjoys her undis- jmted reign. She has, to those she chooses to please, captivating manners, and you know she is talented. The beaux, of a score of years standing, declare there has been nothing like her in their time. She is beset with admirers and lovers. She says she is obliged, when she goes SECOND THOUGHTS BEST 209 to a ball, to keep an ivory tablet under her belt, with a list of her partners. Some wag pasted up on Carroll Place, where the Prestons live, ' Ajjol- lo'^s Court,'' on account of the perpetual serenades there. Poor Rupert Selden told me, he had thrown away a half year's commissions on bou- quets and serenades to her, which, in his own romantic phrase, had* ended in smoke.' She is said to be engaged." " Engaged ! " Fletcher bit his nails for two or three minutes in deep abstraction, and then added, " To whom is she engaged ? " " Pray don't look so distressed, cousin; I only reported it as an on dit, — I forgot your flame for Matilda." " Pshaw, Ellen ! but who is the person ? " " The preeminent person at the present mo- ment is Ned Garston." " Ned Garston ! a monkey, — impossible ! " " Oh, he is much improved by foreign travel, and, if still a monkey, a romantic monkey, a monkey en beau. He has put himself into the hands of some Parisian master of the science of transforming the deformed, and has come forth {he talleau viv ant, co^iedi after a famous picture Df some Troubadour in the Louvre." " What do you mean, Ellen } " 14 8 1 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. " 1 mean, that Ned Garston's very pretty, black hair hangs in hyacinthine curls over the collar of his coat, — that he wears tresses, like a girPs, on each side of his face, and mustachios and whis- kers that would befit a grand Sultan. The girls call him ' the Sublime Porte.' " " And is it possible that Matilda Preston, that gifted, beautiful creature, is going to throw her- self away upon this Jackanapes ? " " How wildly you talk, Fletcher ! " interposed his mother, " you have not seen Matilda Preston since she was a mere child." " But a rare child, my dear mother ; Matilda Preston, at thirteen, was a fit model for sculpture and painting. She moved like a goddess, and her faculties were worthy such a form. Lord bless me, what a sacrifice ! — is it a sacrifice to Mammon, Ellen ? " " Do not insist that the sacrifice is certain," — " I have no doubt it is his fortune," said Mrs. Dunbar, for the first time, I believe, in her life, turning a scale against an absent person that might have been struck in her favor, " that is to Bay, fortune and style. Garston has the most Bhowy equipage in the city, and his family, you know, are all in the first fashion." *' The fashion would have more influence yfith FECOJND THOUGHTS BEST. 211 Matilda than fortune, I suspect. You know, aunt, she refused Stanhope Gilmore, who is very rich and very clever into the bargain." " But you remember, Ellen, she told us her father would never have consented to her marry- ing a loco-focoy " Loco-foco ! what the mischief is that mother ? " " Why the lowest of the people, — an agrarian, you know, — a Tory." " What does my mother mean, Ellen ? I never heard such a confusing combination of terms." " You surely know what we mean by Whigs and Tories ? " " Not I." " Do you never read our newspapers ? " " Very seldom, — never the party papers. An American abroad is ashamed of the petty wran- gling, virulence, and vulgarity of our political papers. We care only foi the honor and pros- perity of the country at large. We Icve our countrymen, by whatever name they are called, and it makes us heart-sick to take up one of our popular journals and see it proclaimed, that ' a crisis is at hand ! ' — that ' the country is on the brmk of ruin ! ' that ' the constitution is in jeop- ardy ! ' and can only be saved by a doubtful ma- 212 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. jority, rallying with all their strength against q corrupt faction^ about to prostrate the liberties of the country ! The only way to keep your temper is never to look into a newspaper. But, pray, can you tell me what are these loco-foco Tories } " Poor Mrs. Dunbar never disturbed the serene heaven of her mind with politics. She received a very vague impression from the persons she associated with, and in accordance with this im- pression, she now replied, " I don't know pre- cisely, — I remember my father talking about the Tories in Revolutionary days being the enemies of their country, and I suppose it is just the same now." Mrs. Dunbar answered in good faith. The changes of the last sixty years, the new forma- tions, and the remodellings ; the old parties with new names, and the new parties with old names, still existed in her mind as the ideas had origin- ally entered it, as banded Whigs and Tories. Fletcher laughed at her reply and said, " I see, my dear mother, you are just where I left you. The loco-focos, I take it for granted, Ellen, are the administration party." « Yes." "And Stanhope Gilmore, sprung from the most iiristocratic family in the State, is a loco-foco -? SECOND THOUGHTS iJEST. 213 and Matilda Preston's father, of a purely aemo- cratic origin, belongs to the aristocratic party ? " " Just so." " Well, thank Heaven, our party associations may make a great uproar, but they can never have the element of danger while they are so unstable and accidental ! " A ring at the door, and the entrance of a note " To Miss Fitzhugh," cut the thread of Fletcher's generalizations. He cast his eye on the note, and exclaimed, " That I am sure is from Matilda Preston, though I have not seen her writing for six years. If there is nothing private in it, will you allow me to look at it, Ellen ? " " Certainly, there is nothing private, only such a strange proposition ! " " Read it aloud, please, Fletcher," said Mrs. Dunbar ; and Fletcher read as follows : " Dearest Ellen, " You are engaged to go to Mrs. Reeves's cos* tume-baJ to morrow evening. Some tiresome people have been persuading me to appear as Rebecca. Now I am well aware, that, in the article of beauty, I am not fitted to impersonate the lovely Jewess, but I am half inclined to try it, because I can so well arrange a dress for the S 1 4 SELoNb rnnuGHTs best. character. Mamma has a remnant of a las\ century's dress, a bright yellow India silk, em- broidered with silver, that, with my ostrich feath- er and agrafe^ will do admirably for the turban I do not quite comprehend Rebecca's simarre but I think the boddice of my brocade will do a? a substitute. " My note was interrupted by a visit from Mad- ame Salasuar. She offers me her diamonds, — a has pride, I '11 wear them. They are es- sential to give the Eastern character of magnifi- cence. Then, you know my ' sable tresses,' my ' aquiline nose,' my ' dark complexion,' and my * Oriental eyes,' as De Ville will call them, will all work in as accessories, to give a vraisem- hlance to the tableau vivant. " Now, my sweetest Ellen, T cann.>t appear as the Jewess, unless you will accompany me as the Lady Rowena. Pray, — pray do not refuse me, why should you ? " Perhaps you think ' Vohscurite convient aux femmes'* ; — my dear, it will come soon enough when there are kitchens and nurseries for us to supervise, — let us buzz a little while in the sun- shine first. " Do you know a possible Ivanhoe among the Invited ? I do not. My acquaintances are ail SECOND THOUGHTS BEST 215 party-going, unknightly gentry enough. Garston proposes to appear as Brian de Bois-Guiibert ! ! ! The perverse winds and waves ! if they had but sent us Fletcher Dunbar ! " (Here the reader blushed, smiled, and hesitated. " Read on, my son," said his mother, impatiently, and on he stammered.) " A Palmer's dress, in which yoii know Ivanhoe first appears, would have been just the thing for Fletcher's advent from foreign land, though the uprooted oak, the device of his shield at the tourney, and the motto, Desdichado, (Disinherited,) would have ill fitted dear Mrs. Dunbar's heir-apparent. It is so intolerably pro- voking that he has not arrived, when he is prob- ably within two days' sail of us. He is so clever and with such a born-hero look ! Perhaps, after all, he might be cross and refuse ; so let us be philosophers, and do as well as we can without him. You, dearest Ellen, will not refuse me ? You will be the ' Queen of Love and Beauty ' ; I only the poor Jewess, who, you remember, the Prior of Jorvaulx swore was far inferior to the lovely Saxon Rowena." " Is Matilda Preston out of her head ? " ex- claimed Mrs. Dunbar. " A fitting character for you, truly, Ellen, that pompous, cold, disagreea- 216 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. ble, insipid Rowena. Don't think of it, my dear child." " I shall not think of it for other reasons, aunt. I cannot conceive of any thing more absurd than for me to personate a beauty, — a tall beauty, too ' born ' to the exercise of habitual superior- ity, and the reception of general homage.' " " I see no objection in that, my dear child. There are not half a dozen readers of Ivanhoe, who remember whether Rowena was tall or short ; and as to beauty that is, as to what is really engaging and captivating, I am sure " " Pray, dear aunt," " The servant is waiting for an answer," said Mrs. Dunbar's maid. " He shall have it instantly," replied Ellen, taking up her pen. " Stop one moment, my dear cousin," said Fletcher, laying his hand on hers ; " if it is not too disagreeable to you, say Yes. I should par- ticularly like surprising Matilda, and joining you at this ball in the way she proposes. I do not see, that, in merely dressing in costume for Row- ena, and calling yourself by that name, you arro- gate to yourself beauty, and queenship, and all that. Where you make one of a group, the re semblance is a matter of inferior consequence. • • • • • •• • > • SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 217 Matilda's Jewess will be so striking, that she will sliclter all our imperfections." Ellen still hesitated, and looked perplexed, and Fletchpir added, " I see it annoys you, — it is a sacrifice of your prepossessions, — write the note OS you at first intended." The word sacrifice seemed to Ellen to set her reluctance in a ridiculous light, and she felt ashamed of having hesitated, at this moment of Fletcher's return, to accede to a request that in- volved pleasure to him. " I will write it as 1 should have intended, if I had not been more thoughtful of myself than of others' pleasure. You must make up your mind, aunt, to my doing the Lady Rowena too much honor ! Shall I tell Matilda I can find an Ivanhoe, and that we will meet her at Mrs. Reeves's at ten ? " " Thank you, Ellen, — yes, — but pray don't give a hint of my arrival ; let us see, what was the Palmer's dress, — do you remember, moth- er .? " Mrs. Dunbar did not ; but, believing and hoping in her heart it would be something so unsuitable as to induce Fletcher to abandon the project, she eagerly sought the first volume of Ivanhoe on the r)ook-shelf, and gave it to him. Fletcher opened at the entrance of the Palmer into Roth- 218 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. erwood. *"A mantle of coarse, black serge,'" he read aloud, " admirable ! that is easily got up, and can be easily thrown aside. ' Coarse sandals bounc? with thongs on his bare feet.' By ycjr leave Sir Palmer, I shall not meddle with those. ' A broad and shadowy hat, with cockle-shells stitched on its brim.' Excellent ! ' A long staff shod with iron, to the upper end of which was attached a branch of palm.' As we are not to tramp to Holy Land, we will omit the shoeing. The branch of palm is the grand point. That can be got from my old friend Thorburn." "And what is Ellen's dress to be.?" asked Mrs. Dunbar, — "I hope that will not be forgotten." " My dear mother, forgive me, — Ellen was busy with her note, — finished and sent is it ! — ■ you always execute while others are planning, Ellen. Ah, here is the description ; ' Hair be- twixt brown and flaxen,' — yours has a touch of the auburn, — the Saxon red." " Red ! " interposed Mrs. Dunbar, " Ellen's hair red ! it has a true golden tinge." " Red gold, mother." " At any rate, Fletcher, it is not red, flaxen, or brown ; I might have remembered Rowena's hair was flaxen, — every thing about her was unmean- ing." SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 219 " * Her hair,' " proceeded Fletcher, " ' was braided with gems.' " " Le Fleur will manage all that," said Mrs. Dunbar, " with my set of pearl." She began to feel a little womanly interest in the getting jji of the dress. "'A golden chain,' " proceeded Fletcher, " ' to which was attached a small reliquary of the same metal, hung round her neck.' That, my dear cousin, you must allow me to manage, that is, if a cross will do m place of a reliquary, and, as they are both symbols of the same religion, I do not see why it will not." He unlocked a very beautiful dressing-case, which he now told Ellen he had brought for her, and took from it a rich gold chain, with an exquisitely wrought cross attached to it. " I brought this propheti- cally," he said, clasping it round Ellen's neck. " Would the chain, and not the cross, had been prophetic ! " thought Mrs. Dunbar, and she heaved a deep sigh. " The memory of affection is always prophetic, Fletcher," said Ellen ; " it links the memorj^ of past to future kindness." " What, my dear ? " asked Mrs. Dunbai ; " 1 don't clearly understand you." The chain and the cross were too suggestive 220 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. to Ellen's mind lo admit of any very clear ex* planation. Fletcher's quick eye perceived hei embarrassment, and, imputing it to the awkward- ness that very commonly attends receiving a gift, ae went on with the book. " ' Her dress was an under gown and kirtle of pale green silk.' " " Your new gown is the very thing, Ellen," interrupted Mrs. Dunbar; " how fortunate! green^ your own color." " Ellen's color the emblem of desertion ! mother .? " " No, no indeed, Fletcher ; no one who has ever loved Ellen could forsake her." Fletcher, all unconscious of the feeling that was bubbling up from his mother's heart, coolly pro- ceeded in his trying process. " Here is a stum- blin^T -block ! ' The Lady Rowena wore a long, loose crimson robe, manufactured of the finest wool, which reached to the ground.' " " A stumbling-block .? by no means, Fletcher ; Amande can convert my India shawl into such a robe without the least injury to it, and I '11 an- swer for it the Lady Rowena's mantle wels dowlas to that. Is there any thing else .? " " ' A veil of silk interwoven with gvjld.' " " My Brussels lace will be just the thing , it is magnificent, and will shelter without conceal* .ng." SECOND THOUGHTS BESl. 221 At another time Ellen's right joyous spirit would have found merriment enough in the pro- ject of arraying her little, unobtrusive person in a crimson robe, flowing to the ground, and at the simplicity of good Mrs. Dunbar, in supposing she could carry off any thing " magnificent " She had another kind of veil to wear, for the first time in her life, to conceal her feelings, and to assume cheerfulness she did not feel. Mrs. Dunbar retired for the night. Ellen, after despatching some trifling home afiairs, was following her, when Fletcher, who had been leaning abstractedly on his elbow, said, "Ellen do not go ; I have something to say to you." Ellen turned with a beating and foreboding heart. " Tell me, Ellen, honestly, is it your belief that Matilda Preston is engaged to Garston.^" " I do not believe she is." " Why are you in such haste } sit down, — there, thank you ; but do not look as if I had murder to confess, — I have only to tell you the weakness and the strength of my heart. You know, my dear Ellen, — cousin, — sister, I should rather call you, for, without any tie of blood, no •jister was ever dearer, there is no one but you ^o whom I can communicate my feelings, pro- jects ind hopes, — from whom I can take coun- 222 SECOND TIIOrCHTS BEST. sel. To begin, then, when 1 left America you and Matilda Preston were very intimate. I do not find you so much so now ; what is the cause of this aUenation .?" " There is no ahenation, Fletcher ; we are iaiti- mate still." " Affectionately intimate .'' " " Matilda is very kind, — very affectionate tc me." " And you not so to her ? I am sure you never repelled affection with coldness. There must be some reason for this. My mother, too, seems to have a prejudice against Matilda; pray be frank with me, Ellen." Frankness was Ellen's nature. She was one of the few beings in this world, who are thor- oughly and habitually, by nature and by grace, true. For the first time a cloud had passed over her clear spirit. She began to speak, faltered, began again, and finally said ; " It may be more mine than Matilda's fault, that we are less inti- mate than formerly. Our circumstances, our tastes are different. I think Matilda is much what she was when you left us, — that is, — that is, allowing for the difference between a 3chool-girl and a belle, Fletcher." " A belle ! — how I hate the term. But how SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 222 could it be otherwise in a city atmosphere, with Matilda's beauty, talents, and accomplishments ? I see she is not quite to your taste, Ellen ; I am sorry for it, but this is better than I feared. Now for my confession, in brief. When I left you, 1 was a reserved boy. Neither you, nor my moth- er, probably, ever suspected my predilection, but for two years I had been desperately in love with Matilda Preston. I believed 'she loved me. We exchanged many a love-^.oken, many a promise. It is true she was a mere child, I a mere boy ; but there are such childish loves on record, El- len. The germ of the fruit is in the unfolding bud. It may, after all, have been, on her part, a little innocent foolery, forgotten long ago ; but, if so, I was coxcomb enough to take it all in dead earnest. Through my six years of absence I have cherished, lived upon, these remem- brances. All my projects, all my successes have blended with the thought of Matilda ; and, blessed by Heaven in my enterprises, I have now come home determined to throw myself at her feet, if I find her what memory and a lover's faith have painted her." Fletcher fixed his eye on Ellen. Hers fell. " Will you not, — can you not, El- en, give me a ' God speed ' ? " The flush on Ellen's cheek faded to a deadly 224 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. paleness. After a moment's hesitation, she sum- moned her resolution ; and, raising her eye to meet Fletcher's, replied, with a tolerably steady- voice, " Do not ask a ' God speed ' of me now, Fletcher ; — wait till you have seen Matilda, and studied her character, as you ought to study that on which the happiness of your life is to depend ; and then, if your ripened judgment confirms your youthful preference, you shall have my " — " God speed," she would have said, but her honest tongue refused to utter the word to which her heart did not answer, and adding, " my earnest wishes, — my prayers," she burst into irrepressi- ble tears, and, horror-struck at what she feared was a betrayal of her true feelings she fled, with- out even a " good night," to her own apartment. The truth did once flash across Fletcher's mind. " It is a phenomenon to see Ellen in tears, save at some touching tale or known grief," he thought; " Ellen, with her ever bright, buoyant spirit, — her ' obedient passions, will resigned.' Has my dear, imprudent mother, with her equal fondness for us both, been kindling a spark of tenderness in Ellen's heart ? " The thought was no sooner conceived than rejected. There was no latent vanity in Fletcher's mind to please itself with cherishing it. It was happily improbable, SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 225 and it soon gave place lo thick-coming and most pleasant fancies. But one cloud hovered ove. them, — Mrs. Dunbar's and Ellen's too evident distrust of Matilda. " I will ' study her charac* ter,' and abide by the decision of my ' ripened judgment,' " resolved Fletcher. Alas for the judgment of a young man of three and twenty as to a talented beauty of nineteen, with the des- perate make-weight against it of a long-cherished love ! When love takes possession of a mind perfect- ly sane in other respects, it acts like a monoma- nia. This one idea has an independent existence; a complete ascendency, and absolute rule. The faculties of perception, comparison, judgment, have no power to modify, — the will no control over it. An angel, surely, should keep "Strict charge and watch, that No evil thing approach or enter in " the paradise of the affections. • The trials of the evening were not over for Ellen. It was her invariable custom to undress in Mrs. Dunbar's apartment, and to have a little gossip over the interests of the closing day, and the anticipations of the leaf of life next to be turn- ed, before they parted for the night. This is the 15 226 SECOND THCtUHTS EEST. hour, that, of all others, unlocks the treasures of the heart. Memory pours out her hoarded stores, and young hope shows, by her magic lanteni, her visions of the future. Ellen had often sat with her loving friend over the dying embers, reading and re-reading the pas- sages in Fletcher's letters, where he dwelt on the fond remembrances of home. Ev^ery mention of Ellen, and the letters abounded with them, his mother repeated and repeated, and always with an emphasis and smile, that sometimes made Ellen's blood tingle to her fingers' ends. And yet, sim- ple as a child, the good woman never dreamed that she was communicating her faith and hopes, and awakening feelings never to sleep again. This she knew, as a matter of principle and dis- cretion, would not be right ; and, while she never said to Ellen, in so many words, " My heart is set on your marrying Fletcher, and I am sure his is, even more than mine," she did not suspect she was conveying this meaning in every look, word, and motion. And even now, when tKe pillars of her " castle in the air," were tumbling about her head, she had no apprehension that Ellen would be crushed by them. They were to meet now for the first time, with the most pain- ful feeling to loving and trusting friends, that SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 22"^ their hearts must be hidden with impenetrable screens ; but, such was the transparency of deai Mrs. Dunbar's heart, that, put what she would before it, the disguise melted away in the cleaj light, — to tell the truth, Ellen's was little better her safety was in the dim sight of the eye to bfe eluded. She washed away her tears, called up all the resolution she could muster, and repaired to Mrs. Dunbar's apartment, whom she hoped she might find by this time in bed, and get off with her " good-night kiss " ; but, instead of this, she was pacing up and down the room, not a pin removed. " Dear aunt, not in bed yet ? " "No, my dear child, — I did not feel like sleeping the first night, you know, of Fletcher's being here ; — it 's natural to have a good many wakeful thoughts of past times, and so forth." While saying this she had turned her back, and was busying herself at the bureau, the tone of her voice, and the frequent use of her handker- chief, conveying the state of her feelings as pre- cisely to Ellen, as her streaming eyes would, had she shown them. " Now you are at the bureau, aunt, please to take out your crimson shawl," said Ellen, luck- ily hitting on an external object to engage their 228 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST attention. Mrs. Dunbar fumbled at the drawers long enough to give herself time to clear her voice and dry her eyes, and then, throwing the shawl mto Ellen's lap, she said, " You are wel- come to that, and every thing else I have in the world, God knows, my dear child ; but I don't wish you to go to Mrs. Reeves's to-morrow eve- ning, — I don't think you will enjoy yourself." *• It 's no very rare thing, at a party, not to enjoy one's self, aunt. I shall certainly have the pleasure of obliging Fletcher." " That 's true, Ellen ; — but then it was not like him to ask you, when he saw it was so dis- agreeable to you. I don't see why he should set his heart upon this foolish Ivanhoeing." " But you see why he does., aunt." Ellen spoke with a smile, melancholy, in spite of her efforts. "Yes, I do, I do ! " cried Mrs. Dunbar, her tears gushing forth afresh ; " I see that Fletcher has the most unexpected, incomprehensible, unrea- sonable, unfortunate, strange, dreadful, wonderful, and amazing interest in Matilda Preston. I had never so much as thought of it, — it 's insanity, Ellen, — he is as blind as a beetle." " It IS a blindness, aunt, that is not like to be «ured by the presence of Matilda Preston." SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 229 " That 's just what I feel, Ellen. Men are always carried away with beauty. I thought Fletcher was an exception ; but he is not, or he •yould tell the gold from the glittering." " But, aunt, you do Matilda and Fletcher injus- tice. She has fine qualities ; and, if what you now expect should happen, you will look on Ma- tilda with very different eyes." " Never, Ellen, never in the world, — she will always seem to stand between me and — I mean, — I can't tell you^ Ellen, what I mean. But this I will say, come what will, no one can ever take your place to me, — you are the child of my heart, — you have grown up at my side, — I can never love another daughter ; — whomever you marry, Ellen, wherever you go, your home shall be my nome." " No, no, aunt," said Ellen, hiding her tearful face on the bosom of her faithful friend, " I shall never marry, — never ^ And before Mrs. Dun- bar could reply, she gave her good-night kiss and left the room. " Is it possible she could have understood me .^" exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar. After a little reflection she quieted her apprehensions with the thought that she had a hundred times before spoken just as plainly, and Ellen had not suspected what she -^30 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST meant. She was like the child, who, shutting his own eyes, fancies no one can see him. When Ellen left Mrs. Dunbar's room, she went mechanically down stairs to perform her last household duty, which was to see that the doors were secured. On the floor, at the street-door, she perceived a note ; and, on taking it up, saw it was addressed to a Miss Littell, Miss Preston's dress-maker, who lived opposite the Dunbars'. It had been accidentally dropped by Miss Pres- ton's careless servant. It was unsealed, and El- len, taking it for granted it related to something about the costume for the Reeves party, and that it might be important to have no delay in getting it into the hands of the artiste, rang the bell for the servant, intending to send it, though the hour was unseasonable. Diana, Mrs. Dunbar's crippled old cook, called out from the kitchen stairs to Miss Ellen, that " Daniel had just gone up to bed." Daniel, like his pagan mate, Diana, had lived out, and overstayed his lease of threescore and ten with kind Mrs. Dunbar ; and Ellen, hes- itating to call him down, ventured to open the note, to see if it were a matter of any impor- tance. It contained only the following three lines : " Pray, Miss Littell, if you have any dealings SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 231 With Mrs. D.'s family, do not mention that you Informed me of the arrival of her son. "M. P ." ' I thought so ! " exclaimed Ellen, involuntari- ly. " What is it, Ellen ? What did you think .? " asked Fletcher, who, unheard by her, had just come into the open door for something he had left behind. " Oh, nothing, — nothing at all," said she. He playfully attempted to wrest the note from her hand, till, seeing she anxiously retained it, he desisted, and she returned to her own apart- ment, where she breathed freely for the first time for many hours, and where she spent a long, sleepless night in expelling from her mind her shattered hopes, and forming her plans for the future. " Ought I not," she said, in her self-examina- tion, " to have obeyed the first impulse of my heart, and when Fletcher appealed to me, to have told him frankly my opinion of Matilda. After much meditation the response of her conscience was a full acquittal. She had done all that the circumstances of the case and her relations to the parties allowed, m withholding her ' God speed ' till Fletcher's ripened judgment should authorize his decision. She reflected, that Matilda's char* 232 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. acter had seemed to her to have the same radicai faults six years before, that it had now, and that in spite of them, Fletcher loved her then. Per- haps she judged those fauhs too strictly. Perhaps her judgment was tinged by her self-love ; foz she was conscious, that, in the points so offeii sive to her, she was constitutionally the oppositi of Matilda Preston. She looked again at Mati) da's discrepant notes of that evening, and charita bly allowed, that she had at first felt too much displeasure at what struck her as absolutely false, but what, after all, might be an innocent strata- gem to get up a dramatic scene, and perhaps to shelter emotions at a first meeting with Fletcher. "But oh, Matilda, why always a stratagem.'* Why never let the appearance answer to the reality } Why never trust yourself to simple truth } " Because Matilda was afraid, that truth would not serve her so well as she could manage for herself We have no doubt our friends, the Phrenologists, would, with a very fair intellec- tual developement, have found a great predom- inance of the organs of self-esteem, love of approbation, and cautiousness on Matilda's head. She had an intense love of admiration, not mere- ly of her personal charms, for her preeminent beauty was settled by universal suffrage, and sho SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 233 nad no anxiety about it; but she would be thought, m all the circle of her acquaintance, to bo the most capable of disinterested friendshij} and of self-sacrificing love ; her tastes were in favor of all the virtues, — she really wished to be amiable and excellent ; but the virtues have their price, and they will not abate one jot or tittle; — that price is self-abasement, self-forget- fulness, and generosity. " Hard it is to climb their steeps ; " and they can only be achieved by painful and persevering efforts. At the first real trial appearances vanish like vapor, — there is no cheating in the long run in the matter of goodness. With all Matilda's fine taste, with her suscep- tibility to opinion, and her eager desire of praise, she was no favorite. Her intense selfishness would penetrate all disguises, — her conscio as- ness of herself was always apparent, — there was never a spontaneous action, word, or look. In all this she was the very opposite of Ellen, who, most strictly watchful of the inner world, let the outer take care of itself. This gave a freedom and simplicity to her manners, and a straightforwardness to all her dealings, that inspir- ed confidence. Matilda, in the midst of her most brilliant career, had, whenever silent, an expres- 234 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. sion of care and dissatisfaction, — a rigidity and contraction of the upper lip, (often criticized as the only imperfection of her beauty,) that be- trayed the puerile anxieties in which she was in- volved, the web she was perpetually weaving or ravelling. There is no such tell-tale as tho hu man countenance, or rather, we should say (with more reverence) God has set his seal of truth upon it, and no artifice has ever yet obscured the Divine impression. Ellen Fitzhugh's lovely face was the mirror of truth, cheerfulness, and affec- tion. " There is no use," thought Ellen, as she pur- sued the meditations in which we left her, " in trying to conceal my feelings, — I cannot, — I never did in my life, — I must just set to work and overcome them. Dear Mrs. Dunbar, all those sweet fancies that you and I have been so busily weaving, the last six years, must be sacri- ficed at once and for ever ; and I must just learn to think of Fletcher, as I did when a little girl, — as a dear, kind brother ; — that should be, — it shall be, enough." This resolution was made with many showers of tears, and sanctified with many prayers, ejaculated from the depths of her heart ; and, once made, she set about, with most characteristic promptness, contriving the means ^or carrying it into execution. SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 235 "In the first place," thought she, "I must have something extraordinary to occupy me, or I shall be constantly, and oh how painfully, watching Fletcher^s every look and action ; m spite of myself, I shall be hoping and fearing. This must not be, for I know how it must all end ! It oc- curred to her, that it was nearly as important to divert Mrs. Dunbar's attention as her own, and a lucky thought came into her head. Mrs. Dun- bar's physician had been urging her, for some weeks, to have a little wen removed, that was growing in a dangerous neighbourhood to her eye. Mrs. Dunbar was timid and procrastinat- ing ; but, with Fletcher's aid, Ellen felt sure of persuading her this was the very best time for the operation. Then she determined at once to put in execution a project she had conceived, of teaching a poor, young blind girl, a pensioner of Mrs. Dunbar's, music. Ellen was an accom- plished musician ; and she certainly was not over sanguine in believing, that the prospect of qual- ifying a drooping, dependent creature to earn an independent existence, would make sunshine for some hours of every day. With these, and other similar plans in her head, which were necessarily deferred till after the Reeves ball, Ellen appeared the next morn- 236 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. ing with a light and strong heart, and a corre< spondent face, voice, and manner. Oh, if rightly put to the test, what unthought of powers there are in those who every day yield themselves the passive victims to uncontrollable circumstances ; " powers That touch each other to the quick, in modes Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive, No soul to dream of." Ellen talked over with Fletcher, with real interest and unaffected cheerfulness, the arrangem-ents for the evening. If she had put into action all of Talleyrand's diplomacy, she could not so thor- oughly have convinced him, that his surmise of the preceding evening was unwarranted. Half of Mrs. Dunbar's griefs were removed by the conviction, that her favorite did not share them ! We could fill a volume with the details of the ball, and the circumstances of the following six weeks, and all the developements of charac- ter and feeling which came from them ; but we must cut down our history to the dimensions of its Procrustes' bed. We must say for our favorite Ellen, that, bating a few inches of stature, she did honor to the character she so reluctantly as- sumed. Her usually sparkling eyes were languid from the sleeplessness of the preceding night, and SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 237 her color, which, in heated rooms, was apt to be uncomfortably high, was abated and fluctuating, and her dress, so happily arranged and judicious ly modified, that the .Saxon beauty, for once, fairly divided the suffrages with the brilliant Re- becca. But with the mere externals ended all resemblance to the truth of the characters. The Palmer, the Christian devotee, had nor eye, nor ear, but for the proscribed Jewess ; and Rebec- ca was all delight at finding, beneath the broad brim of cockle-shells, and the Slavonian, the contour and air of a very elegant young man, who, she felt assured, had returned no less her ardent lover than the boy she had parted with six years before. She managed her prepared surprise so awkwardly, that Ellen wondered at Fletcher's blindness. He was indeed blind ! As to poor Garston, he was so enchanted with him- self in the Templar's costume, that he never once dreamed how near he was to a more por- tentous overthrow than that of his prototype on the field of Ashby de la Zouch. We must pass over the next six weeks with merely saying, that Ellen executed her plans, — that Mrs. Dunbar found, in the complete success of a dreaded operation, a very considerable coun* leraction to what she still maintained was by far 238 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. the greatest grief of her life. But it was plaiii that even in no selfish grief could her benevolent feelings be merged. She was exceedingly ex- cited with Ellen's marvellous success with her musical pupil, and she had the most eager pleas- ure, every day, in the result of a subscription Ellen had set on foot for the yet unpublished book of a poor author, or, rather, a very poor man, and good author. We must confess, that Ellen had her hours of conflict, agitation, and despondency, when life was a burden ; but even then, though the eclipse seemed total to her, she saw light beyond the shadow. Is there ever total darkness to the good ? Fletcher made her his confidante. This was a pretty severe trial ; but she tried to feel, and did feel, in some measure, the sympathy he expect- ed ; and she was prepared by degrees for the final communication, that he and Matilda had plighted faith. In spite of her resolutions and efforts she turned excessively pale, and tried in vain to command her voice to speak ; but this did not surprise Fletcher. All deep emotions are Berlous. He had never himself been more so than at this moment of the attainment of the dearest, the long-cherished wish of his heart. One hour before he had felt a pang that he in vain tried to SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 23D forget, when, while their mutual vows were stiP warm oji their lips, Matilda had left him in haste lest she should not be the first at the opening of a newly-arrived case of French millinery ! He painfully contrasted this with Ellen's emotion, — with his own ; and a thought arose through the mists of his mind, repressed as soon as perceived, that there were more points of sympathy be- tween him and Ellen Fitzhugh, than he had found with Matilda. As to poor Mrs. Dunbar, whom Ellen trusted she had quite prepared for the crisis, she took to her bed, upon the first intimation of it, with a head-ache that lasted, unintermitted, as never had head-ache, or heart-ache^ with her before, for three days. In vain Matilda came to ask her blessing. Mrs. Dunbar was unaffectedly too ill to receive her. " With God's help and time," said the good lady to Ellen, " I will do my duty to Fletch- er's wife ; but as to seeing Matilda Preston now, that 's quite impossible, — and as to ever loving her as a child, as I do you, my own dear Ellen, that 's not to be looked for. — ' The wind bloweth where it listeth.' " Mrs. Dunbar was no philos- opher , — her instincts alone had led her to the discovery of the great truth, that our volitions have no power over our affections. Ellen, now that all was decided, kept her eyes 24 SF.COND THOUGHTS BEST. resolutely on the bright side. " I am very sorry aunt," she said, " you did not feel equal to see ing Matilda this morning; I have seen her more brilliant, but never one half so interesting. Love has given an exaltation to all her feelfngs, — has breathed 9 soul into her face. There was a gentleness and a deference in her manners to Fletcher, that is quite new to her. She feels his superiority, and it may work wonders on her character." "Do you think so, Ellen? — well, — for Fletch- er's sake, — God bless him ! — I '11 hope for the best. I am not an observing person, Ellen ; but I have often remarked, that love, like showers from Heaven, is reviving to the thinnest soil, and every thing is fresh, and sweet, and beautiful for a little while ; but the flowers soon fade, — the grass withers, — nature will take a natural course." " But, aunt," replied Ellen, with a smile, " may not grace subdue nature ? " No, my dear, no ; it may help nature on in its own way, but not change it. I am sure I have tried my best for the last six weeks to put down nature ; but it is too strong for me, Ellen." Mrs. Dunbar wiped away a flood of tears, and then went on. " Ellen, I have been thinking this was a good time, while we are all SECOND THOUGHTS BEST 241 SO wretched, — I mean, while I am, — to speak to Fletcher about looking over that private desk of his father's. Will you take it to him, dear ? You know I have never looked into it. Before strangers come into the family, it is best to have papers that concern no one but us, disposed of. You need not say that to Fletcher ; but I can trust you, dearest child, to say nothing to him that appears unfriendly to Matilda; — just giv§ him the desk and key." Ellen did so ; and, at the first leisure moment, Fletcher sat down to its examination. He found nothing of particular interest tili he came to a file of letters, marked, " Correspondence with Selden Fitzhugh." Before transcribing the only two letters of interest to the reader, it is neces- sary to premise, that the elder Dunbar and Fitz- hugh had been intimate from their childhood, and that, after their marriage, the closest friendship united their families. A letter from Fletcher's father to his friend, which seemed to have been written soon after his failure, ran thus : " Dear Fitzhugh, " My ruin is total. The labors, the enterprises, the successes of twenty years, are wrecked, — nothing remains. I am the victim, in part, of the 16 % 242 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. folly of Others, in part, I confess it with shamt of my own grasping. I had competence, I de sired riches, and thus it has ended. But the woi-st is to come, my dear friend. I have made shipwreck of your little fortune, as well as of my own hopes. I have been obliged to give up all my property to satisfy my indorsers, accord- ing to the received notion, that debts to them are ♦debts of honor, and I have not wherewith to pay a penny of the thirty thousand dollars you trusted to me without bond, mortgage, or security of any sort. This is the requital of your generous, but too rash friendship ! " Fitzhugh, I am a heart-broken man. My hope and energy are gone. If it were not so, I might promise you a day of restitution, — ] should expect it myself; but all before me is dark and dreary. Even now I feel as if a fever were drying up the fountains of life. Forgive me, — pity me, my dear friend ; I curse my own folly. You will not curse me, but, believe me, 1 ■ would coin my heart's blood to make you res- titution. "Your miserable friend, "F. Dunbar.' The following answer to Mr. Dunbar's letter SECOND THOUGHTS BEST 243 was dated at Mr. Fitzhugh's country residence, and written a week later than his. " Dear Dunbar, ** I am truly sorry for your misfortunes ; but. my dear fellow, take heart of grace. If you have made a total shipwreck, as you say, why so has many a good fellow before you. The storm will pass, — you can fit out again ; only don't carry quite so much sail, and take out a clearance for some other port than El Dorado. As to my money, believe me, on my honor, after the first surprise and shock were over, the loss has not given me a moment's uneasiness. I would not have put the money at risk for myself, or you, if I had not secured an adequate provision for my good wife, and eight dear little girls, and El- len into the bargain, if ever she comes home to us. Our wants are moderate, and our supplies sufficient ; and, believe me, a few thousand dol- lars to be added to the inheritance of each of my girls would not make one of our bright hours brighter. They will never hear of the loss, for 1 have taken care they should not count upon money that I had subjected to the chances of mercantile life. I have been thus particular to tranquillize you, my dear friend. If finally you 24 4 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. retrieve your circumstances, you will pay the debt, and all will be well ; — and, if you nevei pay it, — why it will be just as well. *' Ever faithfully yours, " Selden Fitzhugh." " God bless and reward you, noble, dear friend," was an indorsement on the back of this letter, dated two days before Mr. Dunbar's death, and writte^n by himself, evidently with a weak and tremulous hand. Fletcher had read and re-read the letters, and had sat for an half hour meditating on their con- tents, when Matilda, who had called, on an ap- pointment with Ellen, opened the door, and, seeing him deep in occupation, was retreating, when he said, " Pray come in, Matilda, you are the person I most wished to see." " That, I trust, is not very singular ! But what is the matter, Fletcher } Are you making your will .? " " I am thinking over the disposition of my worldly effects," he replied, with a very faint smile. " Will you read these letters, Matilda } " " Yes ; but, for Heaven's sake, don't look so solemn ; I should think they were from the dead .0 the livinsf." SECOND THOUGHTS BEST 245 "They are, — read them, and tell me what you think of them." Matilda read his father's, while Fletche: pe- rused her counteno'nce with a far deeper interest than she evinced. " I see nothing very partic- ular in this," she said. " Your poor father seems to have taken his failure sadly to heart. I never heard before that Mr. Fitzhugh lost by him. But the Fitzhughs are very well off for the country, and I suppose it did not matter much. Ellen was probably adopted by your mother as an off- set." " No ; my mother never knew any thing of the Dusiness." "No! Oh, I forgot, — Ellen has lived here all her life. But why are you so sad, dear Fletcher, — there is no use in fretting over past troubles ? " " You have read but one of the letters, Matil- da," said Fletcher, coldly, without noticing hei last reply ! " So I see ; but I was thinking so much more of you than of the letters ! " She read Mr. Fitz- hugh's. Fletcher's eye v.as riveted to her face ; there was no change of color, no moistening of the eye, the return messages of a kindred spirit to a £!^encro'is action. " How well he too^ it!" 246 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. she said in her ordinary tone of voice. " I have often heard your mother say, that Ellen was just like her father, making the best of every thing, — ' from evil still educing good.' " Matilda saw thaf Fletcher expected something more from hei ; but what, exactly, she could not divine. " Mr. Fitz- hugh's letter must have been a balm to your fa- ther's wounded spirit, just at that sad time,'* she added, and paused again. A servant entered and filled the awkward interval with some good reason why Miss Ellen could not keep her appointment. " I am not sorry," said Matilda, when the door closed, " for now, dear Fletcher, you will go with me." " No, Matilda, I cannot." " But you will," she urged, laying her hand persuasively on his shoulder, and with a look that would have seemed to defy denial. " Come, come away, Fletcher, from these musty papers, — you will be devoured with blue devils ; come, 1 must go, and I will not go without you." "You must excuse me." " You are unkind, Fletcher," said Matilda, and her starting tears showed that she could ft el keen- ly. Her pride would not brook any further en- treaty, and she abruptly left the room, not doubt- ng, however, that she should be intercepted, oi SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 247 immediately followed by her penitent lover: But she reached her own home unmolested, ard re- tired to her own apartment, hurt and offended, and resolved, when Fletcher should come to his senses, to be unrelenting. There was ring after ring at the street-door, and visiter after visiter was announced ; but the only one she cared for came not, and to every one else she was denied. At last the servant brought a note from Fletcher. " There must be something more than one note," thought Matilda, as she broke it open. The cur- rent of her feelings was somewhat changed as she read what follows : " My dearest Matilda, " Forgive me, I pray you. I have seemed un- reasonable and sullen to you, and I have done you in my heart more wrong than I have ex- pressed. That heart is wholly yours, and no feeling it harbours shall ever be hidden from you The truth was, that I expected the letters woula have called forth more feeling than they did. 1 ought to have reflected (and I have since), that our feelings depend much on our humors, — that your minJ was preoccupied, — and that, having no particular Interest in the parties, you could not participate the strong and painful^sympathy 24 8 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. ihat then thrilled every nerve in my frame. 1 was wrong, and again, on my knees, I beg you to forgive me.! I have bound myself to tell the whole truth ; and I must confess, that I expected still more, — tliat I expected you would anticipate the conclusions which of course were instinctive with me ; but I should have remembered, my dear Matilda, that women, having no business habits or notions, the duty devolving on me at this mo- ment would not have occurred to you. That duty plainly is, to pay my father's debt to the Fitz- hughs. There is no legal obligation, but a moral obligation, and an added debt of gratitude, that no human law could make more binding, or could invalidate. If I had a family dependent on me, there might be a question ; but, situated as I am, there can be none. The debt, with its accumu- lation of interest, will swallow up nine tenths of the property I have acquired ; but, with the rem- nant, with rare experience for three and twenty^ with business talents, and a fair reputation, I shall soon go forward again. That event, which IS to be the crowning joy of my life, must be deferred for two years. This is no small trial of my philosophy, — of my religion (for I will use the right word) ; but, with this bright reward ever in view, %o labors, no difficulties will daunt my SECOND THOUGHTS REST. 24i spirit. Dearest, dearest Matilda, forgive me for having for a moment doubted you. It was the first time. I believe, as I believe in all truth, it will be the last." The following brief note, in pencil, was re- turned by the servant : " Come to me at nine, this evening. I shall be alone and disengaged then, and not till then. In the mean time, make no disclosures of your intentions to your mother, to Ellen, or to any one." The interval was one of reposeful confidence to Fletcher, and of that celestial joy that springs •from an ability, and an immovable resolution, to perform a right action at a great personal sac- rifice. We claim for him no great merit in yielding the money. Any right-minded young man, full of health and hope, and conscious ca- pacity, might have done this without a pang ; but Fletcher was a passionate lover, and he had to encounter the miserable uncertainties of a hope deferred. Let us see how the interval was passed by Matilda. Af\er much agitating self-deliberatjoo 250 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. she called her mother to her counsel. Mrs. Pre* ton was the prototype of her daughter, save that what was but in the gristle with the daughter, had hardened into bone with the mother, and save that Matilda, from having had an education very- much superior to Mrs. Preston's, had certain standards and theories of virtue in her mind's eye, that had never entered the mother's field of vision. Matilda, too, from having been all her short life in fashionable society, did not estimate it at so high a rate as her mother, who had paid for every inch of ground she had gained there. Matilda related her last interview with Fletch- er, and showed his note. " Do you believe," said Mrs. Preston, after reading it, " tha.t Fletcher Dunbar will be so absurd as to adhere to this plan .? " " I am sure he will. He is perfectly inflexible when he makes up his mind to what he thinks a duty, however ridiculous it may appear to others." " Of course, my dear, you are absolved from your engagement." " If I choose to be." " If you choose ! My dear Matilda, you know how much it was against my wishes that you elwDuld form this engagement, — that you should SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 25i give up the most brilliant match in thd city for what, at the very best, would be merely a genteel establishment. But the idea of your going into the sViade at once, giving up every thing, and jvmg, perhaps, at lodgings, or setting up house- Keeping with two servants that you must look after all day, and spend your evenings making your husband's shirts, by a single astral lamp, ride in an omnibus (you might ride in that splen- did carriage), and treat yourself, perhaps, to one silk gown a year, — and all for what .? To humor the notions of a young man, who is in no respect superior to Garston, except that he is rather taller, and has a straighter nose, and darker, larg- er eyes, not much larger either ! " Mrs. Preston had struck a wrong note. Ma- tilda shrunk back from the path her mother was opening, as the images of her two lovers passed before her. " Oh, mamma," she exclaimed, " there is a horrid difference between them ; and if I only could persuade Fletcher to abandon this no- tion " — " Well, my dear, in my opinion, if he loves you, he will ; — if he does not, why then you loae nothing and gain every thing. Luckily your engagement is a secret, as yet, and you have 262 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. taken no irretrievable step. Garston was here this morning, — a look could bring him back to you." " But, mamma, to give up what I have been so long dreaming of? " " Yes, and what every young girl dreams of, and wakes up betimes to pretty dull realities. How should you like, for instance, to wash the breakfast things, and stir up a pudding, — to wash and dress your chil- dren, and make a bowl of gruel for your dear mamma-in-law ? " " Oh detestable ! " Matilda pondered for a few moments, and then said, " I really think, if Fletcher loves me, he will sacrifice his feelings to me. I am sure he owes it to me, after the sacrifice I made to him ; — I have certainly prov- ed myself disinterested, but I do not like to be treated as if I could be set aside, and wait for the working of any fancy that comes up. I will tell him so, — I am resolved. He must take the responsibility of deciding it." The evening came, and, when the clock struck nine, Fletcher entered Miss Preston's drawing- room, his fine countenance beaming with the serenity and trustfulness of his heart ; but Matil- da's first look sent a thrill through it, that was like the snapping of the chords of a musical in- strument at the moment it is felt to be in perfect SECOND THOUGHTS BEST- 253 nme. She advanced towards him, and gave him her hand as usual, and she smiled ; but it was a mere muscular movement, the expression was any thing but a smile. Her beautiful face had all the rigidity that a fixed and painful purpose couW give to it ; but it was a purpose that depended on a contingent, and to that contingent the smile and the responding pressure of her hand were addressed. Her eyes were red and swollen, and, for the first time, her dress was not elaborately arranged. She spoke first, " You do not love me, Fletch- er ! " " Not love you, Matilda ! God only knows how tenderly I love you." " No, Fletcher, you do not love me, — the truth has broken upon me with irresistible proof." " What do you mean, Matilda > What have you heard ? Surely it is not — it cannot be " " It is, Fletcher. Your note has nullified our engagement. I have judged you by my own heart. I have questioned, examined that, and I am sure that no fancied duty, — no absolute duty could have forced me, — much less persuaded me at its first intimation, to expose the happiness thai tvas just within our grasp to the hazards of time." Fletcher poured out protestations and prayers. 254 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. and concluded with assuring Matilda, that, '^ if she would share with him, at the present n\.oment, his abated fortune, if she would at once risk the uncertainties that he nnust encounter, he should •Jl^ be a happier and prouder man than all the wealth in the world could make him." Matilda burst into tears. " It is not right, — it is not generous," she said, " to put what you consider a test to me. It is none. You must acquit me of any grovelling care for money. You have but to look six weeks backward to remem- ber, that the first fortune in the city was waiting my acceptance, an'S fashion, 'and brilliant family connexions. I sacrificed all, without a shadow of regret, to you, and now I am thought very lightly of in comparison with a fancied duty." " A fancied duty ? Good Heaven ! " " A real duty, then ; but so questionable, that nine men out of ten would pronounce it no duty at all. It is not the money. I care as little for that as you can ; but it is the terrible truth you have forced on me, — you do not love me." " Matilda, you wrong yourself, — you wrong me." " Prove it to me, then, Fletcher. Let our rela- tions be what they were yesterday, — burn those letters, and forget them." SECOND THOUGHTS BEST *d*>^ *^ Never ! " cried Fletcher, indignantly, " so help me God, — never." " Then the tie that bound us is sundered, — our engagement is dissolved." '' Amen ! " said Fletcher, and he rushed front the house, — his mind confused and maddened with broken hopes, disappointed affection, and dissolving delusions. There is one painful but sure cure for love. The slow-coming, resisted, but irresistible con- viction of the unworthiness of the person be- loved. A little more than two years had passed away, when one bright morning, at the hour of ceremo- nious visiting, a superb carriage, looking more like a ducal equipage than one befitting a weal- thy citizen of a republic, drew up at Mrs. Dun- bar's door. The gilded harness was emblazoned with heraldic devices, and a coat of arms was embroidered in gold on the hammer-cloth, and pamted on the pannels. The coachman and footman, in fresh and tasteful liveries, were in the dickey, and the proprietor of the equipage (in appearance a very inferior part of it) was seated on the box with a friend. Within the 56 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. coach was a lady, magnificently dressed in the latest fashion. She seemed " A perfect woman, nobly planned To warn, to comfort, and command ;" out she had thwarted the plan, — she had extin- guished the " angel light," — she had herself closed the gates of Paradise, and voluntarily cir- cumscribed her vision to this world. She had foregone the higher element for which she was destined ; but the wings she had folded for ever betrayed by their fluttering her disquietude with the way she had chosen. The face that, turned heavenward, would have reflected Heaven, was fixed earthward, and the dark spirits of Discon- tent and Disappointment brooded over it. There is a baser traffic going on in this world of ours, than that which the poet has immortal- ized in his history of Faust, carried on under the forms of law, and with the holy seal and super- scription of marriage. The lady alighted from the coach and was on the door-step, awaiting her husband. He did not move. The footman had rung the bell, and Mrs. Dunbar's servant stood awaiting the entree. " Are you not going in with me, Ned } " she asked. " Not I, — I hate bridal visits." SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. 257 * Oh, come with me, I entreat you," she said, earnestly. " It 's a bore ! I can't. Bob and I will drive round the square, and take you up as we return.*' The lady looked vexed and embarrassed ; but there seemed no alternative. " Is there much company in the drawmg-room, Danici ? " she asked. " None, ma'am. Miss Ellen, that is, Mrs. Dun- bar, the bride, — Miss Ellen that was, — don't see company in a regular way, as it were." " No ? I heard she did. I '11 leave my card now." While she was taking it from her card-case the door opened, and Fletcher Dunbar, with a man- ner the most frank and unembarrassed, advanced, and offered her his hand. " Pray, Mrs. Garston," he said " do not turn us off with a card ; we are at home, and, like all happy people, most happy to hear congratulations." Matilda Garston had not been under Mrs. Dun- bar's roof since the memorable morning, when she found Fletcher at his father's desk. How changed was life now to all parties ! Fletcher had awakened from the dream of boyhood to a reality of trustful love, to which his " ripened judgment" had set its seal. 17 258 SECOND THOUGHTS BEST. Ellen, who had resigned her hope of reigning in Fl-etcher's heart, was novv its elected and en- throned queen. She looked like the embodied spirit of home, and domestic love and happiness The two young women contrasted like the types of the spiritual and material world. Our good friend, Mrs. Dunbar, was at the acme of felicity. It would have been in vain for her to try to repress the overflowing of her heart, and try she did not. It sparkled and ran over like a brimming glass of champagne. " I am truly glad to see you here again, Matil- da, — Mrs. Garston, I mean," she said ; " I really am, my dear. And now we have met, old friends together, I will tell you, that I never had one hard thought, no, not one, at your breaking off with Fletcher. It was providential all round. Fine pictures should have fine frames ; — you, my dear, just fit the one you are set in, and our little Ellen was made to be worn, like a miniature, close to the heart. I used to be a believer in first love, now I think ' second tlioughts lest," ' THE FAIRIES' DANCE The moon is full, the stars are bright, The monks are all asleep; Now gayly come the Fays to-night, Their revelry to keep. They love the abbeys old and gray, Whence the vesper song is heard, And the matin hymn at break of day Awakes the singing bird. With waving torch, and tiny shout. The nimble foot they ply, And Fairy laughs are ringing out Beneath the midnight sky ; — Then mortals hear the merry peals. And wonder at the sound, So like the chiming of harebells, When light winds steal around. A joyous race the Fairies are, In gossamer bedight. With diamonds twined among their hair, And gleaming in the light. They sport themselves beneath the sea, Where the stormy wind comes not, — Where phosphor gleams from the coral tree To light up the crystal grot. iJbU THE FAlillKS DANCE. In bowers of odorous amber made, The sea-sprites love to dwell, — The floor with mother-of-pearl inlaid, And gleams of the bright, pink shell. There the sea-fan waves above their head, With many a gorgeous gem, And the glorious things 'neath the ocean spread Are known to only them In the mountain cave, where diamonds burn, The Fairies' home is made ; They bathe themselves in the flow'ret's urn, In the still, lone forest shade ; Wherever her spell hath Beauty wove. The Fairy is sure to be, — In the silent cave, in the palmy grove, Or the deep, blue, boundless sea. But most they love, in the starry night, From ocean and air to hie. And sport themselves in the soft moonlight, 'Neath the still, still midnight sky. And then do they love the hallowed ground, Whence prayer was wont to rise, — For a holier spell is breathed around, In the blessed evening skies. They prop the walls with pious care. When touched by the hand of time And bid round the altar, worn and bare, The clinging ivy climb; THE FAIUIES' DANCE. 261 And thus, though ages should pass away, It stands in its ivy veil, And Fairies under its arches play, la the moonlight clear and pale THE PORTRAIT BY H. F. GOULD. Well, thou art done, cold, silent thing j Unconscious, — breathless, — yet with powet A flood of feelings deep to bring, Unknown until the present hour And wherefore done to life so true ? Not human pride nor vanity Could cause the aitist hand to do And show the world a deed like thee! And was it simple, most, or kind. To have upon the canvass cast My semblance ; thus to leave behind My shadow, when myself am past ? 1 view thee as a piece composed To last when I am gone from sight, — When time and earth to me are closed, To be in time and earthly light I know not if another eye Will ever weep beside thee more Than mine does now, I know not why,^ It never dropped such tears before. TUE FORTRAIT 263 'T is this, perhaps, that makes rae weep,— The thought that I may pass away, And those who have thee then to keep Will glance at thee, and still be gay But why should grief be lelt by me, For fear that otliers will not grieve ? And what to others, then, will be A shade of life that I may leave ^ But, still resistless from their spring, Gush up these hot, mysterious tears. Whilst tliou, cold, stoic, heartless thing, Dost wear a smile that 's set for years ' Years ! Ah ! but then, when years shall wipe From bein^ every line of thee, The spirit, which thy prototype Enshrined, shall live eternally GUESS MY NAME! Go, gather from the laughing wave, Where ripples bright o'er sea-shells shine ; The sweetest tone thine ear can crave,— A sweeter voice than this is mine. Go, listen to the dancing leaves, When summer's wooing winds are nigfh; My breath, a softer music, wea^veg Around the heart its magic sigh. In every land where young hearts feel. Love holds my service very dear, — And many a bond I 'm called to seaJ, No witness, but the parties, near. Both dear and cheap, at once am I,— A thing that love will give away, And shining gold can hardly buy. Oh, need I now my name display f M63591 ANv\ fi4 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY '■'"'^*t^.' i I. '